Medulla

INTRODUCTION: Wernicke encephalopathy (WE) is a potentially fatal condition caused by thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency. Chronic alcoholism is the most common cause of WE; however, other conditions responsible for thiamine deficiency should also be considered. CASE REPORT: We report the case of a 64-year-old woman with a history of diabetes who presented with confusion and apathy. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain showed T2 hyperintensities involving dorsolateral medulla oblongata, tegmentum of the pons, vermis of the cerebellum, periaqueductal region, and the bilateral mammillary bodies...

Food intake affects poultry productivity. A complete understanding of these regulatory mechanisms provides new strategies to improve productivity. Food intake is regulated by complex mechanisms involving many factors, including the central nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, hormones, and nutrients. Although several studies have been conducted to elucidate regulatory mechanisms in chickens, the mechanisms remain unclear. To update the current knowledge on feeding regulation in chickens, this review focuses on recent findings that have not been summarized in previous reviews, including spexins, adipokines, neurosecretory proteins GL and GM, and central intracellular signaling factors...

Swallowing is induced by a central pattern generator in the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS). We aimed to create a medullary slice preparation to elucidate the neural architecture of the central pattern generator of swallowing (Sw-CPG) and record its neural activities. Experiments were conducted on 2-day-old Sprague-Dawley rats (n = 46). The brainstem-spinal cord was transected at the pontomedullary and cervicothoracic junctions; the medulla was sliced transversely at thicknesses of 600, 700, or 800 μm...

BACKGROUND: Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) is limited when utilized in highly disabled people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). OBJETIVE: To explore the relationship between disability measures and MRI outcomes in severely-affected pwMS. METHODS: PwMS recruited from The Boston Home (TBH), a specialized residential facility for severly-affected pwMS and University at Buffalo (UB) MS Center were assessed using EDSS, MS Severity Scale, age-related MSS, Scripps Neurological Rating Scale (SNRS) and Combinatorial Weight-Adjusted Disability Score (CombiWISE)...

Identifying body fluids and organ tissues is highly significant as they can offer crucial evidence in criminal investigations and aid the court in making informed decisions, primarily through evaluating the biological source and possibly at the activity level up to death or fatal damage. In this study, organ tissue-specific CpG markers were identified from Illumina's methylation EPIC array data of nine organ tissues, including epidermis, dermis, heart, skeletal muscle, blood, kidney, brain, lung, and liver, from autopsies of 10 Koreans...

Orthostatic hypotension (OH) is a common condition. Many potential etiologies of OH have been identified, but in clinical practice the underlying cause of OH is often unknown. In the present study, we identified a novel and extraordinary etiology of OH. We describe a first case of acquired severe OH with syncope, and the female patient had extremely low levels of catecholamines and serotonin in plasma, urine and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Her clinical and biochemical evidence showed a deficiency of the enzyme aromatic l-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC), which converts l-DOPA to dopamine, and 5-hydroxytryptophan to serotonin, respectively...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the leading causes of death and disability. TBI is associated with neuroinflammation, but temporal changes in immune and inflammatory signaling following TBI have not been fully elucidated. Furthermore, there have been no previous studies on changes in immune cell populations following TBI via the Closed Head Injury Model of Engineered Rotational Acceleration (CHIMERA). The current study aimed to determine the time course changes to inflammatory marker mRNA expression in the acute period following TBI in juvenile rats and to determine acute changes to brain and circulating immune cell populations...

The supraspinal descending pain modulatory system (DPMS) shapes pain perception via monoaminergic modulation of sensory information in the spinal cord. However, the role and synaptic mechanisms of descending noradrenergic signaling remain unclear. Here, we establish that noradrenergic neurons of the locus coeruleus (LC) are essential for supraspinal opioid antinociception. While much previous work has emphasized the role of descending serotonergic pathways, we find that opioid antinociception is primarily driven by excitatory output from the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vlPAG) to the LC...

Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) remains a major cause of cerebrovascular morbidity, eliciting severe headaches and vasospasms that have been shown to inversely correlate with vasodilator calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) levels. Although dura mater trigeminal afferents are an important source of intracranial CGRP, little is known about the effects of SAH on these neurons in preclinical models. The present study evaluated changes in CGRP levels and expression in trigeminal primary afferents innervating the dura mater 72 h after experimentally induced SAH in adult rats...

INTRODUCTION: Kidney perfusion on CT is an encouraging surrogate for renal scintigraphy in assessing renal function. However, data on dynamic volumetric CT in patients with kidney obstruction is lacking. Thus, the aim of this study is to determine the feasibility of CT-based renal perfusion using a dynamic volume to assess renal hemodynamics at different degrees and durations of obstruction. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We included patients with unilateral kidney obstruction in our single-center, prospective study...

