Publications by authors named "Emily A Olsen"

Exposure of infant animals, including non-human primates (NHPs), to anaesthetic drugs causes apoptotic death of neurons and oligodendrocytes (oligos) and results in long-term neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI). Moreover, retrospective clinical studies document an association between anaesthesia exposure of human infants and significant increase in NDI. These findings pose a potentially serious dilemma because millions of human infants are exposed to anaesthetic drugs every year as part of routine medical care.

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Purpose Of Review: Sedation and anesthesia are often necessary for children at any age, and are frequently provided in ambulatory settings. Concerns have mounted, based on both laboratory studies including various mammalian species and retrospective human clinical studies, that the very drugs that induce sedation and anesthesia may trigger an injury in the developing brain, resulting in long-lasting neurobehavioral consequences.

Recent Findings: New retrospective studies further augment these concerns.

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Purpose Of Review: Every year, millions of children undergo anesthesia. Emerging evidence from experimental in-vitro and in-vivo models supports a role for neuropathologic injury and neurobehavioral deficits at older age after early exposure to various anesthetic regimens. Clinical studies have sought to identify a phenotype of developmental anesthesia neurotoxicity in humans, but the current evidence is limited to data from retrospective studies with their associated confounders.

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Although transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are incurable, a key therapeutic approach is prevention of conversion of the normal, protease-sensitive form of prion protein (PrP-sen) to the disease-specific protease-resistant form of prion protein (PrP-res). Here degenerate phosphorothioate oligonucleotides (PS-ONs) are introduced as low-nM PrP-res conversion inhibitors with strong antiscrapie activities in vivo. Comparisons of various PS-ON analogs indicated that hydrophobicity and size were important, while base composition was only minimally influential.

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Article Synopsis
  • Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease affecting deer species, and researchers developed a persistently infected deer cell line (MDB) to study it in the lab.
  • After several attempts, they identified a stable clone (MDB(CWD)) that consistently produces the CWD prion protein (PrP(CWD)) over multiple passages, indicating successful infection.
  • Additionally, two chemical inhibitors were found to effectively block PrP(CWD) accumulation in MDB(CWD) cells, suggesting their potential use as treatments for CWD in living organisms.
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Article Synopsis
  • Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are deadly brain diseases linked to a resistant form of prion protein called PrP(Sc) or PrP-res, with efforts focused on finding effective inhibitors.
  • Researchers have discovered 32 new inhibitors targeting two strains of mouse scrapie PrP-res and created a cell culture assay to test these on sheep scrapie.
  • Out of the tested inhibitors, only six were effective against both mouse and sheep prion proteins, with tannic acid, pentosan polysulfate, and Fe(III) deuteroporphyrin 2,4-bisethyleneglycol showing the most promise at low concentrations.
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