Interdependence between myocardial deformation and perfusion in patients with T2DM and HFpEF: a feature-tracking and stress perfusion CMR study.

Background: Patients with diabetes have an increased risk of developing heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). This study aimed to compare indices of myocardial deformation and perfusion between patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) with and without HFpEF and to investigate the relationship between myocardial strain and perfusion reserve.

Methods: This study included 156 patients with T2DM without obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) and 50 healthy volunteers who underwent cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) examination at our center.

Repetitive ventricular tachycardia triggered by a giant benign cardiac lipomyoma.

Cardiac lipomyomas are tumors that may produce various signs and symptoms, including life threatening ventricular tachycardia (VT), often requiring surgical resection and/or catheter ablation. Here we report on a 35-year-old female patient with longstanding repetitive VT in the setting of a large cardiac lipomyoma. Diagnostic testing included non-invasive approaches including ECG, echocardiography and CMR.

All-optical imaging and manipulation of whole-brain neuronal activities in behaving larval zebrafish.

All-optical interrogation of population neuron activity is a promising approach to deciphering the neural circuit mechanisms supporting brain functions. However, this interrogation is currently limited to local brain areas. Here, we incorporate patterned photo-stimulation into light-sheet microscopy, allowing simultaneous targeted optogenetic manipulation and brain-wide monitoring of the neuronal activities of head-restrained behaving larval zebrafish.

Cardiac-Specific Overexpression of Silent Information Regulator 1 Protects Against Heart and Kidney Deterioration in Cardiorenal Syndrome via Inhibition of Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress.

Background/aims: Increased endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress contributes to development of cardiorenal syndrome (CRS), and Silent Information Regulator 1 (SIRT1), a class III histone deacetylase, may have protective effects on heart and renal disease, by reducing ER stress. We aimed to determine if SIRT1 alleviates CRS through ER stress reduction.

Methods: Wild type mice (n=37), mice with cardiac-specific SIRT1 knockout (n=29), or overexpression (n=29), and corresponding controls, were randomized into four groups: sham MI (myocardial infarction) +sham STNx (subtotal nephrectomy); MI+sham STNx; sham MI+STNx; and MI+STNx.

A preliminary investigation of computed tomographic angiography in the assessment of coronary artery distensibility.

Objective: To test 2 hypotheses: first, that coronary distensibility can be measured noninvasively using 64-slice computed tomographic angiography (CTA); and second, that the extent of coronary artery disease (CAD) in any individual patient is related to the degree of distensibility detected by CTA.

Materials And Methods: Computed tomographic angiography was performed in 30 healthy adults and in 30 patients. All subjects were younger than 55 years.

[Impact of multifactor intensive intervention on self management, risk factor control and outcome of post percutaneous transluminal coronary intervention patients].

Objective: To test the efficacy of multifactor intensive intervention for post percutaneous transluminal coronary intervention (post-PCI) outpatients on self management, risk factor control and outcome.

Methods: A total of 263 patients with coronary heart disease (CAD) discharged from our cardiac center were randomized into usual care (4 CAD lectures focusing on the 2(nd) CAD prevention and patients-oriented outpatient visit) and intensive intervention (4 CAD lectures focusing on the 2(nd) CAD prevention, CAD outpatient visit twice a month, monthly telephone instructions on risk factor control and optimal medication). Patients were followed for 12 months and 250 patients completed follow-up.

Ripple-associated high-firing interneurons in the hippocampal CA1 region.

By simultaneously recording the activity of individual neurons and field potentials in freely behaving mice, we found two types of interneurons firing at high frequency in the hippocampal CA1 region, which had high correlations with characteristic sharp wave-associated ripple oscillations (100-250 Hz) during slow-wave sleep. The firing of these two types of interneurons highly synchronized with ripple oscillations during slow-wave sleep, with strongly increased firing rates corresponding to individual ripple episodes. Interneuron type I had at most one spike in each sub-ripple cycle of ripple episodes and the peak firing rate was 310+/-33.

Regulation of Nogo-B expression in the lesion of aortic aneurysms.

1. Our previous study showed that Nogo-B was highly expressed in endothelial cells and downregulated in endothelial cells following induction by lysophosphatidylcholine, which contributed to atherosclerotic lesions. However, the role of Nogo-B in the development of aortic aneurysms remains unclear.

Different expressions of Nogo-B1 and Nogo-B2 in mouse heart microvascular endothelial cell dysfunction induced by lysophosphatidylcholine.

To investigate Nogo-B expression changes in mouse heart microvascular endothelial H5V cell line induced by lysophosphatidylcholine. Cells were incubated with different concentrations of lysoPC for the same incubation time and with 10 micromol/l lysoPC at different incubation times. Protein and mRNA expression levels of Nogo-B1 and Nogo-B2 were measured with Western blotting and semiquantitative RT-PCR, respectively.