Myocardial Changes in Diabetic and Nondiabetic Nonhuman Primates.

Diabetic human patients have increased risk of heart failure compared to healthy subjects. The underlying mechanisms for this are not fully understood, and to help develop improved treatment strategies, well-characterized animal models are essential. To investigate cardiac dysfunction in diabetes, this study evaluated myocardial changes in 10 aging rhesus monkeys with and without diabetes.

Dietary normalization from a fat, fructose and cholesterol-rich diet to chow limits the amount of myocardial collagen in a Göttingen Minipig model of obesity.

Background: Dietary interventions have been shown to attenuate some of the myocardial pathological alterations associated with obesity. This study evaluated the effect of dietary normalization from a fat/fructose/cholesterol-rich diet to chow on left ventricular (LV) myocardial fibrosis, fat infiltration and hypertrophy but also the specific influence of obesity, plasma lipids and glucose metabolism markers on heart morphology in a Göttingen Minipig model of obesity.

Methods: Forty castrated male Göttingen Minipigs were assigned to three groups fed either standard minipig chow (SD,  = 8) for 13 months, fat/fructose/cholesterol-rich diet (FFC,  = 16) for 13 months or fat/fructose/cholesterol-rich diet for 7 months and then changed to standard minipig chow for the remaining 6 months (FFC/SD,  = 16).

The effect of rat strain and stress exposure on performance in touchscreen tasks.

Patients suffering from depression-associated cognitive impairments often recover incompletely after remission from the core symptoms of depression (lack of energy, depressed mood and anhedonia). This study aimed to set the basis for clinically relevant testing of cognitive impairments in a preclinical model of depression. Hence, we used the chronic mild stress (CMS) model of depression, which provokes the core symptom of anhedonia in a fraction of the stress exposed animals, while others remain resilient, and assessed the entire CMS groups' cognitive performance on the touchscreen operant platform.

The effects of cold water immersion and active recovery on inflammation and cell stress responses in human skeletal muscle after resistance exercise.

Key Points: Cold water immersion and active recovery are common post-exercise recovery treatments. A key assumption about the benefits of cold water immersion is that it reduces inflammation in skeletal muscle. However, no data are available from humans to support this notion.