Neural Plasticity最新文献

{"title":"Experimental Imaging Study of Encephalomalacia Fluid-Attenuated Inversion Recovery (FLAIR) Hyperintense Lesions in Posttraumatic Epilepsy.","authors":"Dan Wang,&nbsp;Kai Shang,&nbsp;Zheng Sun,&nbsp;Yue-Hua Li","doi":"10.1155/2021/2678379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/2678379","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study introduced new MRI techniques such as neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI); NODDI applies a three-compartment tissue model to multishell DWI data that allows the examination of both the intra- and extracellular properties of white matter tissue. This, in turn, enables us to distinguish the two key aspects of axonal pathology-the packing density of axons in the white matter and the spatial organization of axons (orientation dispersion (OD)). NODDI is used to detect possible abnormalities of posttraumatic encephalomalacia fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) hyperintense lesions in neurite density and dispersion. <i>Methods</i>. 26 epilepsy patients associated with FLAIR hyperintensity around the trauma encephalomalacia region were in the epilepsy group. 18 posttraumatic patients with a FLAIR hyperintense encephalomalacia region were in the nonepilepsy group. Neurite density and dispersion affection in FLAIR hyperintense lesions around encephalomalacia were measured by NODDI using intracellular volume fraction (ICVF), and we compare these findings with conventional diffusion MRI parameters, namely, fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). Differences were compared between the epilepsy and nonepilepsy groups, as well as in the FLAIR hyperintense part and in the FLAIR hypointense part to try to find neurite density and dispersion differences in these parts. <i>Results</i>. ICVF of FLAIR hyperintense lesions in the epilepsy group was significantly higher than that in the nonepilepsy group (<i>P</i> < 0.001). ICVF reveals more information of FLAIR(+) and FLAIR(-) parts of encephalomalacia than OD and FA and ADC. <i>Conclusion</i>. The FLAIR hyperintense part around encephalomalacia in the epilepsy group showed higher ICVF, indicating that this part may have more neurite density and dispersion and may be contributing to epilepsy. NODDI indicated high neurite density with the intensity of myelin in the FLAIR hyperintense lesion. Therefore, NODDI likely shows that neurite density may be a more sensitive marker of pathology than FA.</p>","PeriodicalId":51299,"journal":{"name":"Neural Plasticity","volume":" ","pages":"2678379"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8572636/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39711844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spinal Cord Stimulation and Treatment of Peripheral or Central Neuropathic Pain: Mechanisms and Clinical Application.","authors":"Liting Sun,&nbsp;Changgeng Peng,&nbsp;Elbert Joosten,&nbsp;Chi Wai Cheung,&nbsp;Fei Tan,&nbsp;Wencheng Jiang,&nbsp;Xiafeng Shen","doi":"10.1155/2021/5607898","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5607898","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) as an evidence-based interventional treatment has been used and approved for clinical use in a variety of pathological states including peripheral neuropathic pain; however, until now, it has not been used for the treatment of spinal cord injury- (SCI-) induced central neuropathic pain. This paper reviews the underlying mechanisms of SCS-induced analgesia and its clinical application in the management of peripheral and central neuropathic pain. Evidence from recent research publications indicates that nociceptive processing at peripheral and central sensory systems is thought to be modulated by SCS through (i) inhibition of the ascending nociceptive transmission by the release of analgesic neurotransmitters such as GABA and endocannabinoids at the spinal dorsal horn; (ii) facilitation of the descending inhibition by release of noradrenalin, dopamine, and serotonin acting on their receptors in the spinal cord; and (iii) activation of a variety of supraspinal brain areas related to pain perception and emotion. These insights into the mechanisms have resulted in the clinically approved use of SCS in peripheral neuropathic pain states like Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBSS). However, the mechanisms underlying SCS-induced pain relief in central neuropathic pain are only partly understood, and more research is needed before this therapy can be implemented in SCI patients with central neuropathic pain.