Human pallial MGE-type GABAergic interneuron cell therapy for chronic focal epilepsy.

Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is the most common focal epilepsy. One-third of patients have drug-refractory seizures and are left with suboptimal therapeutic options such as brain tissue-destructive surgery. Here, we report the development and characterization of a cell therapy alternative for drug-resistant MTLE, which is derived from a human embryonic stem cell line and comprises cryopreserved, post-mitotic, medial ganglionic eminence (MGE) pallial-type GABAergic interneurons.

Predictors of re-operation in the setting of non-acute subdural hematomas: A 12-year single center retrospective study.

Non-acute subdural hematomas (naSDH) may recur after surgical treatment. A second operation affects the quality of life and functional outcome of the patients, and lengthens hospital stay. We aim to identify the predictors of reoperation as the healthcare system in the US is moving towards patient-centered care.

Longitudinal alteration of cortical thickness and volume in high-impact sports.

Collegiate football athletes are subject to repeated head impacts. The purpose of this study was to determine whether this exposure can lead to changes in brain structure. This prospective cohort study was conducted with up to 4 years of follow-up on 63 football (high-impact) and 34 volleyball (control) male collegiate athletes with a total of 315 MRI scans (after exclusions: football n ​= ​50, volleyball n ​= ​24, total scans ​= ​273) using high-resolution structural imaging.

Longitudinal Changes in Hippocampal Subfield Volume Associated with Collegiate Football.

Collegiate football athletes are subject to repeated traumatic brain injuriesthat may cause brain injury. The hippocampus is composed of several distinct subfields with possible differential susceptibility to injury. The aim of this study is to determine whether there are longitudinal changes in hippocampal subfield volume in collegiate football.

In vitro and in vivo evaluation of cephalosporins for the treatment of Lyme disease.

Background: Lyme disease accounts for >90% of all vector-borne disease cases in the United States and affect ~300,000 persons annually in North America. Though traditional tetracycline antibiotic therapy is generally prescribed for Lyme disease, still 10%-20% of patients treated with current antibiotic therapy still show lingering symptoms.

Methods: In order to identify new drugs, we have evaluated four cephalosporins as a therapeutic alternative to commonly used antibiotics for the treatment of Lyme disease by using microdilution techniques like minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC).

Cytokines as therapeutic agents and targets in heart disease.

Cytokine therapies have emerged during the past decade as promising noninvasive treatments for heart disease. In general, current drug treatments are directed towards symptom control and prevention of disease progression; however, many agents also produce cause side effects that alter quality of life. Cytokine based therapies have the potential to reduce post-infarct heart failure and chronic ischemia by stimulating the proliferation and differentiation of endothelial cells and bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells and mobilizing these cells toward ischemic tissue.

PEG/Dextran Double Layer Influences Fe Ion Release and Colloidal Stability of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles.

Despite preliminary confidence on biosafety of polymer coated iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs), toxicity concerns have hampered their clinical translation. SPIONs toxicity is known to be due to catalytic activity of their surface and release of toxic Fe ions originating from the core biodegradation, leading to the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Here, we hypothesized that a double-layer polymeric corona comprising of dextran as an interior, and polyethylene glycol (PEG) as an exterior layer better shields the core SPIONs.

A harmonized segmentation protocol for hippocampal and parahippocampal subregions: Why do we need one and what are the key goals?

The advent of high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has enabled in vivo research in a variety of populations and diseases on the structure and function of hippocampal subfields and subdivisions of the parahippocampal gyrus. Because of the many extant and highly discrepant segmentation protocols, comparing results across studies is difficult. To overcome this barrier, the Hippocampal Subfields Group was formed as an international collaboration with the aim of developing a harmonized protocol for manual segmentation of hippocampal and parahippocampal subregions on high-resolution MRI.

Identification of new drug candidates against Borrelia burgdorferi using high-throughput screening.

Lyme disease is the most common zoonotic bacterial disease in North America. It is estimated that >300,000 cases per annum are reported in USA alone. A total of 10%-20% of patients who have been treated with antibiotic therapy report the recrudescence of symptoms, such as muscle and joint pain, psychosocial and cognitive difficulties, and generalized fatigue.

Infrared Imaging Tools for Diagnostic Applications in Dermatology.

Infrared (IR) imaging is a collection of non-invasive imaging techniques that utilize the IR domain of the electromagnetic spectrum for tissue assessment. A subset of these techniques construct images using back-reflected light, while other techniques rely on detection of IR radiation emitted by the tissue as a result of its temperature. Modern IR detectors sense thermal emissions and produce a heat map of surface temperature distribution in tissues.

High-field magnetic resonance imaging of the human temporal lobe.

Background: Emerging high-field diffusion weighted MR imaging protocols, along with tractography, can elucidate microstructural changes associated with brain disease at the sub-millimeter image resolution. Epilepsy and other neurological disorders are accompanied by structural changes in the hippocampal formation and associated regions; however, these changes can be subtle and on a much smaller scale than the spatial resolution commonly obtained by current clinical magnetic resonance (MR) protocols in vivo.

