Comparison of lidocaine and lidocaine-xylazine for distal paravertebral anesthesia in dairy cattle.

Objective: To determine the time of onset and duration of action of distal paravertebral blocks (DPB) in dairy cattle using lidocaine and lidocaine plus xylazine (LX).

Animals: 10 healthy adult Holstein cows.

Methods: Unilateral DPB were performed in 6 cows at L1, L2, and L4.

Does DNA methylation in the fetal brain leave an epigenetic memory in the blood?

Epigenetic memory is an emerging concept that refers to the process in which epigenetic changes occurring early-in life can lead to long-term programs of gene regulation in time and space. By leveraging neural network regression modeling of DNA methylation data in pigs, we show that specific methylations in the adult blood can reliably predict methylation changes that occurred in the fetal brain. Genes associated with these methylations represented known markers of specific cell types of blood including bone marrow hematopoietic progenitor cells, and ependymal and oligodendrocyte cells of brain.

Epigenetic regulation of fetal brain development in pig.

How fetal brain development is regulated at the molecular level is not well understood. Due to ethical challenges associated with research on the human fetus, large animals particularly pigs are increasingly used to study development and disorders of fetal brain. The pig fetal brain grows rapidly during the last ∼ 50 days before birth which is around day 60 (d60) of pig gestation.

Fetal origin of sex-bias brain aging.

DNA methylation plays crucial roles during fetal development as well as aging. Whether the aging of the brain is programmed at the fetal stage remains untested. To test this hypothesis, mouse epigenetic clock (epiclock) was profiled in fetal (gestation day 15), postnatal (day 5), and aging (week 70) brain of male and female C57BL/6J inbred mice.

Fetal Brain Elicits Sexually Conflicting Transcriptional Response to the Ablation of Uterine Forkhead Box A2 () in Mice.

In this study, we investigated the effects of ablation of uterine Forkhead Box A2 () on gene expression of fetal brain relative to placenta. Using a conditional knockout mouse model for uterine , here we show that the lack of uterine elicits a sexually-conflicting transcriptional response in the fetal brain relative to placenta. The ablation of in the uterus altered expression of genes related to growth, nutrient sensing, aging, longevity and angiogenesis among others.

Sexually Dimorphic Transcriptomic Changes of Developing Fetal Brain Reveal Signaling Pathways and Marker Genes of Brain Cells in Domestic Pigs.

In this study, transcriptomic changes of the developing brain of pig fetuses of both sexes were investigated on gestation days (GD) 45, 60 and 90. Pig fetal brain grows rapidly around GD60. Consequently, gene expression of the fetal brain was distinctly different on GD90 compared to that of GD45 and GD60.

Relevance of microRNAs to the regulation of the brain-placental axis in mice.

Introduction: The development of fetal brain is intricately dependent upon placental functions. Recently, we showed that the placenta and fetal brain express genes in a coordinated manner in mice. But, how the brain-placental axis is regulated at the molecular level remains poorly understood.