Cost-effectiveness of sodium zirconium cyclosilicate for the treatment of hyperkalemia in patients with chronic kidney disease or heart failure in Spain.

Background And Objective: Hyperkalemia (HK) is an electrolyte disturbance in the concentration of potassium ions (K), whose risk increases in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) or heart failure (HF) and/or in patients being treated with renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors (RAASi). The new oral K chelators offer a safe and effective treatment to maintain normokalemia in these patients. The objective of the analysis is to estimate the cost-effectiveness of sodium zirconium cyclosilicate (SZC) for the treatment of chronic HK in patients with CKD or HF versus standard treatment (calcium polystyrene sulfonate and lifestyle modifications) from the perspective of the Spanish National Health System.

The Role of Smad2 in Adult Neuroplasticity as Seen through Hippocampal-Dependent Spatial Learning/Memory and Neurogenesis.

Adult neural plasticity is an important and intriguing phenomenon in the brain, and adult hippocampal neurogenesis is directly involved in modulating neural plasticity by mechanisms that are only partially understood. We have performed gain-of-function and loss-of-function experiments to study Smad2, a transcription factor selected from genes that are demethylated after exercise through the analysis of an array of physical activity-induced factors, and their corresponding gene expression, and an efficient inducer of plasticity. In these studies, changes in cell number and morphology were analyzed in the hippocampal dentate gyrus (cell proliferation and survival, including regional distribution, and structural maturation/differentiation, including arborization, dendritic spines, and neurotransmitter-specific vesicles) of sedentary male mice, after evaluation in a battery of behavioral tests.

Circadian glucocorticoid oscillations preserve a population of adult hippocampal neural stem cells in the aging brain.

A decrease in adult hippocampal neurogenesis has been linked to age-related cognitive impairment. However, the mechanisms involved in this age-related reduction remain elusive. Glucocorticoid hormones (GC) are important regulators of neural stem/precursor cells (NSPC) proliferation.

Meta-Analysis Design and Results in Real Life: Problem Solvers or Detour to Maze. A Critical Review of Meta-Analysis of DAPT Randomized Controlled Trials.

Background: Therapeutic strategies - such as duration of dual antiplatelet therapy after coronary artery stenting - usually generate a large quantity of meta-analyses. The meta-analyses that include the same randomized clinical trials should produce similar results. Our aim in the study is to analyze the quality and to compare the results of meta-analyses focused on a controversial topic such as dual antiplatelet therapy after percutaneous coronary intervention.

Noggin rescues age-related stem cell loss in the brain of senescent mice with neurodegenerative pathology.

Increasing age is the greatest known risk factor for the sporadic late-onset forms of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). One of the brain regions most severely affected in AD is the hippocampus, a privileged structure that contains adult neural stem cells (NSCs) with neurogenic capacity. Hippocampal neurogenesis decreases during aging and the decrease is exacerbated in AD, but the mechanistic causes underlying this progressive decline remain largely unexplored.

The GSK-3-inhibitor VP2.51 produces antidepressant effects associated with adult hippocampal neurogenesis.

Glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK-3) is a constitutively active kinase that has been implicated in the mechanism of action of mood stabilizers. According to the neurogenic hypothesis of depression, newborn neurons in the adult dentate gyrus are required for the antidepressant effects of certain agents. We demonstrate that administration of the GSK-3 inhibitor VP2.

The relationship between behavior acquisition and persistence abilities: Involvement of adult hippocampal neurogenesis.

The influence of the learning process on the persistence of the newly acquired behavior is relevant both for our knowledge of the learning/memory mechanisms and for the educational policy. However, it is unclear whether during an operant conditioning process with a continuous reinforcement paradigm, individual differences in acquisition are also associated to differences in persistence of the acquired behavior. In parallel, adult neurogenesis has been implicated in spatial learning and memory, but the specific role of the immature neurons born in the adult brain is not well known for this process.

The growth factors cascade and the dendrito-/synapto-genesis versus cell survival in adult hippocampal neurogenesis: the chicken or the egg.

The decision between cellular survival and death is governed by a balance between proapoptotic versus antiapoptotic signaling cascades. Growth factors are key actors, playing two main roles both at developmental and adult stages: a supporting antiapoptotic role through diverse actions converging in the mitochondria, and a promoter role of cell maturation and plasticity through dendritogenesis and synaptogenesis, especially relevant for the adult hippocampal neurogenesis, a case of development during adulthood. Here, both parallel roles mutually feed forward each other (the success in avoiding apoptosis lets the cell to grow and differentiate, which in turn lets the cell to reach new targets and form new synapses accessing new sources of growth factors to support cell survival) in a circular cause and consequence, or a "the chicken or the egg" dilemma.