Hip and Groin Problems in Female Team-Sport Athletes: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Hip and groin problems are common among team-sport athletes. However, few studies have been conducted in female athletes that have used the Doha Agreement classification system to categorize these problems.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the preseason point prevalence of hip and groin problems in elite female team-sport athletes.

TRPC1: The housekeeper of the hippocampus.

The non-selective cation channel TRPC1 is highly expressed in the brain. Recent research shows that neuronal TRPC1 forms heteromeric complexes with TRPC4 and TRPC5, with a small portion existing as homotetramers, primarily in the ER. Given that most studies have focused on the role of heteromeric TRPC1/4/5 complexes, it is crucial to investigate the specific role of homomeric TRPC1 in maintaining brain homeostasis.

Status of udder health performance indicators and implementation of on farm monitoring on German dairy cow farms: results from a large scale cross-sectional study.

Regional benchmarking data enables farmers to compare their animal health situation to that of other herds and identify areas with improvement potential. For the udder health status of German dairy cow farms, such data were incomplete. Therefore, the aim of this study was (1) to describe the incidence of clinical mastitis (CM), (2) to describe cell count based udder health indicators [annual mean test day average of the proportion of animals without indication of mastitis (aWIM), new infection risk during lactation (aNIR), and proportion of cows with low chance of cure (aLCC); heifer mastitis rate (HM)] and their seasonal variation, and (3) to evaluate the level of implementation of selected measures of mastitis monitoring.

Nanoscale Mapping of the 3D Strain Tensor in a Germanium Quantum Well Hosting a Functional Spin Qubit Device.

A strained Ge quantum well, grown on a SiGe/Si virtual substrate and hosting two electrostatically defined hole spin qubits, is nondestructively investigated by synchrotron-based scanning X-ray diffraction microscopy to determine all its Bravais lattice parameters. This allows rendering the three-dimensional spatial dependence of the six strain tensor components with a lateral resolution of approximately 50 nm. Two different spatial scales governing the strain field fluctuations in proximity of the qubits are observed at <100 nm and >1 μm, respectively.

Endothelial Lipase Modulates Paraoxonase 1 Content and Arylesterase Activity of HDL.

Endothelial lipase (EL) is a strong modulator of the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) structure, composition, and function. Here, we examined the impact of EL on HDL paraoxonase 1 (PON1) content and arylesterase (AE) activity in vitro and in vivo. The incubation of HDL with EL-overexpressing HepG2 cells decreased HDL size, PON1 content, and AE activity.

Galanin receptor 3 attenuates inflammation and influences the gut microbiota in an experimental murine colitis model.

The regulatory (neuro)peptide galanin and its three receptors (GALR) are involved in immunity and inflammation. Galanin alleviated inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in rats. However, studies on the galanin receptors involved are lacking.

Spatial distribution and incidence of bovine neonatal pancytopenia in Bavaria, Germany.

Background: Bovine neonatal pancytopenia (BNP) is a haemorrhagic disease of neonatal calves. BNP was first described in Germany in 2009, later on also in other European countries, and in New Zealand in 2011. The disease is characterised by spontaneous bleeding, pancytopaenia in the bone marrow, and a high case fatality ratio.

Experimental colitis reduces microglial cell activation in the mouse brain without affecting microglial cell numbers.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients frequently suffer from anxiety disorders and depression, indicating that altered gut-brain axis signalling during gastrointestinal inflammation is a risk factor for psychiatric disease. Microglia, immune cells of the brain, is thought to be involved in a number of mental disorders, but their role in IBD is largely unknown. In the current work, we investigated whether colitis induced by dextran sulphate sodium (DSS), a murine model of IBD, alters microglial phenotypes in the brain.

Intranasal Neuropeptide Y Blunts Lipopolysaccharide-Evoked Sickness Behavior but Not the Immune Response in Mice.

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) has been demonstrated to exert stress buffering effects and promote resilience. Non-invasive intranasal (IN) application of NPY to rodents is able to mitigate traumatic stress-induced behavioral changes as well as dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. However, it is unknown whether IN NPY could prevent the behavioral, pro-inflammatory and neurochemical responses to peripheral immune activation by the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) stimulant lipopolysaccharide (LPS).

Amyloid-beta impairs insulin signaling by accelerating autophagy-lysosomal degradation of LRP-1 and IR-β in blood-brain barrier endothelial cells in vitro and in 3XTg-AD mice.

Aberrant insulin signaling constitutes an early change in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Insulin receptors (IR) and low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein-1 (LRP-1) are expressed in brain capillary endothelial cells (BCEC) forming the blood-brain barrier (BBB). There, insulin may regulate the function of LRP-1 in Aβ clearance from the brain.

The Visually Mediated Social Preference Test: A Novel Technique to Measure Social Behavior and Behavioral Disturbances in Zebrafish.

