Fractal Analysis of Right Ventricular Trabeculae in Pulmonary Hypertension.

Purpose To measure right ventricular (RV) trabecular complexity by its fractal dimension (FD) in healthy subjects and patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH) and to assess its relationship with hemodynamic and functional parameters and future cardiovascular events. Materials and Methods This retrospective study used data acquired from May 2004 to October 2013 in 256 patients with newly diagnosed PH who underwent cardiac MRI, right-sided heart catheterization, and 6-minute walk distance testing, with median follow-up of 4.0 years.

Systematic and detailed analysis of behavioural tests in the rat middle cerebral artery occlusion model of stroke: Tests for long-term assessment.

In order to test therapeutics, functional assessments are required. In pre-clinical stroke research, there is little consensus regarding the most appropriate behavioural tasks to assess deficits, especially when testing over extended times in milder models with short occlusion times and small lesion volumes. In this study, we comprehensively assessed 16 different behavioural tests, with the aim of identifying those that show robust, reliable and stable deficits for up to two months.

Ex vivo magnetic resonance imaging of crystalline lens dimensions in chicken.

Purpose: A reduction in the power of the crystalline lens during childhood is thought to be important in the emmetropization of the maturing eye. However, in humans and model organisms, little is known about the factors that determine the dimensions of the crystalline lens and in particular whether these different parameters (axial thickness, surface curvatures, equatorial diameter, and volume) are under a common source of control or regulated independently of other aspects of eye size and shape.

Methods: Using chickens from a broiler-layer experimental cross as a model system, three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were obtained at 115-microm isotropic resolution for one eye of 501 individuals aged 3-weeks old.

Ghrelin induces abdominal obesity via GHS-R-dependent lipid retention.

Circulating ghrelin elevates abdominal adiposity by a mechanism independent of its central orexigenic activity. In this study we tested the hypothesis that peripheral ghrelin induces a depot-specific increase in white adipose tissue (WAT) mass in vivo by GH secretagogue receptor (GHS-R(1a))-mediated lipolysis. Chronic iv infusion of acylated ghrelin increased retroperitoneal and inguinal WAT volume in rats without elevating superficial sc fat, food intake, or circulating lipids and glucose.