Extracellular Vesicles from Plasma of Patients with Glioblastoma Promote Invasion of Glioblastoma Cells Even After Tumor Resection.

: Glioblastoma (GB) is a highly aggressive tumor, whose progression is mediated by secretion of extracellular vesicles (EVs), which can pass the brain-blood barrier and be found in the plasma. Here, we performed a comparative analysis of the effects of EVs from the plasma of healthy donors (hEVs) and GB patients before (bEVs) and after (aEVs) tumor surgical resection on invasion of normal astrocytes and GB cells. : We performed the transwell invasion assay, analyzed MAP kinases activation by Western blotting, studied SNAI1/SNAI2 cellular localization by confocal microscopy, measured cadherins expression by flow cytometry, and analyzed secretion of cytokines, which regulate migration and inflammation, by immunoassay.

Mitochondrial malfunction and atrophy of astrocytes in the aged human cerebral cortex.

How aging affects cells of the human brain active milieu remains largely unknown. Here, we analyze astrocytes and neurons in the neocortical tissue of younger (22-50 years) and older (51-72 years) adults. Aging decreases the amount of reduced mitochondrial cytochromes in astrocytes but not neurons.

Depth-resolved method for attenuation coefficient calculation from optical coherence tomography data for improved biological structure visualization.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a promising tool for intraoperative tissue morphology determination. Several studies suggest that attenuation coefficient derived from the OCT images, can differentiate between tissues of different morphology, such as normal and pathological structures of the brain, skin, and other tissues. In the present study, the depth-resolved method for attenuation coefficient calculation was adopted for the real-world situation of the depth-dependent OCT sensitivity and additive imaging noise with nonzero mean.

[A tool to assess functional communication skills and its correspondence with traditional language testing in patients with brain tumors].

Objective: To identify the relationship between speech impairment as measured by the Russian Aphasia Test (RAT) and functional communication as assessed by the Communicative Effectiveness Index (CETI).

Material And Methods: RAT and CETI were administered to 87 patients at two time points, before surgery and in 3 months after brain tumor resection surgery.

Results: There were significant correlations between CETI and the total scores on RAT subtests for speech comprehension and production before surgery but not in the follow-up period.