The Effects of Sevoflurane and Aβ Interaction on CA1 Dendritic Spine Dynamics and MEGF10-Related Astrocytic Synapse Engulfment.

General anesthetics may accelerate the neuropathological changes related to Alzheimer's disease (AD), of which amyloid beta (Aβ)-induced toxicity is one of the main causes. However, the interaction of general anesthetics with different Aβ-isoforms remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the effects of sevoflurane (0.

Isoflurane anesthesia and sleep deprivation trigger delayed and selective sleep alterations.

Isoflurane anesthesia (IA) partially compensates NREM sleep (NREMS) and not REM sleep (REMS) requirement, eliciting post-anesthetic REMS rebound. Sleep deprivation triggers compensatory NREMS rebounds and REMS rebounds during recovery sleep as a result of the body's homeostatic mechanisms. A combination of sleep deprivation and isoflurane anesthesia is common in clinical settings, especially prior to surgeries.

Substance specific EEG patterns in mice undergoing slow anesthesia induction.

The exact mechanisms and the neural circuits involved in anesthesia induced unconsciousness are still not fully understood. To elucidate them valid animal models are necessary. Since the most commonly used species in neuroscience are mice, we established a murine model for commonly used anesthetics/sedatives and evaluated the epidural electroencephalographic (EEG) patterns during slow anesthesia induction and emergence.

Altered sleep behavior strengthens face validity in the ArcAβ mouse model for Alzheimer's disease.

Demographic changes will expand the number of senior citizens suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD). Key aspects of AD pathology are sleep impairments, associated with onset and progression of AD. AD mouse models may provide insights into mechanisms of AD-related sleep impairments.

Crosstalk between the subiculum and sleep-wake regulation: A review.

The circuitry underlying the initiation, maintenance, and coordination of wakefulness, rapid eye movement sleep, and non-rapid eye movement sleep is not thoroughly understood. Sleep is thought to arise due to decreased activity in the ascending reticular arousal system, which originates in the brainstem and awakens the thalamus and cortex during wakefulness. Despite the conventional association of sleep-wake states with hippocampal rhythms, the mutual influence of the hippocampal formation in regulating vigilance states has been largely neglected.

Nociception in Chicken Embryos, Part III: Analysis of Movements before and after Application of a Noxious Stimulus.

Many potentially noxious interventions are performed on chicken embryos in research and in the poultry industry. It is therefore essential and in the interest of animal welfare to be able to precisely define the point at which a chicken embryo is capable of nociception in ovo. The present part III of a comprehensive study examined the movements of developing chicken embryos with the aim of identifying behavioral responses to a noxious stimulus.

Nociception in Chicken Embryos, Part II: Embryonal Development of Electroencephalic Neuronal Activity as a Prerequisite for Nociception.

Chicken culling has been forbidden in Germany since 2022; male/female selection and male elimination must be brought to an embryonic status prior to the onset of nociception. The present study evaluated the ontogenetic point at which noxious stimuli could potentially be perceived/processed in the brain . EEG recordings from randomized hyperpallial brain sites were recorded and noxious stimuli were applied.

Nociception in Chicken Embryos, Part I: Analysis of Cardiovascular Responses to a Mechanical Noxious Stimulus.

Although it is assumed that chicken embryos acquire the capacity for nociception while developing in the egg, an exact time point has not yet been specified. The present research was an exploratory study aiming to determine when the capacity of nociception emerges during embryonic development in chickens. Changes in blood pressure and heart rate (HR) in response to a noxious mechanical stimulus at the base of the beak versus a light touch on the beak were examined in chicken embryos between embryonic days (EDs) 7 and 18.

An in-depth analysis of parameter settings and probability distributions of specific ordinal patterns in the Shannon permutation entropy during different states of consciousness in humans.

As electrical activity in the brain has complex and dynamic properties, the complexity measure permutation entropy (PeEn) has proven itself to reliably distinguish consciousness states recorded by the EEG. However, it has been shown that the focus on specific ordinal patterns instead of all of them produced similar results. Moreover, parameter settings influence the resulting PeEn value.