Lateral medullary syndrome is a common presentation of posterior circulation ischemia that presents with ipsilateral Horner syndrome, ipsilateral facial numbness, contralateral body numbness, vestibular symptoms, ataxia, dysphagia, and dysarthria. Here, we describe an 84-year-old who presented to the hospital with right upper motor neuron facial weakness and gait abnormality found to have a right lateral medullary ischemic stroke. Multiple MRI's, including with thin brainstem slices, were without evidence of pontine, midbrain or cerebral ischemia outside the medulla...

OBJECTIVES: Basilar artery occlusion (BAO) may be etiologically attributed to embolism or in situ thrombosis due to basilar stenosis (BS). Patients with BAO due to BS (BAOS) are known to have worse outcomes than patients with embolic occlusions (BAOE). BAOS occurs more proximally in the basilar artery (BA) than BAOE. We hypothesize that differing brain stem infarct patterns contribute to outcome differences between these stroke etiologies. METHODS: This retrospective study includes 199 consecutive patients with BAO who received endovascular treatment at a single center...

The rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM) is a crucial structure in the descending pain modulatory system, playing a key role as a relay for both the facilitation and inhibition of pain. The chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) model has been widely used to study stress-induced behavioral impairments associated with depression in rodents. Several studies suggest that CSDS also causes changes related to chronic pain. In this study, we aimed to investigate the involvement of the RVM in CSDS-induced behavioral impairments, including those associated with chronic pain...

It has been found that CD226 plays an important role in regulating macrophage function, but its expression and function in macrophages during renal fibrogenesis have not been studied. Our data demonstrated that CD226 expression in macrophages was obviously upregulated in the unilateral ureteral obstruction model, while CD226 deficiency attenuated collagen deposition in renal interstitium along with fewer M1 within renal cortex and renal medulla and a lower level of proinflammatory factors compared to that of control littermates...

The kidneys maintain fluid-electrolyte balance and excrete waste in the presence of constant fluctuations in plasma volume and systemic blood pressure. The kidneys perform these functions to control capillary perfusion and glomerular filtration by modulating the mechanisms of autoregulation. An effect of these modulations are spontaneous, natural fluctuations in nephron perfusion. Numerous other mechanisms can lead to fluctuations in perfusion and flow. The ability to monitor these spontaneous physiological fluctuations in vivo could facilitate the early detection of kidney disease...

Although salivation is essential during eating behavior, little is known about the brainstem centers that directly control the salivary glands. With regard to the inferior salivatory nucleus (ISN), the site of origin of the parasympathetic preganglionic cell bodies that innervate the parotid glands, previous anatomical studies have located it within the rostrodorsal medullary reticular formation. However, to date there is no functional data that shows the secretory nature of the somas grouped in this region...

Pheochromocytoma and paragangliomas (PPGLs) originate from the chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla or neural crest progenitors outside the adrenal gland, respectively. The estimated annual incidence of PPGL is between 2.0-8.0/million adults. Minimal data exist on the impact of PPGL from the patient perspective. Therefore, a survey was adapted from a previously published study on gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors to explore the voice of patients with PPGL and learn ways to improved clinical care while understanding the current gaps to direct future research...

The rabbit is widely used as a laboratory animal in experimental models of kidney diseases. This species is also important from a veterinary perspective as a companion animal. Stereology has been accepted as an accurate approach to kidney morphometry. The objective of the present project was to provide normal quantitative stereological parameters for adult rabbit kidneys. The left kidneys of five adult male New Zealand rabbits were used. Isotropic sections were obtained using the orientation method. Total kidney volume was calculated by the Cavalieri principle...

Hiccups, also known as singultus, are involuntary spasms of the diaphragm muscle followed by laryngeal closure involving a reflex arc. It is a relatively common phenomenon, usually transient and self-limiting. However, in medical settings, it could be much more serious and is often a sign of underlying pathology. When hiccups last for over 48 hours, they are referred to as persistent hiccups, and if they persist for more than a month, they are known as intractable hiccups. Current pharmacologic treatment of persistent or intractable hiccups mainly includes antidopaminergic drugs, which specifically antagonize the dopamine D2 receptor...

BACKGROUND: The lateral habenula (LHb) is an epithalamus nucleus that is evolutionarily conserved and involved in various physiological functions, such as encoding value signals, integrating emotional information, and regulating related behaviors. The cells in the LHb are predominantly glutamatergic and have heterogeneous functions in response to different stimuli. The circuitry connections of the LHb glutamatergic neurons play a crucial role in integrating a wide range of events. However, the circuitry connections of LHb glutamatergic neurons in both sexes have not been thoroughly investigated...