History of anatomy is as long as the history of medicine itself. Development of this basic science was not possible without the dedicative effort of those physicians and scholars who were committed ...to discover the mysteries of human anatomy. In this regard, Iranian scholars played an important role in the development of the anatomical sciences despite the religious limitations in their societies. Mansur ibn Ilyas Shirazi is an Iranian physician of fourteenth century who wrote the first color illustrated anatomical book,
Mansur’s Anatomy
. A considerable portion of the book has been dedicated to the central and peripheral nervous system so that he could be considered as one of the pioneers of neuroanatomy.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Neural precursor cells (NPCs) are a renewable cell source that can proliferate and expand for long periods of time and give rise to the main neural cell types of the central nervous system (CNS). ...Establishing simple and reproducible growth culture conditions is of great importance to study the biology of NPCs and to understand the molecular basis of their behavior in healthy and diseased conditions.Here, we describe a simple free-floating , serum-free culture condition, known as the neurosphere assay, which is the most commonly used method for the isolation and expansion of NPCs harvested from the adult and fetal CNS. This culture system will result in large numbers of undifferentiated NPC progenies that represents a useful cell source for many in vitro and in vivo applications.
The renewable source of neural stem cells (NSCs) with multi-lineage differentiation capability toward neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes represents an ideal supply for cell therapy of central ...nervous system (CNS) diseases. In spite of this, the clinical use of NSCs is hampered by heterogeneity, poor neuronal cell yield, predominant astrocytic differentiation of NSC progeny, and possible uncontrolled proliferation and tumor formation upon transplantation. The ability to generate highly enriched and defined neural cell populations from the renewable source of NSCs might overcome many of these impediments and pave the way toward their successful clinical applications.Here, we describe a simple method for NSC differentiation and subsequent purification of neuronal progenitor cells, taking advantage of size and granularity differences between neuronal cells and other NSC progeny. This highly enriched neuronal cell population provides an invaluable source of cells for both in vitro and in vivo studies.
Among the historical traditional medical texts, there are several hand-written manuscripts with the same structure and format on one topic. Two versions of these hand written manuscripts are under ...the titles of Al-Kafi Fi Al-Teb and Al-Kefaye Fi Elm Al-Teb, or briefly Al-Kefayeh which in the early sources is also referred to as Al-Qanon al-Saghir, attributed to Ibn Mandevaih. On the other hand, other versions of the Al-Qanon al- Saghir were attributed to Avicenna. Since it seems unlikely that these quite similar versions belong to two authors, it is necessary to figure out the actual writer of the work. This paper is a descriptive analysis of the existing evidence about Al-Qanon al-Saghirh and written scripts, comparing their structure and contents to similar works of Ibn Mandevaih, and Avicenna, to determine whether the author is the former or the latter, or both. After investigating historical documents, the investigators found that Al-Qanon al-Saghir was attributed to Ibn Mandevaih in early works and to Ibn-Sina in later works. The he similarities found in the structure and content of the two versions make it difficult to convince the researchers to consider each text as a separate book written by different authors. Moreover, contradictory findings presented in Al-Qanon al-Saghir to Avicenna’s famous works indicated that this book belongs to Ibn Mandevaih. The brief and comprehensive al-Qanon al-Saghir is not the summary of the extensive al-Qanon Fi Teb medical textbook by Avicenna but rather an entirely different book written by Ibn Mandevaih.
Heavy reliance on glucose metabolism and a reduced capacity to use ketone bodies makes glioblastoma (GBM) a promising candidate for ketone-based therapies. Ketogenic diet (KD) is well-known for its ...promising effects in controlling tumor growth in GBM. Moreover, synthetic ketone ester (KE) has demonstrated to increase blood ketone levels and enhance animal survival in a metastatic VM-M3 murine tumor model. Here, we compared the efficacy of a KE-supplemented Atkins-type diet (ATD-KE) to a classic KD in controlling tumor progression and enhancing survival in a clinically relevant orthotopic patient-derived xenograft GBM model. Our findings demonstrate that ATD-KE preserves body weight (percent change from the baseline; 112±2.99 vs. 116.9±2.52 and 104.8±3.67), decreases blood glucose (80.55±0.86 vs. 118.6±9.51 and 52.35±3.89 mg/dl), and increases ketone bodies in blood (1.15±0.03 mM vs. 0.55±0.04 and 2.66±0.21 mM) and brain tumor tissue (3.35±0.30 mM vs. 2.04±0.3 and 4.25±0.25 mM) comparable to the KD (results presented for ATD-KE vs. standard diet STD and KD, respectively). Importantly, the ATD-KE treatment significantly enhanced survival compared to the STD and was indistinguishable from the KD (47 days in STD vs. 56 days in KD and ATD-KE), suggesting that a nutritionally balanced low carbohydrate ATD combined with KE may be as effective as the KD alone in reducing brain tumor progression. Overall, these data support the rationale for clinical testing of KE-supplemented low-carb diet as an adjunct treatment for brain tumor patients.
