Brain effects of 5:2 intermittent fasting and the healthy living diet in a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Insulin Resistance (IR) is implicated in brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathogenesis. Dietary changes may promote brain health in older adults with metabolic abnormalities. An extensive animal literature suggests pro‐cognitive and beneficial systemic and brain effects of intermittent fasting (IF) that may mitigate AD risk.

Vigilance to Painful Laser Stimuli is Associated with Increased State Anxiety and Tense Arousal.

Introduction: Pain is frequently accompanied by enhanced arousal and hypervigilance to painful sensations. Here, we describe our findings in an experimental vigilance task requiring healthy participants to indicate when randomly timed moderately painful stimuli occur in a long train of mildly painful stimuli.

Methods: During a continuous performance task with painful laser stimuli (CPTpain), 18 participants rated pain intensity, unpleasantness, and salience.

Empagliflozin Induced Ketosis, Upregulated IGF-1/Insulin Receptors and the Canonical Insulin Signaling Pathway in Neurons, and Decreased the Excitatory Neurotransmitter Glutamate in the Brain of Non-Diabetics.

Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2is), such as empagliflozin, lower blood glucose in type 2 diabetes mellitus and improve cardiorenal outcomes regardless of diabetes presence. Whether SGLT2is exert any effects on the brain's metabolism has not been studied. We conducted a single-arm clinical trial to investigate the effects of once daily administration of oral empagliflozin (25 mg) for 14 days on systemic and brain metabolism in 21 non-diabetics aged 55 years old or older.

A Cross-Sectional Time Course of COVID-19 Related Worry, Perceived Stress, and General Anxiety in the Context of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder-like Symptomatology.

The COVID-19 pandemic within the United States of America resulted in over 800,000 deaths as of February 2022 and has been addressed by social distancing or stay-at-home measures. Collective prolonged multimodal trauma on this scale is likely to elicit symptomatology in the general population consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), somatization, anxiety, and stress. The psychological component of this response contributes substantially to the burden of this disease worldwide.

Postnatal Guinea Pig Brain Development, as Revealed by Magnetic Resonance and Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging.

This study used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify age dependent brain structural characteristics in Dunkin Hartley guinea pigs. Anatomical T-weighted images, diffusion kurtosis (DKI) imaging, and T relaxometry measures were acquired from a cohort of male guinea pigs from postnatal day (PND) 18-25 (juvenile) to PND 46-51 (adolescent) and PND 118-123 (young adult). Whole-brain diffusion measures revealed the distinct effects of maturation on the microstructural complexity of the male guinea pig brain.

A Pilot Study of Exenatide Actions in Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Strong preclinical evidence suggests that exenatide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP- 1) receptor agonist used for treating type 2 diabetes, is neuroprotective and disease-modifying in Alzheimer's Disease (AD).

Objective: We performed an 18-month double-blind randomized placebo-controlled Phase II clinical trial to assess the safety and tolerability of exenatide and explore treatment responses for clinical, cognitive, and biomarker outcomes in early AD.

Method: Eighteen participants with high probability AD based on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers completed the entire study prior to its early termination by the sponsor; partial outcomes were available for twentyone.

Brain insulin resistance and altered brain glucose are related to memory impairments in schizophrenia.

Memory is robustly impaired in schizophrenia (SZ) and related to functional outcome. Memory dysfunction has been shown to be related to altered brain glucose metabolism and brain insulin resistance in animal models and human studies of Alzheimer's disease. In this study, differences in brain glucose using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and blood Extracellular Vesicle (EV) biomarkers of neuronal insulin resistance (i.

Deficient neurotrophic factors of CSPG4-type neural cell exosomes in Alzheimer disease.

