A fiber-optic refractive index (RI) sensor based on a long period fiber grating (LPFG) coated with a zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film was fabricated and characterized. A method to overcoat the LPFG's with ...a homogeneous ZnO thin films was developed.
Characterization of ZnO thin films, deposited simultaneously on silicon (Si) planar substrates, was performed using Scanning Electron Microscope, Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy. The LPFGs with ZnO coatings from 29 to 145nm of thickness were characterized and compared in terms of the wavelength shift and the intensity of the attenuation bands changing the surrounding refractive index (SRI) from 1.300 to 1.600. An average wavelength sensitivity of ∼7162nm/RIU was achieved in the RI range from 1.440 to 1.456 and more than 12,000nm/RIU at 1.440 RI. Using a ZnO film thickness of 116nm and in the RI region between 1.320 and 1.360 the average sensitivity of ∼806nm/RIU was measured for a 145nm thick film. Working as an intensity sensing device, the 87nm coated LPFG shows a linear sensitivity of 216.4dB/RIU in a wide range of RI from 1.340 to 1.420.
There has been an increased interest of the scientific community in cannabis and its constituents for therapeutic purposes. Although it is believed that cannabinoids can be effective for a few ...different conditions and syndromes, there are little objective data that clearly support the use of cannabis, cannabis extracts or even cannabidiol (CBD) oil.
This review aims to explore the therapeutic potential of phytocannabinoids and synthetic cannabinoids for the treatment of several diseases. A broad search covering the past five years, was performed in PubMed and ClinicalTrial.gov databases, to identify papers focusing on the use of medical phytocannabinoids in terms of tolerability, efficacy and safety.
Accordingly, there are preclinical data supporting the use of phytocannabinoids and synthetic cannabinoids for the management of neurological pathologies, acute and chronical pain, cancer, psychiatric disorders and chemotherapy-induced emetic symptoms. However, regarding the clinical trials, most of the collected data do not fully support the use of cannabinoids in the treatment of such conditions. Consequently, more studies are still needed to clarify ascertain if the use of these compounds is useful in the management of different pathologies.
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Parkinson's disease (PD) affects around ten million people worldwide and is considered the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's disease. In addition, there is a higher ...risk incidence in the elderly population. The main PD hallmarks include the loss of dopaminergic neurons and the development of Lewy bodies. Unfortunately, motor symptoms only start to appear when around 50-70% of dopaminergic neurons have already been lost. This particularly poses a huge challenge for early diagnosis and therapeutic effectiveness. Actually, pharmaceutical therapy is able to relief motor symptoms, but as the disease progresses motor complications and severe side-effects start to appear. In this review, we explore the research conducted so far in order to repurpose drugs for PD with the use of nanodelivery systems, alternative administration routes, and nanotheranostics. Overall, studies have demonstrated great potential for these nanosystems to target the brain, improve drug pharmacokinetic profile, and decrease side-effects.
Summary
We present an efficient approach to compute the matrices used in finite element formulations where self‐equilibrated (zero divergence) approximations of the stress field are used. The ...fundamental aspect of this approach is that it is applicable to polynomial approximations of high degree (it was tested up to degree 10), providing closed‐form expressions for the elementary matrices involved. The components of the stress field are defined as a function of the coordinates in the master element, facilitating the postprocessing of the finite element results and allowing for the consideration of geometric parameters in reduced order models.
Depression in the context of bipolar disorder (BDd) is often misdiagnosed as unipolar disorder depression (UDd) leading to poor clinical outcomes for many bipolar sufferers. We examined neural ...circuitry supporting emotion regulation in females with either BDd or UDd as a first stage toward identifying biomarkers that may differentiate BDd from UDd.
Fifty-seven females aged 18-45 years participated in this study: 23 with UDd, 18 with bipolar disorder type I depression (BDId) and 16 healthy females. During 3-T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the participants performed an emotional face n-back (EFNBACK) task, that is an n-back task with high (2-back) and low (0-back) memory load conditions flanked by two positive, negative or neutral face distracters. This paradigm examines executive control with emotional distracters-emotion regulation.
High memory load with neutral face distracters elicited greater bilateral and left dorsal anterior midcingulate cortex (dAMCC) activity in UDd than in healthy and BDId females respectively, and greater bilateral putamen activity in both depressed groups versus healthy females. High memory load with happy face distracters elicited greater left putamen activity in UDd than in healthy females. Psychotropic medication was associated with greater putamen activity to these contrasts in UDd females.
During high memory load with neutral face distracters, elevated dAMCC activity in UDd suggests abnormal recruitment of attentional control circuitry to maintain task performance, whereas elevated putamen activity unrelated to psychotropic medication in BDId females may suggest an attentional bias toward ambiguous neutral face distracters. Differential patterns of functional abnormalities in neural circuitry supporting attentional control during emotion regulation, especially in the dAMCC, is a promising neuroimaging measure to distinguish UDd from BDId in females.