Electroencephalographic monitoring of anesthesia during surgical procedures in mice using a modified clinical monitoring system.

Monitoring brain activity and associated physiology during the administration of general anesthesia (GA) in mice is pivotal to guarantee postanesthetic health. Clinically, electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring is a well-established method to guide GA. There are no established methods available for monitoring EEG in mice (Mus musculus) during surgery.

Telemetric electroencephalography recording in anesthetized mice-A novel system using minimally-invasive needle electrodes with a wireless OpenBCI™ Cyton Biosensing Board.

Telemetric electroencephalography (EEG) recording, using subdermal needle electrodes, is a minimally-invasive method to investigate mammalian neurophysiology during anesthesia. These inexpensive systems may streamline experiments examining global brain phenomena during surgical anesthesia or disease. We utilized the OpenBCI™ Cyton board with subdermal needle electrodes to extract EEG features in six C57BL/6J mice undergoing isoflurane anesthesia.

Discriminating rapid eye movement sleep from wakefulness by analyzing high frequencies from single-channel EEG recordings in mice.

Rapid eye movement sleep (REMS) is characterized by the appearance of fast, desynchronized rhythms in the cortical electroencephalogram (EEG), similar to wakefulness. The low electromyogram (EMG) amplitude during REMS distinguishes it from wakefulness; therefore, recording EMG signal seems to be imperative for discriminating between the two states. The present study evaluated the high frequency components of the EEG signal from mice (80-500 Hz) to support REMS detection during sleep scoring without an EMG signal and found a strong positive correlation between waking and the average power of 80-120 Hz, 120-200 Hz, 200-350 Hz and 350-500 Hz.

Clinical and virological features of first human monkeypox cases in Germany.

Background: Monkeypox is a zoonotic orthopoxvirus infection endemic in central and western Africa. In May 2022, human monkeypox infections including human-to-human transmission were reported in a multi-country outbreak in Europe and North America.

Case Presentations: Here we present the first two cases of monkeypox infection in humans diagnosed in Germany.

Controlling absence seizures from the cerebellar nuclei via activation of the G signaling pathway.

Absence seizures (ASs) are characterized by pathological electrographic oscillations in the cerebral cortex and thalamus, which are called spike-and-wave discharges (SWDs). Subcortical structures, such as the cerebellum, may well contribute to the emergence of ASs, but the cellular and molecular underpinnings remain poorly understood. Here we show that the genetic ablation of P/Q-type calcium channels in cerebellar granule cells (quirky) or Purkinje cells (purky) leads to recurrent SWDs with the purky model showing the more severe phenotype.

The impact of tethered recording techniques on activity and sleep patterns in rats.

Electrophysiological recordings in animals constitute frequently applied techniques to study neuronal function. In this context, several authors described tethered recordings as a semi-restraint situation with negative implications for animal welfare and suggested radiotelemetric setups as a refinement measure. Thus, we here investigated the hypothesis that tethered recordings exert measurable effects on behavioral and sleep patterns in Sprague-Dawley rats.

Combined implanted central venous access and cortical recording electrode array in freely behaving mice.

Establishing a long-lasting, functioning venous access in a non-anesthetized mouse is very challenging at least. Since we needed a reliable venous access to titrate intravenous anesthetics, we refined and combined previously described methods. The tunneling of the catheter from the cranial to the pectoral wound, the fixation of the catheter in the external jugular vein with two sutures, and a tissue adhesive allowed us to combine this method with the implantation of intracranial recording electrodes.

Altered sleep behavior in a genetic mouse model of impaired fear extinction.

Sleep disturbances are a common complaint of anxiety patients and constitute a hallmark feature of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Emerging evidence suggests that poor sleep is not only a secondary symptom of anxiety- and trauma-related disorders but represents a risk factor in their development, for example by interfering with emotional memory processing. Fear extinction is a critical mechanism for the attenuation of fearful and traumatic memories and multiple studies suggest that healthy sleep is crucial for the formation of extinction memories.