Methods: We explored the possibility of studying the organization of fresh tissue with a 17.

Dimensionless, Scale Invariant, Edge Weight Metric for the Study of Complex Structural Networks.

High spatial and angular resolution diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) with network analysis provides a unique framework for the study of brain structure in vivo. DWI-derived brain connectivity patterns are best characterized with graph theory using an edge weight to quantify the strength of white matter connections between gray matter nodes. Here a dimensionless, scale-invariant edge weight is introduced to measure node connectivity.

Ultra-high resolution in-vivo 7.0T structural imaging of the human hippocampus reveals the endfolial pathway.

The hippocampus is a very important structure in memory formation and retrieval, as well as in various neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy and depression. It is composed of many intricate subregions making it difficult to study the anatomical changes that take place during disease. The hippocampal hilus may have a unique neuroanatomy in humans compared to that in monkeys and rodents, with field CA3h greatly enlarged in humans compared to that in rodents, and a white-matter pathway, called the endfolial pathway, possibly only present in humans.

Quantitative comparison of 21 protocols for labeling hippocampal subfields and parahippocampal subregions in in vivo MRI: towards a harmonized segmentation protocol.

Objective: An increasing number of human in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have focused on examining the structure and function of the subfields of the hippocampal formation (the dentate gyrus, CA fields 1-3, and the subiculum) and subregions of the parahippocampal gyrus (entorhinal, perirhinal, and parahippocampal cortices). The ability to interpret the results of such studies and to relate them to each other would be improved if a common standard existed for labeling hippocampal subfields and parahippocampal subregions. Currently, research groups label different subsets of structures and use different rules, landmarks, and cues to define their anatomical extents.

Recent Developments in Diffusion Tensor Imaging of Brain.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has come to be known as a unique radiological imaging modality because of its ability to perform tomographic imaging of body without the use of any harmful ionizing radiation. The radiologists use MRI to gain insight into the anatomy of organs, including the brain, while biomedical researchers explore the modality to gain better understanding of the brain structure and function. However, due to limited resolution and contrast, the conventional MRI fails to show the brain microstructure.

Ultrahigh-resolution imaging of the human brain with phase-cycled balanced steady-state free precession at 7 T.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to acquire ultra-high resolution images of the brain using balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) at 7 T and to identify the potential utility of this sequence.

Materials And Methods: Eight volunteers participated in this study after providing informed consent. Each volunteer was scanned with 8 phase cycles of bSSFP at 0.

Phase shift in the 24-hour rhythm of hippocampal EEG spiking activity in a rat model of temporal lobe epilepsy.

For over a century epileptic seizures have been known to cluster at specific times of the day. Recent studies have suggested that the circadian regulatory system may become permanently altered in epilepsy, but little is known about how this affects neural activity and the daily pattern of seizures. To investigate, we tracked long-term changes in the rate of spontaneous hippocampal EEG spikes (SPKs) in a rat model of temporal lobe epilepsy.

Magnetic resonance imaging and volumetric analysis: novel tools to study the effects of thyroid hormone disruption on white matter development.

Humans and wildlife are exposed to environmental pollutants that have been shown to interfere with the thyroid hormone system and thus may affect brain development. Our goal was to expose pregnant rats to propylthiouracil (PTU) to measure the effects of a goitrogen on white matter development in offspring using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and volumetric analysis. We exposed pregnant Sprague Dawley (SD) rats to 3 or 10 ppm PTU from gestation day 7 (GD7) until postnatal day 25 (P25) to determine the effects on white matter (WM), gray matter (GM), and hippocampus volumes in offspring.

Early MR diffusion and relaxation changes in the parahippocampal gyrus precede the onset of spontaneous seizures in an animal model of chronic limbic epilepsy.

Structural changes in limbic regions are often observed in individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and in animal models. However, the brain structural changes during the evolution into epilepsy remain largely unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to define the temporal changes in limbic structures after experimental status epilepticus (SE) during the latency period of epileptogenesis in vivo, with quantitative diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and T2 relaxometry in an animal model of chronic TLE.

Granger causality relationships between local field potentials in an animal model of temporal lobe epilepsy.

An understanding of the in vivo spatial emergence of abnormal brain activity during spontaneous seizure onset is critical to future early seizure detection and closed-loop seizure prevention therapies. In this study, we use Granger causality (GC) to determine the strength and direction of relationships between local field potentials (LFPs) recorded from bilateral microelectrode arrays in an intermittent spontaneous seizure model of chronic temporal lobe epilepsy before, during, and after Racine grade partial onset generalized seizures. Our results indicate distinct patterns of directional GC relationships within the hippocampus, specifically from the CA1 subfield to the dentate gyrus, prior to and during seizure onset.

Temporal lobe epilepsy: anatomical and effective connectivity.

While temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) has been treatable with anti-seizure medications over the past century, there still remain a large percentage of patients whose seizures remain untreatable pharmacologically. To better understand and treat TLE, our laboratory uses several in vivo analytical techniques to estimate connectivity in epilepsy. This paper reviews two different connectivity-based approaches with an emphasis on application to the study of epilepsy.