Neoadjuvant Lu-PSMA-I&T Radionuclide Treatment in Patients with High-risk Prostate Cancer Before Radical Prostatectomy: A Single-arm Phase 1 Trial.

Background: High-risk localized prostate cancer (HRLPC) has a substantial risk of disease progression despite local treatment. Neoadjuvant systemic therapy before definitive local therapy may improve oncological outcomes by targeting the primary tumor and micrometastatic disease.

Objective: To evaluate whether a lutetium-177 prostate-specific membrane antigen radioligand (LuPSMA) can be safely administered to patients with HRLPC before robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) and to describe immediate oncological outcomes.

Axillary Lymph Nodes Hypermetabolism After BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination in Cancer Patients Undergoing 18F-FDG PET/CT: A Cohort Study.

Purpose: Recognition of the pattern of FDG uptake in hypermetabolic axillary lymph nodes (HALs) and association with recent messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccination are important to prevent patient anxiety and further needless examinations or costly biopsies in cancer patients.

Materials And Methods: This study was a retrospective cohort study in a single tertiary care institution. We investigate the occurrence and pattern of HAL on FDG PET/CT scans from 650 consecutive cancer patients with recent BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.

CIM6P/IGF-2 Receptor Ligands Reverse Deficits in Angelman Syndrome Model Mice.

Angelman syndrome (AS), a genetic disorder that primarily affects the nervous system, is characterized by delayed development, intellectual disability, severe speech impairment, and problems with movement and balance (ataxia). Most affected children also have recurrent seizures (epilepsy). No existing therapies are capable of comprehensively treating the deficits in AS; hence, there is an urgent need to identify new treatments.

Autophagy coupled to translation is required for long-term memory.

An increase in protein synthesis following learning is a fundamental and evolutionarily conserved mechanism of long-term memory. To maintain homeostasis, this protein synthesis must be counterbalanced by mechanisms such as protein degradation. Recent studies reported that macroautophagy/autophagy, a major protein degradation mechanism, is required for long-term memory formation.

Intracerebellar cannabinoid administration impairs delay but not trace eyeblink conditioning.

Intracerebellar administration of cannabinoid agonists impairs cerebellum-dependent delay eyeblink conditioning (EBC) in rats. It is not known whether the cannabinoid-induced impairment in EBC is found with shorter interstimulus intervals (ISI), longer ISIs, or with trace EBC. Moreover, systemic administration of cannabinoid agonists does not impair trace EBC, suggesting that cannabinoid receptors within the cerebellum are not involved in trace EBC.

The role of exposure to pesticides in the etiology of Parkinson's disease: a F-DOPA positron emission tomography study.

Susceptibility to Parkinson's disease (PD) is believed to involve an interaction between genetic and environmental factors. The role of pesticides as a risk factor of PD and neurodegeneration remains controversial. An asymmetric decrease in ligand uptake on F-DOPA positron emission tomography (PET), especially in the dorsal putamen, is a sensitive marker of PD.

Cannabinoid agonist administration within the cerebellar cortex impairs motor learning.

Systemic administration of cannabinoid agonists impairs cerebellum-dependent motor learning. The cannabinoid-induced impairment of motor learning has been hypothesized to be due to disruption of Purkinje cell plasticity within the cerebellar cortex. In the current study, we tested this hypothesis in rats with localized microinfusions of cannabinoid agonists and antagonists into the cerebellar cortex during eyeblink conditioning, a type of cerebellum-dependent motor learning.

Mechanisms of critical period in the hippocampus underlie object location learning and memory in infant rats.

Episodic memories in early childhood are rapidly forgotten, a phenomenon that is associated with "infantile amnesia," the inability of adults to remember early-life experiences. We recently showed that early aversive contextual memory in infant rats, which is in fact rapidly forgotten, is actually not lost, as reminders presented later in life reinstate a long-lasting and context-specific memory. We also showed that the formation of this infantile memory recruits in the hippocampus mechanisms typical of developmental critical periods.

