Large Animal Epilepsy Model Platform: Kainic Acid Porcine Model of Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

Objective: Translational animal models are essential for advancing neuromodulation therapies for drug-resistant epilepsy. Large animal epilepsy models that accommodate implantable neuromodulation devices designed for humans are needed to advance electrical brain stimulation and sensing applicaitons. We establish a kainic acid (KA) porcine model of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE) for pre-clinical research and development of novel stimulating therapies.

Hydrogel-Mediated Local Delivery of Induced Nephron Progenitor Cell-Sourced Molecules as a Cell-Free Approach for Acute Kidney Injury.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) constitutes a severe condition characterized by a sudden decrease in kidney function. Utilizing lineage-restricted stem/progenitor cells, directly reprogrammed from somatic cells, is a promising therapeutic option in personalized medicine for serious and incurable diseases such as AKI. The present study describes the therapeutic potential of induced nephron progenitor cell-sourced molecules (iNPC-SMs) as a cell-free strategy against cisplatin (CP)-induced nephrotoxicity, employing hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogel-mediated local delivery to minimize systemic leakage and degradation.

Chemical Coaxing of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells by Drug Repositioning for Nestin Induction.

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) display heterogeneity in origin and functional role in tissue homeostasis. Subsets of MSCs derived from the neural crest express nestin and serve as niches in bone marrow, but the possibility of coaxing MSCs into nestin-expresing cells for enhanced supportive activity is unclear. In this study, as an approach to the chemical coaxing of MSC functions, we screened libraries of clinically approved chemicals to identify compounds capable of inducing nestin expression in MSCs.

Utilizing stem cell-secreted molecules as a versatile toolbox for skin regenerative medicine.

Stem cells are recognized as an important target and tool in regenerative engineering. In this study, we explored the feasibility of engineering amniotic fluid-derived mesenchymal stem cell-secreted molecules (afMSC-SMs) as a versatile bioactive material for skin regenerative medicine applications in a time- and cost-efficient and straightforward manner. afMSC-SMs, obtained in powder form through ethanol precipitation, effectively contributed to preserving the self-renewal capacity and differentiation potential of primary human keratinocytes (pKCs) in a xeno-free environment, offering a potential alternative to traditional culture methods for their long-term in vitro expansion, and allowed them to reconstitute a fully stratified epithelium sheet on human dermal fibroblasts.

Physicochemical Properties of Yanggaeng with Added Tempeh Powder.

In this study, we investigated the physicochemical and antioxidative properties of the traditional Korean confectionery, Yanggaeng, when various amounts of tempeh powder (TP) were added. We replaced a portion of the white bean paste in Yanggaeng with TP at percentages of 0% (CON), 2% (TP2), 4% (TP4), and 6% (TP6) by total weight. The proximate composition results showed that TP6 exhibited the highest crude ash and crude protein contents, but its moisture content and carbohydrate content were the lowest compared to the CON.

Automated sleep classification with chronic neural implants in freely behaving canines.

Long-term intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) in freely behaving animals provides valuable electrophysiological information and when correlated with animal behavior is useful for investigating brain function.Here we develop and validate an automated iEEG-based sleep-wake classifier for canines using expert sleep labels derived from simultaneous video, accelerometry, scalp electroencephalography (EEG) and iEEG monitoring. The video, scalp EEG, and accelerometry recordings were manually scored by a board-certified sleep expert into sleep-wake state categories: awake, rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, and three non-REM sleep categories (NREM1, 2, 3).

Treatment Protocol on Using Microfocused Ultrasound with Visualization for Skin Quality Improvement: The Korean Experience.

Facial skin quality profoundly influences an individual's perceived appearance and is an important aspect of facial rejuvenation. Facial pore enlargement is one of the most common concerns among Asian individuals that adversely impacts perceived skin surface evenness and affects overall skin quality. One of the major causes of enlarged pores is facial skin laxity.

Toward a fully implantable ecosystem for adaptive neuromodulation in humans: Preliminary experience with the CorTec BrainInterchange device in a canine model.

