Many individuals who sustain a cervical spinal cord injury are unable to maintain adequate ventilation due to diaphragm muscle paralysis. These patients become dependent on mechanical ventilators and this situation is associated with ongoing problems with pulmonary clearance, infections, and lung injury leading to significant morbidity and reduced life expectancy. Therefore, functional recovery of rhythmic phrenic activity and the ability to generate expulsive forces would dramatically affect the quality of life of patients with cervical spinal cord injury. Neurotrophins are very promising in that they have been shown to play an important role in modulating functional neuroplasticity. Specifically, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) acting via the tropomyosin-related kinase receptor type B (TrkB) has been implicated in neuroplasticity following spinal cord injury. Our central hypothesis is that functional recovery of rhythmic phrenic activity after cervical spinal cord injury is enhanced by an increase in BDNF/TrkB signaling in phrenic motoneurons, providing a novel therapeutic target for patients.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resp.2009.08.008 | DOI Listing |
Dermatol Ther (Heidelb)
January 2025
Department of Biomedical and Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging, Section of Dermatology, University of Messina, 98125, Messina, Italy.
Introduction: Patients with psoriasis (PsO) and permanent spinal cord injuries (SCI) resulting in paraplegia and tetraplegia may experience a higher rate of infections compared to patients with PsO without SCI. It can result in further challenges for therapeutic management with immunosuppressants (biological and non-biological treatments). Thus, we aimed to evaluate the rate of infections in patients with PsO and SCI treated with systemic immunosuppressants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Institute for Antiviral Research, Department of Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Sciences, Utah State University, Logan, UT, 84321-5600, USA.
Zika virus (ZIKV) causes a variety of peripheral and central nervous system complications leading to neurological symptoms such as limb weakness. We used a mouse model to identify candidate genes potentially involved in causation or recovery from ZIKV-induced acute flaccid paralysis. Using Zikv and Chat chromogenic and fluorescence in situ RNA hybridization, electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry, and ZIKV RT-qPCR, we determined that some paralyzed mice had infected motor neurons, but motor neurons are not reduced in number and the infection was not present in all paralyzed mice; hence infection of motor neurons were not strongly correlated with paralysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Psychiatry Neurosci
January 2025
From the Department of Neurology, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China (Qiao, Zhao, Cong, Y. Li, Tian, Yang, Cao, Su); the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, Zhengzhou, China (Zhu); the Department of Medical Imaging, Henan Provincial People's Hospital & Zhengzhou University People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, China (P. Li).
Background: White matter damage is closely associated with cognitive and psychiatric symptoms and is prevalent in cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD); although the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in CSVD remain elusive, inflammation plays a crucial role. We sought to investigate the relationship between systemic inflammation markers and imaging markers of CVSD, namely white matter hyperintensity (WMH) and microstructural injury.
Methods: We conducted a study involving both cross-sectional and longitudinal data from the UK Biobank Cohort.
Dev Biol
January 2025
Institute of Life Sciences and Health (ILSH), School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 2DT, UK. Electronic address:
Conjoined twinning is a special case of monozygotic, monoamniotic twinning. Human conjoined twinning, and vertebrate conjoined twinning in general, is a very rare phenomenon. It has been suggested that the risk of conjoined twinning increases with some medication and upon assisted reproduction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWorld Neurosurg
January 2025
Department of Neurosurgery, Medicine Faculty of Van Yuzuncu Yıl University, Van, Türkiye. Electronic address:
Background: Cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) is a leading cause of spinal cord dysfunction in adults, often progressing silently. Static MRI is the standard imaging tool but may miss compression caused by neck movement. Dynamic MRI, by capturing flexion and extension views, provides a clearer picture of spinal cord compression, aiding surgical planning and improving outcomes.
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