Monitoring risk factors for dementia in middle-aged and older adults: a longitudinal study.

Unlabelled: Given the importance of dementia syndrome and its impacts on the population, interest in studying modifiable risk factors for dementia is growing.

Objective: To compare the prevalence of risk factors for dementia in middle-aged and older adults over a two-year period and to identify what variables in baseline were predictive of cognitive decline in the follow-up.

Methods: Longitudinal and quantitative study, with follow-up evaluation after two years, conducted with 200 participants aged 45 years or more, registered in Primary Care Units.

Role of hydrogen sulfide in ventilatory responses to hypercapnia in the medullary raphe of adult rats.

New Findings: What is the central question of this study? There is evidence that H S plays a role in the control of breathing: what are its actions on the ventilatory and thermoregulatory responses to hypercapnia via effects in the medullary raphe, a brainstem region that participates in the ventilatory adjustments to hypercapnia? What is the main finding and its importance? Hypercapnia increased the endogenous production of H S in the medullary raphe. Inhibition of endogenous H S attenuated the ventilatory response to hypercapnia in unanaesthetized rats, suggesting its excitatory action via the cystathionine β-synthase-H S pathway in the medullary raphe.

Abstract: Hydrogen sulfide (H S) has been recently recognized as a gasotransmitter alongside carbon monoxide (CO) and nitric oxide (NO).

Involvement of endogenous central hydrogen sulfide (HS) in hypoxia-induced hypothermia in spontaneously hypertensive rats.

Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) display autonomic imbalance and abnormal body temperature (Tb) adjustments. Hydrogen sulfide (HS) modulates hypoxia-induced hypothermia, but its role in SHR thermoregulation is unknown. We tested the hypothesis that SHR display peculiar thermoregulatory response to hypoxia and that endogenous HS overproduced in the caudal nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) of SHR modulates this response.

Hydrogen sulfide inhibits preoptic prostaglandin E2 production during endotoxemia.

Hydrogen sulfide (H(2)S) is a gaseous neuromodulator endogenously produced in the brain by the enzyme cystathionine β-synthase (CBS). We tested the hypothesis that H(2)S acts within the anteroventral preoptic region of the hypothalamus (AVPO) modulating the production of prostaglandin (PG) E(2) (the proximal mediator of fever) and cyclic AMP (cAMP). To this end, we recorded deep body temperature (Tb) of rats before and after pharmacological modulation of the CBS-H(2)S system combined or not with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exposure, and measured the levels of H(2)S, cAMP, and PGE(2) in the AVPO during systemic inflammation.

Cannabidiol-treated rats exhibited higher motor score after cryogenic spinal cord injury.

Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive constituent of cannabis, has been reported to induce neuroprotective effects in several experimental models of brain injury. We aimed at investigating whether this drug could also improve locomotor recovery of rats submitted to spinal cord cryoinjury. Rats were distributed into five experimental groups.