Stapled intestinal anastomoses are more cost effective than hand-sewn anastomoses in a diagnosis related group system.

Purpose: Creation of an optimal bowel anastomosis with low postoperative leakage rate is an immanent part of colorectal surgery contributing to recovery, length of hospital stay and overall hospital costs. We aimed to investigate costs of small and large bowel resection, length of hospital stay, anastomotic leakage rate and its risk factors depending on the anastomotic technique.

Methods: Retrospective analysis of 198 patients (67 stapled and 131 hand-sewn anastomoses) undergoing elective bowel resection with a single anastomosis without protective ileostomy either stapled or in double-rowed running suture technique between 1st October 2012 and 30th September 2018 at Charité University Hospital Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin.

Sleep/Wake Behavior and EEG Signatures of the TgF344-AD Rat Model at the Prodromal Stage.

Transgenic modification of the two most common genes (APPsw, PS1ΔE9) related to familial Alzheimer's disease (AD) in rats has produced a rodent model that develops pathognomonic signs of AD without genetic tau-protein modification. We used 17-month-old AD rats ( = 8) and age-matched controls (AC, = 7) to evaluate differences in sleep behavior and EEG features during wakefulness (WAKE), non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM), and rapid eye movement sleep (REM) over 24-h EEG recording (12:12h dark-light cycle). We discovered that AD rats had more sleep-wake transitions and an increased probability of shorter REM and NREM bouts.

Cyto- and myeloarchitectural brain atlas of the pale spear-nosed bat (Phyllostomus discolor) in CT Aided Stereotaxic Coordinates.

The pale spear-nosed bat Phyllostomus discolor, a microchiropteran bat, is well established as an animal model for research on the auditory system, echolocation and social communication of species-specific vocalizations. We have created a brain atlas of Phyllostomus discolor that provides high-quality histological material for identification of brain structures in reliable stereotaxic coordinates to strengthen neurobiological studies of this key species. The new atlas combines high-resolution images of frontal sections alternately stained for cell bodies (Nissl) and myelinated fibers (Gallyas) at 49 rostrocaudal levels, at intervals of 350 µm.

Teacher Procrastination, Emotions, and Stress: A Qualitative Study.

Stress and negative emotions in teachers can lead to occupational burnout, poor performance in the classroom, and decreased job-satisfaction. Apart from having negative personal and physical effects for the individual teacher, teacher stress and burnout are also thought to have negative effects on the respective students and student achievement. As one potential source of teacher stress, procrastination has been speculated about.

[Louse-borne-relapsing-fever in refugees from the Horn of Africa; a case series of 25 patients].

Background | Relapsing fever is divided into tick borne relapsing fever (TBRF) and louse borne relapsing fever (LBRF). This report describes 25 refugees from East Africa who were diagnosed to suffer from LBRF within a period of 6 month only at a single hospital in Munich / Germany. Material & Methods | The aim was to point out common clinical features as well as laboratory findings and clinical symptoms before and after initiation of treatment in 25 patients with louse borne relapsing fever (LBRF) who were diagnosed and treated at Klinikum München Schwabing from August 2015 to January 2016.

The khmer software package: enabling efficient nucleotide sequence analysis.

The khmer package is a freely available software library for working efficiently with fixed length DNA words, or k-mers. khmer provides implementations of a probabilistic k-mer counting data structure, a compressible De Bruijn graph representation, De Bruijn graph partitioning, and digital normalization. khmer is implemented in C++ and Python, and is freely available under the BSD license at  https://github.

Sleep scoring made easy-Semi-automated sleep analysis software and manual rescoring tools for basic sleep research in mice.

Studying sleep behavior in animal models demands clear separation of vigilance states. Pure manual scoring is time-consuming and commercial scoring software is costly. We present a LabVIEW-based, semi-automated scoring routine using recorded EEG and EMG signals.