Insulin-Like Growth Factor II Targets the mTOR Pathway to Reverse Autism-Like Phenotypes in Mice.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability characterized by impairments in social interaction and repetitive behavior, and is also associated with cognitive deficits. There is no current treatment that can ameliorate most of the ASD symptomatology; thus, identifying novel therapies is urgently needed. We used male BTBR /J (BTBR) mice, a model that reproduces most of the core behavioral phenotypes of ASD, to test the effects of systemic administration of insulin-like growth factor II (IGF-II), a polypeptide that crosses the blood-brain barrier and acts as a cognitive enhancer.

Memory consolidation within the central amygdala is not necessary for modulation of cerebellar learning.

Amygdala lesions impair, but do not prevent, acquisition of cerebellum-dependent eyeblink conditioning suggesting that the amygdala modulates cerebellar learning. Two-factor theories of eyeblink conditioning posit that a fast-developing memory within the amygdala facilitates slower-developing memory within the cerebellum. The current study tested this hypothesis by impairing memory consolidation within the amygdala with inhibition of protein synthesis, transcription, and NMDA receptors in rats.

Cannabinoid modulation of memory consolidation within the cerebellum.

Cannabinoid receptors contribute to learning and synaptic plasticity mechanisms. The cerebellum contains a high density of cannabinoid receptors and manipulations of cannabinoid receptors affect synaptic plasticity within the cerebellar cortex. In vivo studies have found that cannabinoid agonists impair learning of cerebellum-dependent eyeblink conditioning in rodents and humans.

Insulin-like growth factor 2 rescues aging-related memory loss in rats.

Aging is accompanied by declines in memory performance, and particularly affects memories that rely on hippocampal-cortical systems, such as episodic and explicit. With aged populations significantly increasing, the need for preventing or rescuing memory deficits is pressing. However, effective treatments are lacking.

Pediatric Thyroid Cancer: Postoperative Classifications and Response to Initial Therapy as Prognostic Factors.

Context: Prognostic factors for pediatric differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) are not well established.

Objective: The objective of the study was to retrospectively compare the postoperative risk-stratification systems: American Thyroid Association (ATA) risk categories, Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel (SCMCI) score, and the response to initial therapy as predictors for disease outcome.

Patients And Methods: Fifty-four DTC patients, median age at diagnosis 13.

From Memory Impairment to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder-Like Phenotypes: The Critical Role of an Unpredictable Second Traumatic Experience.

Arousal and stress critically regulate memory formation and retention. Increasing levels of stress produce an inverted U-shaped effect on cognitive performance, including the retention of explicit memories, and experiencing a severe stress during a traumatic event may lead to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The molecular mechanisms underlying the impairing effect of a severe stress on memory and the key contribution of traumatic experiences toward the development of PTSD are still unknown.

Vomiting and dysphagia predict delayed gastric emptying in diabetic and nondiabetic subjects.

Background: Gastroparesis is a heterogeneous disorder most often idiopathic, diabetic, or postsurgical in nature. The demographic and clinical predictors of gastroparesis in Israeli patients are poorly defined.

Methods: During the study period we identified all adult patients who were referred to gastric emptying scintigraphy (GES) for the evaluation of dyspeptic symptoms.

Localization of the cerebellar cortical zone mediating acquisition of eyeblink conditioning in rats.

Delay eyeblink conditioning is established by paired presentations of a conditioned stimulus (CS) such as a tone or light and an unconditioned stimulus (US) that elicits eyelid closure before training. The CS and US inputs converge on Purkinje cells in the cerebellar cortex. The cerebellar cortex plays a substantial role in acquisition of delay eyeblink conditioning in rabbits and rodents, but the specific area of the cortex that is necessary for acquisition in rodents has not been identified.

Differential effects of the cannabinoid agonist WIN55,212-2 on delay and trace eyeblink conditioning.