Zebrafish are an emerging model in behavioral neuroscience. They display a wide range of measurable behaviors such as locomotion, aggression, anxiety, learning and memory, and social behavior. In addition, the relative ease of genetic manipulation and the increasing availability of disease models mean that zebrafish have gained in popularity as an animal model for various neurological and psychiatric diseases including autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Synergistic and antagonistic interactions between antibiotics and synbiotics in modifying the murine fecal microbiome.

Purpose: Pro- and synbiotics have been reported to ameliorate the adverse (dysbiotic) effects of antibiotics on the gut microbial architecture, but little is known how synbiotics and antibiotics interact with each other in shaping the gut microbiota. To explore this mutual interaction we examined, first, the effect of a multi-strain synbiotic on antibiotic-induced dysbiosis and, second, the dysbiotic effect of antibiotics followed by prolonged synbiotic exposure.

Methods: The synbiotic containing nine bacterial strains was administered to male mice via the drinking water, while the antibiotic mix containing bacitracin, meropenem, neomycin, and vancomycin was administered via oral gavage.

Intermittent Fasting Exacerbates the Acute Immune and Behavioral Sickness Response to the Viral Mimic Poly(I:C) in Mice.

Intermitted fasting and other forms of calorie restriction are increasingly demonstrated to exert potential health benefits. Interestingly, restricted feeding is also able to mitigate sickness in response to bacterial factors stimulating Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). However, little is known about how fasting modifies the activity of virus-associated molecular patterns.

An Unbiased Approach of Sampling TEM Sections in Neuroscience.

Investigations of the ultrastructural features of neurons and their synapses are only possible with electron microscopy. Especially for comparative studies of the changes in densities and distributions of such features, an unbiased sampling protocol is vital for reliable results. Here, we present a workflow for the image acquisition of brain samples.

Endothelin neurotransmitter signalling controls zebrafish social behaviour.

The formation of social groups is an adaptive behaviour that can provide protection from predators, improve foraging and facilitate social learning. However, the costs of proximity can include competition for resources, aggression and kleptoparasitism meaning that the decision whether to interact represents a trade-off. Here we show that zebrafish harbouring a mutation in endothelin receptor aa (ednraa) form less cohesive shoals than wild-types.

High-fat diet induces depression-like behaviour in mice associated with changes in microbiome, neuropeptide Y, and brain metabolome.

The biological mechanisms linking diet-related obesity and depression remain unclear. Therefore, we examined the impact of high-fat diet (HFD) on murine behaviour, intestinal microbiome, brain metabolome, neuropeptide Y (NPY) expression, and dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) activity. Male C57Bl/6J mice were fed an HFD (60 kJ% from fat) or control diet (12 kJ% from fat) for 8 weeks, followed by behavioural phenotyping.

Visceral Inflammation and Immune Activation Stress the Brain.

Stress refers to a dynamic process in which the homeostasis of an organism is challenged, the outcome depending on the type, severity, and duration of stressors involved, the stress responses triggered, and the stress resilience of the organism. Importantly, the relationship between stress and the immune system is bidirectional, as not only stressors have an impact on immune function, but alterations in immune function themselves can elicit stress responses. Such bidirectional interactions have been prominently identified to occur in the gastrointestinal tract in which there is a close cross-talk between the gut microbiota and the local immune system, governed by the permeability of the intestinal mucosa.

Visceral hyperalgesia caused by peptide YY deletion and Y2 receptor antagonism.

Altered levels of colonic peptide YY (PYY) have been reported in patients suffering from functional and inflammatory bowel disorders. While the involvement of neuropeptide Y (NPY) and Y receptors in the regulation of nociception is well established, the physiological role of PYY in somatic and visceral pain is poorly understood. In this work, the role of PYY in pain sensitivity was evaluated using PYY knockout (PYY) mice and Y2 receptor ligands.

Diverse action of lipoteichoic acid and lipopolysaccharide on neuroinflammation, blood-brain barrier disruption, and anxiety in mice.

Microbial metabolites are known to affect immune system, brain, and behavior via activation of pattern recognition receptors such as Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). Unlike the effect of the TLR4 agonist lipopolysaccharide (LPS), the role of other TLR agonists in immune-brain communication is insufficiently understood. We therefore hypothesized that the TLR2 agonist lipoteichoic acid (LTA) causes immune activation in the periphery and brain, stimulates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and has an adverse effect on blood-brain barrier (BBB) and emotional behavior.

Incidence of bovine neonatal pancytopenia in 243 farms in Germany.

Background: Several research groups from different European countries have worked on the aetiopathogenesis of bovine neonatal pancytopenia (BNP) and an association between the use of the vaccine PregSure BVD (Pfizer, Germany) and the development of this haemorrhagic disease was confirmed. Because BNP is not a notifiable disease, it is difficult to obtain information on its incidence. Based on pharmacovigilance (PhV) data, which are the only officially available data at the national level, the incidence of BNP is considered low.