</p>","PeriodicalId":51299,"journal":{"name":"Neural Plasticity","volume":" ","pages":"5607898"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8553441/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39579430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Levodopa Challenge Test Predicts STN-DBS Outcomes in Various Parkinson's Disease Motor Subtypes: A More Accurate Judgment.","authors":"Zijian Zheng,&nbsp;Zixiao Yin,&nbsp;Bohan Zhang,&nbsp;Houyou Fan,&nbsp;Dan Liu,&nbsp;Yuancheng Zhou,&nbsp;Jian Duan,&nbsp;Dongwei Zhou,&nbsp;Xi Wu,&nbsp;Guohui Lu","doi":"10.1155/2021/4762027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/4762027","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The relationship between the levodopa challenge test (LDCT) and postoperative subthalamic nucleus-deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) benefits is controversial in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). We aim to evaluate the value of total levodopa response (TLR) and symptom levodopa response (SLR) in predicting postoperative improvement in different PD motor subtypes.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Studies were split into a training set (147 patients) and a validation set (304 patients). We retrospectively collected data from 147 patients who received the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale- (UPDRS-) III and the Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire- (PDQ-) 39 evaluation. Patients were classified into tremor-dominant (TD), akinetic-rigid-dominant (AR), and mixed (MX) groups. Clinically important difference (CID) was employed to dichotomize DBS effects. For patients in each subtype group from the training set, we used the correlation and receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analyses to explore the strength of their relations. Areas under the curve (AUCs) were calculated and compared through the DeLong test. Results developed from the training set were applied into the validation set to predict postoperative improvement in different PD motor subtypes.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In the validation cohort, TLR significantly correlated with postoperative motor (<i>p</i> < 0.001) and quality of life (QOL) (<i>p</i> < 0.001) improvement in the MX group. The AUC between TLR and UPDRS-III (TU) is 0.800. The AUC between TLR and PDQ-39 (TP) is 0.770. An associated criterion in both TU and TP is around 50%. In the AR group, strong correlation was only found in SLR and PDQ-39 (SP) (<i>p</i> < 0.001). And the AUC of SP is significantly larger than that in TLR and PDQ-39 (TP) (<i>p</i> = 0.034). An associated criterion in SP is around 37%. No significant correlation was found in the TD group.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>We provide a more accurate judgment for LDCT. TLR strongly correlated with postoperative UPDRS-III and PDQ-39 improvement in MX patients. A TLR > 50% may indicate a higher possibility of clinically meaningful benefits from STN-DBS comparing to medication only. SLR can well predict QOL improvement in AR patients. Similarly, a SLR > 37% may indicate a higher possibility of clinically significant benefits from STN-DBS. LDCT provides limited information for TD patients.</p>","PeriodicalId":51299,"journal":{"name":"Neural Plasticity","volume":" ","pages":"4762027"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8553443/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39579514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Protective Role of E-64d in Hippocampal Excitotoxic Neuronal Injury Induced by Glutamate in HT22 Hippocampal Neuronal Cells.","authors":"RuiJin Xie,&nbsp;TianXiao Li,&nbsp;XinYu Qiao,&nbsp;HuiYa Mei,&nbsp;GuoQin Hu,&nbsp;LongFei Li,&nbsp;Chenyu Sun,&nbsp;Ce Cheng,&nbsp;Yin Cui,&nbsp;Ni Hong,&nbsp;Yueying Liu","doi":"10.1155/2021/7174287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/7174287","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Epilepsy is the most common childhood neurologic disorder. Status epilepticus (SE), which refers to continuous epileptic seizures, occurs more frequently in children than in adults, and approximately 40-50% of all cases occur in children under 2 years of age. Conventional antiepileptic drugs currently used in clinical practice have a number of adverse side effects. Drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) can progressively develop in children with persistent SE, necessitating the development of novel therapeutic drugs. During SE, the persistent activation of neurons leads to decreased glutamate clearance with corresponding glutamate accumulation in the synaptic extracellular space, increasing the chance of neuronal excitotoxicity. Our previous study demonstrated that after developmental seizures in rats, E-64d exerts a neuroprotective effect on the seizure-induced brain damage by modulating lipid metabolism enzymes, especially ApoE and ApoJ/clusterin. In this study, we investigated the impact and mechanisms of E-64d administration on neuronal excitotoxicity. To test our hypothesis that E-64d confers neuroprotective effects by regulating autophagy and mitochondrial pathway activity, we simulated neuronal excitotoxicity in vitro using an immortalized hippocampal neuron cell line (HT22). We found that E-64d improved cell viability while reducing oxidative stress and neuronal apoptosis. In addition, E-64d treatment regulated mitochondrial pathway activity and inhibited chaperone-mediated autophagy in HT22 cells. Our findings indicate that E-64d may alleviate glutamate-induced damage via regulation of mitochondrial fission and apoptosis, as well as inhibition of chaperone-mediated autophagy. Thus, E-64d may be a promising therapeutic treatment for hippocampal injury associated with SE.