Normalization of Elevated Blood Pressure After Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion.

Perioperative change to the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in spine surgery is an uncommon occurrence but has a wide range of possible presentations including blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rate variability changes collectively referred to as dysreflexia. Increased sympathetic tone and decreased vagal output are believed to be the underlying causes of these autonomic manifestations and pose an important question as to effective treatment of these dysfunctions. Spinal nerve root decompression has shown to be a valuable tool in normalizing autonomic tone by increasing parasympathetic output, most notably to the cardiovascular system, leading to the resolution of the aforementioned cardiovascular complications.

ZKSCAN3 in severe bacterial lung infection and sepsis-induced immunosuppression.

The mortality rates among patients who initially survive sepsis are, in part, associated with a high risk of secondary lung infections and respiratory failure. Given that phagolysosomes are important for intracellular killing of pathogenic microbes, we investigated how severe lung infections associated with post-sepsis immunosuppression affect phagolysosome biogenesis. In mice with P.

Nuclear receptor binding factor 2 (NRBF2) is required for learning and memory.

The mechanisms which underlie defects in learning and memory are a major area of focus with the increasing incidence of Alzheimer's disease in the aging population. The complex genetically-controlled, age-, and environmentally-dependent onset and progression of the cognitive deficits and neuronal pathology call for better understanding of the fundamental biology of the nervous system function. In this study, we focus on nuclear receptor binding factor-2 (NRBF2) which modulates the transcriptional activities of retinoic acid receptor α and retinoid X receptor α, and the autophagic activities of the BECN1-VPS34 complex.

Mitochondrial function and autophagy: integrating proteotoxic, redox, and metabolic stress in Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a movement disorder with widespread neurodegeneration in the brain. Significant oxidative, reductive, metabolic, and proteotoxic alterations have been observed in PD postmortem brains. The alterations of mitochondrial function resulting in decreased bioenergetic health is important and needs to be further examined to help develop biomarkers for PD severity and prognosis.