This article describes initial work toward an ecosystem for adaptive neuromodulation in humans by documenting the experience of implanting CorTec's BrainInterchange (BIC) device in a beagle canine and using the BCI2000 environment to interact with the BIC device. It begins with laying out the substantial opportunity presented by a useful, easy-to-use, and widely available hardware/software ecosystem in the current landscape of the field of adaptive neuromodulation, and then describes experience with implantation, software integration, and post-surgical validation of recording of brain signals and implant parameters. Initial experience suggests that the hardware capabilities of the BIC device are fully supported by BCI2000, and that the BIC/BCI2000 device can record and process brain signals during free behavior.

Development of an integrated microperfusion-EEG electrode for unbiased multimodal sampling of brain interstitial fluid and concurrent neural activity.

. To modify off-the-shelf components to build a device for collecting electroencephalography (EEG) from macroelectrodes surrounded by large fluid access ports sampled by an integrated microperfusion system in order to establish a method for sampling brain interstitial fluid (ISF) at the site of stimulation or seizure activity with no bias for molecular size..

Distributed brain co-processor for tracking spikes, seizures and behaviour during electrical brain stimulation.

Early implantable epilepsy therapy devices provided open-loop electrical stimulation without brain sensing, computing, or an interface for synchronized behavioural inputs from patients. Recent epilepsy stimulation devices provide brain sensing but have not yet developed analytics for accurately tracking and quantifying behaviour and seizures. Here we describe a distributed brain co-processor providing an intuitive bi-directional interface between patient, implanted neural stimulation and sensing device, and local and distributed computing resources.

Lowering -6/-3 Ratio as an Important Dietary Intervention to Prevent LPS-Inducible Dyslipidemia and Hepatic Abnormalities in Mice.

Obesity is closely associated with low-grade chronic and systemic inflammation and dyslipidemia, and the consumption of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (-3 PUFAs) may modulate obesity-related disorders, such as inflammation and dyslipidemia. An emerging research question is to understand the dietary intervention strategy that is more important regarding -3 PUFA consumption: (1) a lower ratio of -6/-3 PUFAs or (2) a higher amount of -3 PUFAs consumption. To understand the desirable dietary intervention method of -3 PUFAs consumption, we replaced lard from the experimental diets with either perilla oil (PO) or corn oil (CO) to have identical -3 amounts in the experimental diets.

Bacterially Converted Oat Active Ingredients Enhances Antioxidative and Anti-UVB Photoaging Activities.

Oat ( L.) is one of the most widely consumed cereal grains worldwide and is considered as an important cereal crop with high nutritional value and potential health benefits. With different bacterial strains, fermented oat extracts were examined for the antioxidant and antiaging effects on the skin after optimization of extraction conditions.

Generation of Induced Nephron Progenitor-like Cells from Human Urine-Derived Cells.

Background: Regenerative medicine strategies employing nephron progenitor cells (NPCs) are a viable approach that is worthy of substantial consideration as a promising cell source for kidney diseases. However, the generation of induced nephron progenitor-like cells (iNPCs) from human somatic cells remains a major challenge. Here, we describe a novel method for generating NPCs from human urine-derived cells (UCs) that can undergo long-term expansion in a serum-free condition.

Thalamic deep brain stimulation modulates cycles of seizure risk in epilepsy.

Chronic brain recordings suggest that seizure risk is not uniform, but rather varies systematically relative to daily (circadian) and multiday (multidien) cycles. Here, one human and seven dogs with naturally occurring epilepsy had continuous intracranial EEG (median 298 days) using novel implantable sensing and stimulation devices. Two pet dogs and the human subject received concurrent thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) over multiple months.

An Exploratory Study of the Relationships Between Diesel Engine Exhaust Particle Inhalation, Pulmonary Inflammation and Anxious Behavior.

Recent technical developments brought negative side effects such as air pollution and large-scale fires, increasingly exposing people to diesel engine exhaust particles (DEP). Testing how DEP inhalation triggers pathophysiology in animal models could be useful in determining how it affects humans. To this end, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of pulmonary exposure to DEP for seven consecutive days in experimental male C5BL6/N mice.

