Publications by authors named "Ronza Abdel Rassoul"

: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder with poorly detailed subtypes/dimensions, such as religious OCD (ROCD). To date, little is known about ROCD characteristics. This work aimed to describe the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, along with the religiosity and spirituality, of Lebanese Muslim citizens diagnosed with OCD and exhibiting religious symptoms.

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The effects of non-convulsive status epilepticus (NCSE) on the developing brain remain largely elusive. Here we investigated potential hippocampal injury and learning deficits following one or two episodes of NCSE in periadolescent rats. Non-convulsive status epilepticus was induced with subconvulsive doses of intrahippocampal kainic acid (KA) under continuous EEG monitoring in postnatal day 43 (P43) rats.

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Available two-way active avoidance paradigms do not provide contextual testing, likely due to challenges in performing repetitive trials of context exposure. To incorporate contextual conditioning in the two-way shuttle box, we contextually modified one of the chambers of a standard two-chamber rat shuttle box with visual cues consisting of objects and black and white stripe patterns. During the 5 training days, electrical foot shocks were delivered every 10 s in the contextually modified chamber but were signaled by a tone in the plain chamber.

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Post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE) and neurocognitive deficits are devastating sequelae of head injuries that are common in adolescents. Investigating desperately needed treatments is hindered by the difficulties in inducing PTE in rodents and the lack of established immature rat models of pediatric PTE. Hemorrhage is a significant risk factor for PTE, but compared to humans, rats are less prone to bleeding because of their rapid blood coagulation system.

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Reactive oxygen species (ROS) modify proteins and lipids leading to deleterious outcomes. Thus, maintaining their homeostatic levels is vital. This study highlights the endogenous role of LXRs (LXRα and β) in the regulation of oxidative stress in peripheral nerves.

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Objective: This study aims to explore the short-term and long-term prevalence and effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among victims of cluster munitions.

Design And Setting: A prospective 10-year longitudinal study that took place in Lebanon.

Participants: Two-hundred-and-forty-four Lebanese civilian victims of submunition blasts, who were injured in 2006 and were over 18 years old, were interviewed.

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Article Synopsis
  • Aging is a major risk factor for neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s, but the exact molecular changes during brain aging are not well understood.
  • Researchers studied the gene expression in the temporal cortex of a primate model (Microcebus murinus) by comparing samples from young adults, healthy old animals, and old animals showing Alzheimer-like symptoms.
  • They discovered 695 genes with significant expression changes between the groups, revealing that while some genes related to metabolism were upregulated in healthy older animals, their compensatory responses were diminished in "AD-like" animals, suggesting a loss of protective mechanisms during aging.
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Unlabelled: Analyzing microarrays data is still a great challenge since existing methods produce huge amounts of useless results. We propose a new method called NoDisco for discovering novelties in gene sequences obtained by applying data-mining techniques to microarray data.

Method: We identify popular genes, which are often cited in the literature, and innovative genes, which are linked to the popular genes in the sequences but are not mentioned in the literature.

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Transcriptomic technologies are promising tools for identifying new genes involved in cerebral ageing or in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. These technologies produce massive biological data, which so far are extremely difficult to exploit. In this context, we propose GeneMining, a multidisciplinary methodology, which aims at developing new strategies to analyse such data, and to design interactive tools to help biologists to identify, visualize and interpret brain ageing signatures.

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