Heat Release by Isolated Mouse Brain Mitochondria Detected with Diamond Thermometer.

The production of heat by mitochondria is critical for maintaining body temperature, regulating metabolic rate, and preventing oxidative damage to mitochondria and cells. Until the present, mitochondrial heat production has been characterized only by methods based on fluorescent probes, which are sensitive to environmental variations (viscosity, pH, ionic strength, quenching, etc.).

Research into the factors affecting the uptake of 90Sr and 137Cs by plants from radioactively contaminated soils of the southern Urals.

The objective of this work was to study the factors affecting the intake of 90Sr and 137Cs by plants from soils exposed to radioactive contamination resulting from operations of the Mayak Industrial Association. Specific activities of 90Sr and 137Cs in the samples were determined by the radiochemical method. The most severe contamination by 90Sr and 137Cs of natural soils was found in forest soil cover and in the 0-5 cm soil layer.

Qualitative assessment of sources and general dependencies in the behavior of anthropogenic radionuclides in the Techa River.

Research on radioactive contamination of the environment involves the important task of assessing the contribution from different sources of contamination. If there are two or more sources of contamination with similar radionuclide composition, assessment of the contribution from each source can be challenging. Such a problem exists, for instance, in the assessment of anthropogenic sources of radioactive contamination of water in the Techa River.

Main dependencies in reduction of radiation exposure to the population of the Southern Urals.

Dynamics of soil contamination, food chain, and radiation doses to population at the East-Urals Radioactive Trace (EURT) and the Karachay Radioactive Trace (KRT) are reviewed. Gamma spectrometric analysis of samples was performed according to standard methodology; 90Sr was determined by the extraction method. Over 80% of radionuclides in soil are contained in the upper 20-cm layer.

Functional changes in the septal GABAergic system of animals with a model of temporal lobe epilepsy.

The septal GABAergic system plays a central role in the regulation of activity and excitability of the hippocampus (the main locus of temporal lobe epilepsy, TLE), but the character of changes the septum undergoes in this pathology remains unknown. To address this issue we studied the influences on GABAergic receptors in septal slices from the brain of epileptic guinea pigs compared to a control. In the epileptic brain, the overall increase in the mean frequency of neuronal discharges and the rise in the number of bursting neurons were revealed.

Spontaneous epileptic manifestations in a DCX knockdown model of human double cortex.

Previous reports indicate that in utero knockdown of doublecortin (DCX) results in the genesis of a subcortical heterotopia reminiscent of the doublecortex observed in female patients with DCX mutations. It has also been shown that these rats display an increased susceptibility to convulsant agents and increased cortical neurons excitability; but it is presently unknown whether they display spontaneous seizures. Furthermore, the link between the size of heterotopia and the clinical manifestation remained to be elucidated.

Disturbance of the correlation between hippocampal and septal EEGs during epileptogenesis.

Field potentials of the hippocampus and the medial septal-diagonal band complex (MSDB) were recorded in the control and during the kindling stimulation of the perforant path in waking guinea pigs. Changes in the correlation of activities of these structures during stimulation-evoked seizures (model of acute epilepsy) and during epileptogenesis elicited by the kindling (model of chronic epilepsy) were analysed. In the control, a high correlation between the background activities of the hippocampus and MSDB was observed.