Central cannabinoid-1 receptors (CB1R) play a role in the acquisition of delay eyeblink conditioning (EBC) but not trace EBC in humans and animals. However, it is not clear why trace conditioning is immune to the effects of cannabinoid receptor compounds. The current study examined the effects of variants of delay and trace conditioning procedures to elucidate the factors that determine the effects of CB1R agonists on EBC.

Perceptions of gastroenterologists and patients regarding irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease.

Objective: To compare perceptions of patients and gastroenterologists regarding irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Methods: The Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised was sent to 150 randomly selected hospital-based and community-based gastroenterologists nationwide. Participants were instructed to refer their responses to either IBS or IBD.

Inactivation of the ventral lateral geniculate and nucleus of the optic tract impairs retention of visual eyeblink conditioning.

Reversible inactivation was used to examine the conditioned stimulus (CS) pathway for visual eyeblink conditioning (EBC). Previous research has shown that the ventral lateral geniculate (LGNv) and nucleus of the optic tract (NOT) could play a role in visual EBC through ipsilateral projections to the medial pontine nuclei. Rats were given visual EBC followed by inactivation of the ventral lateral geniculate (LGNv), nucleus of the optic tract (NOT), or both nuclei contralateral to the conditioned eye.

Visual cortical contributions to associative cerebellar learning.

Eye-blink conditioning (EBC) is a form of associative learning that depends on the cerebellum. Previous reports suggested that sensory cortex is necessary for trace EBC but not for delay EBC. The trace and delay EBC procedures used in these studies differed by the presence or absence of a temporal gap between the end of the conditioned stimulus and the onset of the unconditioned stimulus (trace interval) and in the interval between the onset of the CS and the US (inter-stimulus interval, ISI).

Comparison of continuous breath test and gastric scintigraphy for the measurement of gastric emptying rate in healthy and dyspeptic individuals.

Objective: To determine normative gastric emptying rates for the continuous breath test and to compare its findings with gastric scintigraphy in healthy volunteers and dyspeptic patients.

Methods: A standard 250 kcal meal double-labeled with 1 mCi 99mTc colloid and 100 μg nonradioactive 13C-octanoic acid was administered to 20 healthy individuals and 22 dyspeptic patients attending a tertiary medical center in 2009-2010. Gastric emptying rate was measured simultaneously with sequential gastric scintigraphy and the continuous breath test.

The effect of chronic cannabinoids on broadband EEG neural oscillations in humans.

Animal and cellular work has shown that central cannabinoid-1 receptors modulate neural oscillations in the gamma range (40 Hz), which may be important for normal perceptual and cognitive processes. In order to assess the effect of cannabinoids on broadband-frequency neural oscillations in humans, the current study examined the effect of chronic cannabis use on auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs) utilizing electroencephalography (EEG). Passive ASSRs were assessed using varying rates of binaural stimulation (auditory click-trains; 10-50 Hz in increments of 5 Hz; 80 dB SPL) in carefully screened cannabis users and controls.

Assessment of response of brain metastases to radiotherapy by PET imaging of apoptosis with ¹⁸F-ML-10.

Purpose: Early assessment of tumor response to therapy is vital for treatment optimization for the individual cancer patient. Induction of apoptosis is an early and nearly universal effect of anticancer therapies. The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of (18)F-ML-10, a novel PET radiotracer for apoptosis, as a tool for the early detection of response of brain metastases to whole-brain radiation therapy (WBRT).

Examining the effects of former cannabis use on cerebellum-dependent eyeblink conditioning in humans.

Rationale: Previous work in humans has shown that chronic cannabis users exhibit disruptions in classical eyeblink conditioning (EBC), a form of associative learning that is known to be dependent on the cerebellum. Based upon previous work in animals, it was hypothesized that these learning deficits were related to cannabinoid receptor (CB1R) downregulation. However, it remains unclear whether there is a recovery of cerebellum-dependent learning after the cessation of cannabis use.