COVID-19-associated serum and cerebrospinal fluid cytokines in post- versus para-infectious SARS-CoV-2-related Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Introduction: Guillain-Barré syndrome associated with Coronavirus-2-related severe acute respiratory syndrome (COV-GBS) occurs as para- or post-infectious forms, depending on the timing of disease onset. In these two forms, we aimed to compare the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum proinflammatory cytokine profiles to evaluate differences that could possibly have co-pathogenic relevance.

Materials And Methods: We studied a retrospective cohort of 26 patients with either post-COV-GBS (n = 15), with disease onset occurring > 7 days after SARS-CoV-2 infection, or para-COV-GBS (n = 11), with disease onset 7 days or less.

Remote contextual fear retrieval engages activity from salience network regions in rats.

The ability to retrieve contextual fear memories depends on the coordinated activation of a brain-wide circuitry. Transition from recent to remote memories seems to involve the reorganization of this circuitry, a process called systems consolidation that has been associated with time-dependent fear generalization. However, it is unknown whether emotional memories acquired under different stress levels can undergo different systems consolidation processes.

A Microfluidic Platform for Cavitation-Enhanced Drug Delivery.

An endothelial-lined blood vessel model is obtained in a PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) microfluidic system, where vascular endothelial cells are grown under physiological shear stress, allowing -like maturation. This experimental model is employed for enhanced drug delivery studies, aimed at characterising the increase in endothelial permeability upon microbubble-enhanced ultrasound-induced (USMB) cavitation. We developed a multi-step protocol to couple the optical and the acoustic set-ups, thanks to a 3D-printed insonation chamber, provided with direct optical access and a support for the US transducer.

Tumor-on-a-chip platforms to study cancer-immune system crosstalk in the era of immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy is a powerful therapeutic approach able to re-educate the immune system to fight cancer. A key player in this process is the tumor microenvironment (TME), which is a dynamic entity characterized by a complex array of tumor and stromal cells as well as immune cell populations trafficking to the tumor site through the endothelial barrier. Recapitulating these multifaceted dynamics is critical for studying the intimate interactions between cancer and the immune system and to assess the efficacy of emerging immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and adoptive cell-based products.

Relationship between footshock intensity, post-training corticosterone release and contextual fear memory specificity over time.

Overgeneralized fear has long been implicated in generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, however, time-dependent mechanisms underlying memory retrieval are still not completely understood. Previous studies have revealed that stronger fear conditioning training protocols are associated with both increased post-training corticosterone (CORT) levels and fear responses at later retrieval tests. Here we used contextual fear conditioning (CFC) to investigate the relationship between post-training CORT levels and memory specificity in different retrieval timepoints.