While freezing of gait (FOG) is typically considered a motor impairment, the fact that it occurs more frequently in confined spaces suggests that perception of space might contribute to FOG. The ...present study evaluated how doorway size influenced characteristics of gait that might be indicative of freezing. Changes in spatiotemporal aspects of gait were evaluated while walking through three different-sized doorways (narrow (0.675 m wide x 2.1 m high), normal (0.9 m wide x 2.1 m high) and wide (1.8 m wide x 2.1 m high)) in three separate groups: 15 individuals with Parkinson's disease confirmed to be experiencing FOG at the time of test; 16 non-FOG individuals with Parkinson's disease and 16 healthy age-matched control participants. Results for step length indicated that the FOG group was most affected by the narrow doorway and was the only group whose step length was dependent on upcoming doorway size as indicated by a significant interaction of group by condition (F(4,88)=2.73, p<0.034). Importantly, the FOG group also displayed increased within-trial variability of step length and step time, which was exaggerated as doorway size decreased (F(4,88)=2.99, p<0.023). A significant interaction between group and condition for base of support measures indicated that the non-FOG participants were also affected by doorway size (similar to Parkinson's disease FOG) but only in the narrow doorway condition. These results support the notion that some occurrences of freezing may be the result of an underlying perceptual mechanism that interferes with online movement planning.
Introduction
Recent evidences suggest that situations of abandonment, neglect and abuse are risks factores for onset of psychopatology in adulthood. This association occus in that traumatic events in ...the early stages of development and may trigger severe and disabling psychiatric disorders in adults.
Objectives
The presente study aimed to evaluate the associations between the occurence and severity of chidhood trauma and the development of psychiatric disorders in hospitalized teenagers of the Hospital Psychiatric Vida Londrina/Pr.
Methods
The sample was consisted of 14 psychiatric patients, evaluated for severity of psychiatric symtoms by the Back Scale for Suicid Ideation (BSI); Beck Depression Inventory (BDI); Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI); Back Hopelessness Scale (HAD) and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11).
Results
In the sample studie, 84% of the teenegers reports that they had some type of childhood trauma. The results indicate that traumas are associated mainly with the development of mood disorders and also with increasin severity of psychiatric symptoms, specially the depressive symptoms, hopelessness, suicidal ideation and impulsivity. Teenagers with emocional neglect, emocional abuse and physical neglect demonstrated having five times more risk of personality disorder. Individuals who suffered physical abuse; sexual abuse and physical neglect presentes at three times more risk of commiting suicid attemps.
Conclusions
These data demonstrate the relevance of trauma childhood as a trigger for psychiatric symptoms.
Disclosure of Interest
None Declared
The primary aim of this viewpoint article is to examine recent literature on fetal and neonatal processing of music. In particular, we examine the behavioral, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging ...literature describing fetal and neonatal music perception and processing to the first days of term equivalent life. Secondly, in light of the recent systematic reviews published on this topic, we discuss the impact of music interventions on the potential neuroplasticity pathways through which the early exposure to music, live or recorded, may impact the fetal, preterm, and full-term infant brain. We conclude with recommendations for music stimuli selection and its role within the framework of early socioemotional development and environmental enrichment.
Introduction
Gait impairment is common in neurodegenerative disorders. Specifically, gait variability—the stride‐to‐stride fluctuations in distance and time—has been associated with neurodegeneration ...and cognitive impairment. However, quantitative comparisons of gait impairments across the cognitive spectrum of dementias have not been systematically investigated.
Methods
Older adults (N = 500) with subjective cognitive impairment, Parkinson disease (PD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), PD‐MCI, Alzheimer's disease (AD), PD‐dementia, Lewy body dementia, and frontotemporal dementia, as well cognitive normal controls, who were assessed for their gait and cognitive performance.
Results
Factor analyses grouped 11 quantitative gait parameters and identified four independent gait domains: rhythm, pace, variability, and postural control, for group comparisons and classification analysis. Among these domains, only high gait variability was associated with lower cognitive performance and accurately discriminated AD from other neurodegenerative and cognitive conditions.
Discussion
Our findings indicate that high gait variability is a marker of cognitive‐cortical dysfunction, which can help to identify Alzheimer's disease dementia.
Preparation of sophisticated delivery systems for nanomedicine applications generally involve multi-step procedures using organic solvents. In this study, we have developed a simple self-assembling ...process to prepare docetaxel-loaded hyaluronic acid (HA) nanocapsules by using a self-emulsification process without the need of organic solvents, heat or high shear forces. These nanocapsules, which comprise an oily core and a shell consisting of an assembly of surfactants and hydrophobically modified HA, have a mean size of 130 nm, a zeta potential of -20 mV, and exhibit high docetaxel encapsulation efficiency. The nanocapsules exhibited an adequate stability in plasma. Furthermore, in vitro studies performed using A549 lung cancer cells, showed effective intracellular delivery of docetaxel. On the other hand, blank nanocapsules showed very low cytotoxicity. Overall, these results highlight the potential of self-emulsifying HA nanocapsules for intracellular drug delivery.
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