Semi-supervised Training Data Selection Improves Seizure Forecasting in Canines with Epilepsy.

Objective: Conventional selection of pre-ictal EEG epochs for seizure prediction algorithm training data typically assumes a continuous pre-ictal brain state preceding a seizure. This is carried out by defining a fixed duration, pre-ictal time period before seizures from which pre-ictal training data epochs are uniformly sampled. However, stochastic physiological and pathological fluctuations in EEG data characteristics and underlying brain states suggest that pre-ictal state dynamics may be more complex, and selection of pre-ictal training data segments to reflect this could improve algorithm performance.

Use of the National Early Warning Score for predicting in-hospital mortality in older adults admitted to the emergency department.

Objective: The National Early Warning Score (NEWS), based on the patients' vital signs, detects clinical deterioration in critically ill patients and is used to reduce the incidence of in-hospital cardiac arrest. However, although mortality prediction based on vital signs may be difficult in older patients, the effectiveness of the NEWS has not yet been evaluated in this population. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that an elevated NEWS at admission increases the mortality risk in older patients admitted to the emergency department (ED).

Determining nicotine-related behavior changes in juvenile female rats through long-term maternal nicotine exposure.

Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) has been developed as a drug therapy for smoking cessation and has been considered a safe alternative to smoking during pregnancy. However, the effects of long-term nicotine exposure via NRT on the fetus are still being debated. Here, we determined the effects of long-term maternal nicotine exposure in gestation and lactation on nicotine-related behavior and drug vulnerability in dams and offspring rats.

Mapping BOLD Activation by Pharmacologically Evoked Tremor in Swine.

Harmaline-induced tremor is one of the most commonly utilized disease models for essential tremor (ET). However, the underlying neural networks involved in harmaline-induced tremor and the degree to which these are a representative model of the pathophysiologic mechanism of ET are incompletely understood. In this study, we evaluated the functional brain network effects induced by systemic injection of harmaline using pharmacological functional magnetic resonance imaging (ph-fMRI) in the swine model.

High frequency electrical stimulation promotes expression of extracellular matrix proteins from human astrocytes.

Therapeutic benefits of deep brain stimulation (DBS), a neurosurgical treatment for certain movement disorders and other neurologic conditions, are well documented, but DBS mechanisms remain largely unexplained. DBS is thought to modulate pathological neural activity. However, although astrocytes, the most numerous cell type in the brain, play a significant role in neurotransmission, chemical homeostasis and synaptic plasticity, their role in DBS has not been fully examined.

Bioactivity of Fermented Green Coffee Bean Extract Containing High Chlorogenic Acid and Surfactin.

Chlorogenic acid (CGA) is a major component of green coffee beans. Surfactin, a cyclic lipopeptide, is produced and secreted by Bacillus subtilis strains. In this study, bioactivities of fermented green coffee bean extract (FGCBE) and the individual compounds, CGA and surfactin.

Integrating Brain Implants With Local and Distributed Computing Devices: A Next Generation Epilepsy Management System.

Brain stimulation has emerged as an effective treatment for a wide range of neurological and psychiatric diseases. Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and essential tremor have FDA indications for electrical brain stimulation using intracranially implanted electrodes. Interfacing implantable brain devices with local and cloud computing resources have the potential to improve electrical stimulation efficacy, disease tracking, and management.

Ginsenoside Rb1 Enhances Keratinocyte Migration by a Sphingosine-1-Phosphate-Dependent Mechanism.

The cutaneous wound healing process is tightly regulated by a range of cellular responses, including migration. Sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) is a signaling lipid produced in keratinocytes (KC) and it is known to stimulate skin wound repair through increased KC migration. Of the multifunctional triterpene ginsenosides, Rb1 enhances cutaneous wound healing process by increasing KC migration, but cellular mechanisms responsible for the Rb1-mediated increase in KC migration are largely unknown.