Time dependent changes in the bioenergetics of peripheral blood mononuclear cells: processing time, collection tubes and cryopreservation effects.

Objectives: Bioenergetic measurements in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) using high-throughput respirometry is a promising minimally invasive approach to studying mitochondrial function in humans. However, optimal methods for collecting PBMCs are not well studied.

Methods: Bioenergetics and viability were measured across processing delays, tube type and cryopreservation.

Rehabilitation modality and onset differentially influence whisker sensory hypersensitivity after diffuse traumatic brain injury in the rat.

Background: As rehabilitation strategies advance as therapeutic interventions, the modality and onset of rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury (TBI) are critical to optimize treatment. Our laboratory has detected and characterized a late-onset, long-lasting sensory hypersensitivity to whisker stimulation in diffuse brain-injured rats; a deficit that is comparable to visual or auditory sensory hypersensitivity in humans with an acquired brain injury.

Objective: We hypothesize that the modality and onset of rehabilitation therapies will differentially influence sensory hypersensitivity in response to the Whisker Nuisance Task (WNT) as well as WNT-induced corticosterone (CORT) stress response in diffuse brain-injured rats and shams.

The time course of activity-regulated cytoskeletal (ARC) gene and protein expression in the whisker-barrel circuit using two paradigms of whisker stimulation.

Immediate early genes have previously demonstrated a rapid increase in gene expression after various behavioral paradigms. The main focus of this article is to identify a molecular marker of circuit activation after manual whisker stimulation or exploration of a novel environment. To this end, we investigated the dynamics of ARC transcription in adult male rats during whisker somatosensation throughout the whisker barrel circuit.