Exosomes derived from chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan (CSPG) 4 type neural precursor cells (CSPG4Es) were purified from human plasma by sequential immunoabsorption with anti-CSPG4 and anti-platelet growth factor receptor α mAb to characterize the potential in vivo roles of CSPG4 cells in neuronal repair. Hepatocyte growth factor, fibroblast growth factors (FGFs)-2 and -13, and type 1 insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which enhance neuronal survival and functions, were quantified in CSPG4E extracts. For CSPG4Es of 24 healthy control subjects, mean levels of hepatocyte growth factor, FGF-13, and IGF-1, but not FGF-2, were significantly higher by up to 7-fold than in their neuronal-derived exosomes, and mean levels of all 4 growth factors were significantly higher by up to 8-fold than in their astrocyte-derived exosomes.

Developmental neurotoxicity of the organophosphorus insecticide chlorpyrifos: from clinical findings to preclinical models and potential mechanisms.

Organophosphorus (OP) insecticides are pest-control agents heavily used worldwide. Unfortunately, they are also well known for the toxic effects that they can trigger in humans. Clinical manifestations of an acute exposure of humans to OP insecticides include a well-defined cholinergic crisis that develops as a result of the irreversible inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), the enzyme that hydrolyzes the neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh).

Insulin Resistance as a Link between Amyloid-Beta and Tau Pathologies in Alzheimer's Disease.

Current hypotheses and theories regarding the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) heavily implicate brain insulin resistance (IR) as a key factor. Despite the many well-validated metrics for systemic IR, the absence of biomarkers for brain-specific IR represents a translational gap that has hindered its study in living humans. In our lab, we have been working to develop biomarkers that reflect the common mechanisms of brain IR and AD that may be used to follow their engagement by experimental treatments.

Exosomal biomarkers of brain insulin resistance associated with regional atrophy in Alzheimer's disease.

Unlabelled: Brain insulin resistance (IR), which depends on insulin-receptor-substrate-1 (IRS-1) phosphorylation, is characteristic of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Previously, we demonstrated higher pSer312-IRS-1 (ineffective insulin signaling) and lower p-panTyr-IRS-1 (effective insulin signaling) in neural origin-enriched plasma exosomes of AD patients vs.

Controls: Here, we hypothesized that these exosomal biomarkers associate with brain atrophy in AD.

Prenatal exposure of guinea pigs to the organophosphorus pesticide chlorpyrifos disrupts the structural and functional integrity of the brain.

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that prenatal exposure of guinea pigs to the organophosphorus (OP) pesticide chlorpyrifos (CPF) disrupts the structural and functional integrity of the brain. Pregnant guinea pigs were injected with chlorpyrifos (25 mg/kg, s.c.

Temporal changes in magnetic resonance imaging in the mdx mouse.

Background: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is characterized clinically by severe, progressive loss of skeletal muscle. The phenotype is much less severe in the mdx mouse model of DMD than that seen in patients with DMD. However, a "critical period" has been described for the mdx mouse, during which there is a peak in muscle weakness and degeneration/regeneration between the 2nd and 5th weeks of life.

Delayed hippocampal effects from a single exposure of prepubertal guinea pigs to sub-lethal dose of chlorpyrifos: a magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy study.

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) can detect in adulthood the neurotoxic effects of a single exposure of prepubertal guinea pigs to the organophosphorus pesticide chlorpyrifos. Twelve female guinea pigs were given either a single dose of chlorpyrifos (0.6×LD50 or 300mg/kg, sc) or peanut oil (vehicle; 0.

Diffusion kurtosis as an in vivo imaging marker for reactive astrogliosis in traumatic brain injury.

Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging (DKI) provides quantifiable information on the non-Gaussian behavior of water diffusion in biological tissue. Changes in water diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters and DKI parameters in several white and gray matter regions were investigated in a mild controlled cortical impact (CCI) injury rat model at both the acute (2 h) and the sub-acute (7 days) stages following injury. Mixed model ANOVA analysis revealed significant changes in temporal patterns of both DTI and DKI parameters in the cortex, hippocampus, external capsule and corpus callosum.

Pregnancy in Parkinson's disease: case report and discussion.

Pregnancy in Parkinson's disease (PD) is an uncommon occurrence. Available reports suggest that there may be a worsening of PD symptom severity related to pregnancy. In this special report, medical literature on pregnancy in PD will be reviewed with regard to disease progression and the safety of antiparkinsonian medications.