Internal hydrocephalus combined with pachygyria in a wild-born brown bear cub

An abandoned wild-born male brown bear (Ursus arctos) cub of the year was found and subsequently placed in a zoo. At 7 months of age, the cub showed first signs of ataxia, and at 13 months of age, it was unable to move the hind legs and exhibited outbursts of aggressive behavior and self-mutilation. The animal was euthanized, and necropsy revealed alterations of the brain with obviously flattened gyri, profound enlargement of both lateral ventricles and considerable accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid, disruption of the septum pellucidum, and atrophy of the hippocampus. The animal was diagnosed with an internal hydrocephalus and pachygyria. Genetic evidence showed that the father of the described cub was also the father of the cub’s mother, suggesting the possibility of congenital hydrocephalus

Internal hydrocephalus combined with pachygyria in a wild-born brown bear cub

An abandoned wild-born male brown bear (Ursus arctos) cub of the year was found and subsequently placed in a zoo. At 7 months of age, the cub showed first signs of ataxia, and at 13 months of age, it was unable to move the hind legs and exhibited outbursts of aggressive behavior and self-mutilation. The animal was euthanized, and necropsy revealed alterations of the brain with obviously flattened gyri, profound enlargement of both lateral ventricles and considerable accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid, disruption of the septum pellucidum, and atrophy of the hippocampus. The animal was diagnosed with an internal hydrocephalus and pachygyria. Genetic evidence showed that the father of the described cub was also the father of the cub’s mother, suggesting the possibility of congenital hydrocephalus

3D-Printed Bioreactor with Integrated Impedance Spectroscopy for Cell Barrier Monitoring

Cell culture experiments often suffer from limited commercial availability of laboratory-scale bioreactors, which allow experiments to be conducted under flow conditions and additional online monitoring techniques. A novel 3D-printed bioreactor with a homogeneously distributed flow field enabling epithelial cell culture experiments and online barrier monitoring by integrated electrodes through electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is presented. Transparent and conductive indium tin oxide glass as current-injecting electrodes allows direct visualization of the cells, while measuring EIS simultaneously. The bioreactor's design considers the importance of a homogeneous electric field by placing the voltage pick-up electrodes in the electrical field. The device's functionality is demonstrated by the cultivation of the epithelial cell line Caco-2 under continuous flow and monitoring of the cell layer by online EIS. The collected EIS data were fitted by an equivalent electric circuit, resulting in the cell layer's resistance and capacitance. This data is used to monitor the cell layer's reaction to ethylene glycol-bis-(2-aminoethyl ether)-N,N,N′,N′-tetraacetic acid and forskolin. These two model substances show the power of impedance spectroscopy as a non-invasive way to characterize cell barriers. In addition, the bioreactor design is available as a print-ready file in the Appendix, enabling its use for other scientific institutions

Transboundary Monitoring of the Wolf Alpine Population over 21 Years and Seven Countries

Wolves have large spatial requirements and their expansion in Europe is occurring over national boundaries, hence the need to develop monitoring programs at the population level. Wolves in the Alps are defined as a functional population and management unit. The range of this wolf Alpine population now covers seven countries: Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Liechtenstein and Germany, making the development of a joint and coordinated monitoring program particularly challenging. In the framework of the Wolf Alpine Group (WAG), researchers developed uniform criteria for the assessment and interpretation of field data collected in the frame of different national monitoring programs. This standardization allowed for data comparability across borders and the joint evaluation of distribution and consistency at the population level. We documented the increase in the number of wolf reproductive units (packs and pairs) over 21 years, from 1 in 1993–1994 up to 243 units in 2020–2021, and examined the pattern of expansion over the Alps. This long-term and large-scale approach is a successful example of transboundary monitoring of a large carnivore population that, despite administrative fragmentation, provides robust indexes of population size and distribution that are of relevance for wolf conservation and management at the transnational Alpine scale

The German research consortium for the study of bipolar disorder (BipoLife): a magnetic resonance imaging study protocol

Bipolar disorder is one of the most severe mental disorders. Its chronic course is associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality, a high risk of suicide and poor social and occupational outcomes. Despite the great advances over the last decades in understanding mental disorders, the mechanisms underlying bipolar disorder at the neural network level still remain elusive. This has severe consequences for clinical practice, for instance by inadequate diagnoses or delayed treatments. The German research consortium BipoLife aims to shed light on the mechanisms underlying bipolar disorders. It was established in 2015 and incorporates ten university hospitals across Germany. Its research projects focus in particular on individuals at high risk of bipolar disorder, young patients in the early stages of the disease and patients with an unstable highly relapsing course and/or with acute suicidal ideation. Functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data was acquired across nine sites within three different studies. Obtaining neuroimaging data in a multicenter setting requires among others the harmonization of the acquisition protocol, the standardization of paradigms and the implementation of regular quality control procedures. The present article outlines the MRI imaging protocols, the acquisition parameters, the imaging paradigms, the neuroimaging quality assessment procedures and the number of recruited subjects. The careful implementation of a MRI study protocol as well as the adherence to well-defined quality assessment procedures is one key benchmark in the evaluation of the overall quality of large-scale multicenter imaging studies. This article contributes to the BipoLife project by outlining the rationale and the design of the MRI study protocol. It helps to set the necessary standards for follow-up analyses and provides the technical details for an in-depth understanding of follow-up publications