Finger soft tissue reconstruction using arterialized venous free flaps having 2 parallel veins.

Purpose: Arterialized venous free flaps with a single straight venous axis may require redirection of either the efferent or afferent vein for anastomosis to the digital vessels. To simplify these flaps, the authors propose use of an arterialized venous free flap having 2 parallel veins that does not require redirection of the veins.

Methods: The authors performed 44 arterialized venous free flaps having 2 parallel veins for the reconstruction of digital soft tissue defects.

Altered neuronal nitric oxide synthase expression in the cerebellum of calcium channel mutant mice.

Tottering, rolling Nagoya, and leaner mutant mice all exhibit cerebellar ataxia to varying degrees, from mild (tottering mice) to severe (leaner mice). Collectively, these mice are regarded as tottering locus mutants because each of these mutant mice expresses a different autosomal recessive mutation in the gene coding for the alpha(1A) calcium ion channel protein, which is the pore forming subunit for P/Q-type high voltage activated calcium ion channels. These mutant mice all exhibit varying degrees of cerebellar dysfunction and neuronal cell death.

Vascular NAD(P)H oxidase triggers delayed cerebral vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage in rats.

Background And Purpose: To clarify the role of vascular NAD(P)H oxidase in the pathogenesis of cerebral vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), both the activity and/or activation mechanisms of NAD(P)H oxidase in the cerebral vasculature and the effect of oxidase inhibition on SAH-induced cerebral vasospasm were assessed.

Methods: The changes in the luminal perimeter of the middle cerebral artery were measured histologically after SAH was induced according to a 2-hemorrhage model in rats. The NAD(P)H oxidase activity in the cerebral vasculature was measured with a lucigenin assay at different time intervals from 12 hours to 14 days after injection of autologous blood into cisterna magna.

Apoptotic cell death of cerebellar granule cells in rolling mouse Nagoya.

Rolling mouse Nagoya is a voltage dependent calcium channel alpha1A subunit mutant showing moderate ataxia. Granule cell loss was previously reported in the cerebellar vermis of homozygous rolling. Apoptotic cerebellar granule cell death was reported in homozygous leaner mice, an allele of rolling.