Based on the clonal evolution model and the assumption that the vast majority of tumor cells are able to propagate and drive tumor growth, the goal of cancer treatment has traditionally been to kill ...all cancerous cells. This theory has been challenged recently by the cancer stem cell (CSC) hypothesis, that a rare population of tumor cells, with stem cell characteristics, is responsible for tumor growth, resistance, and recurrence. Evidence for putative CSCs has been described in blood, breast, lung, prostate, colon, liver, pancreas, and brain. This new hypothesis would propose that indiscriminate killing of cancer cells would not be as effective as selective targeting of the cells that are driving long-term growth (ie, the CSCs) and that treatment failure is often the result of CSCs escaping traditional therapies.The CSC hypothesis has gained a great deal of attention because of the identification of a new target that may be responsible for poor outcomes of many aggressive cancers, including malignant glioma. As attractive as this hypothesis sounds, especially when applied to tumors that respond poorly to current treatments, we will argue in this article that the proposal of a stemlike cell that initiates and drives solid tissue cancer growth and is responsible for therapeutic failure is far from proven. We will present the point of view that for most advanced solid tissue cancers such as glioblastoma multiforme, targeting a putative rare CSC population will have little effect on patient outcomes. This review will cover problems with the CSC hypothesis, including applicability of the hierarchical model, inconsistencies with xenotransplantation data, and nonspecificity of CSC markers.
Due to the importance of neural stem cells (NSCs) in plasticity of the nervous system and treating neurodegenerative diseases, the main goal of this study was to evaluate the effects of ...radiofrequency radiation emitted from a GSM 900-MHz mobile phone with different exposure duration on proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis of adult murine NSCs
. We used neurosphere assay to evaluate NSCs proliferation, and immunofluorescence assay of neural cell markers to examine NSCs differentiation. We also employed alamarBlue and caspase 3 apoptosis assays to assess harmful effects of mobile phone on NSCs. Our results showed that the number and size of resulting neurospheres and also the percentage of cells differentiated into neurons decreased significantly with increasing exposure duration to GSM 900-MHz radiofrequency (RF)-electromagnetic field (EMF). In contrast, exposure to GSM 900-MHz RF-EMF at different durations did not influence cell viability and apoptosis of NSCs and also their astrocytic differentiation. It is concluded that accumulating dose of GSM 900-MHz RF-EMF might have devastating effects on NSCs proliferation and neurogenesis requiring more causations in terms of using mobile devices.
Isolation and expansion of the putative neural stem cells (NSCs) from the adult murine brain was first described by Reynolds and Weiss in 1992 employing a chemically defined serum-free culture system ...known as the neurosphere assay (NSA). In this assay, the majority of differentiated cell types die within a few days of culture but a small population of growth factor responsive precursor cells undergo active proliferation in the presence of epidermal growth factor (EGF) and/ basic fibroblastic growth factor (bFGF). These cells form colonies of undifferentiated cells called neurospheres, which in turn can be subcultured to expand the pool of neural stem cells. Moreover, the cells can be induced to differentiate, generating the three major cell types of the CNS i.e. neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. This assay provides an invaluable tool to supply a consistent, renewable source of undifferentiated CNS precursors, which could be used for in vitro studies and also for therapeutic purposes. This video demonstrates the NSA method to generate and expand NSCs from the adult mouse periventricular region, and provides technical insights to ensure one can achieve reproducible neurosphere cultures. The procedure includes harvesting the brain from the adult mouse, micro-dissection of the periventricular region, tissue preparation and culture in the NSA. The harvested tissue is first chemically digested using trypsin-EDTA and then mechanically dissociated in NSC medium to achieve a single cell suspension and finally plated in the NSA. After 7-10 days in culture, the resulting primary neurospheres are ready for subculture to reach the amount of cells required for future experiments.
In mammalians, stem cells acts as a source of undifferentiated cells to maintain cell genesis and renewal in different tissues and organs during the life span of the animal. They can potentially ...replace cells that are lost in the aging process or in the process of injury and disease. The existence of neural stem cells (NSCs) was first described by Reynolds and Weiss (1992) in the adult mammalian central nervous system (CNS) using a novel serum-free culture system, the neurosphere assay (NSA). Using this assay, it is also feasible to isolate and expand NSCs from different regions of the embryonic CNS. These in vitro expanded NSCs are multipotent and can give rise to the three major cell types of the CNS. While the NSA seems relatively simple to perform, attention to the procedures demonstrated here is required in order to achieve reliable and consistent results. This video practically demonstrates NSA to generate and expand NSCs from embryonic day 14-mouse brain tissue and provides technical details so one can achieve reproducible neurosphere cultures. The procedure includes harvesting E14 mouse embryos, brain microdissection to harvest the ganglionic eminences, dissociation of the harvested tissue in NSC medium to gain a single cell suspension, and finally plating cells in NSA culture. After 5-7 days in culture, the resulting primary neurospheres are passaged to further expand the number of the NSCs for future experiments.
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