</p>","PeriodicalId":51299,"journal":{"name":"Neural Plasticity","volume":" ","pages":"7174287"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8550833/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39579431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enhanced Temporal Coupling between Thalamus and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Mediates Chronic Low Back Pain and Depression.","authors":"Hong Li,&nbsp;Qiaoyan Song,&nbsp;Ruya Zhang,&nbsp;Youlong Zhou,&nbsp;Yazhuo Kong","doi":"10.1155/2021/7498714","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/7498714","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Numerous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the brain plasticity is associated with chronic low back pain (cLBP). However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the underlying mechanisms of thalamic pathways for chronic pain and psychological effects in cLBP caused by lumbar disc herniation (LDH). Combining psychophysics and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we investigated the structural and functional brain plasticity in 36 patients with LDH compared with 38 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. We found that (1) LDH patients had increased psychophysical disturbs (i.e., depression and anxiety), and depression (Beck-Depression Inventory, BDI) was found to be an outstanding significant factor to predict chronic pain (short form of the McGill Pain Questionnaire, SF-MPQ); (2) the LDH group showed significantly smaller fractional anisotropy values in the region of posterior corona radiate while gray matter volumes were comparable in both groups; (3) resting state functional connectivity analysis revealed that LDH patients exhibited increased temporal coupling between the thalamus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which further mediate the relationship from chronic pain to depression. Our results emphasized that thalamic pathways underlying prefrontal cortex might play a key role in regulating chronic pain and depression of the pathophysiology of LDH.</p>","PeriodicalId":51299,"journal":{"name":"Neural Plasticity","volume":" ","pages":"7498714"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8519723/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39527388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Longitudinal Changes of Sensorimotor Resting-State Functional Connectivity Differentiate between Patients with Thalamic Infarction and Pontine Infarction.","authors":"Peipei Wang,&nbsp;Zhenxiang Zang,&nbsp;Miao Zhang,&nbsp;Yanxiang Cao,&nbsp;Zhilian Zhao,&nbsp;Yi Shan,&nbsp;Qingfeng Ma,&nbsp;Jie Lu","doi":"10.1155/2021/7031178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/7031178","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Purpos</i>e. We investigated the disparate influence of lesion location on functional damage and reorganization of the sensorimotor brain network in patients with thalamic infarction and pontine infarction. <i>Methods</i>. Fourteen patients with unilateral infarction of the thalamus and 14 patients with unilateral infarction of the pons underwent longitudinal fMRI measurements and motor functional assessment five times during a 6-month period (<7 days, at 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after stroke onset). Twenty-five age- and sex-matched controls underwent MRI examination across five consecutive time points in 6 months. Functional images from patients with left hemisphere lesions were first flipped from the left to the right side. The voxel-wise connectivity analyses between the reference time course of each ROI (the contralateral dorsal lateral putamen (dl-putamen), pons, ventral anterior (VA), and ventral lateral (VL) nuclei of the thalamus) and the time course of each voxel in the sensorimotor area were performed for all five measurements. One-way ANOVA was used to identify between-group differences in functional connectivity (FC) at baseline stage (<7 days after stroke onset), with infarction volume included as a nuisance variable. The family-wise error (FWE) method was used to account for multiple comparison issues using SPM software. Post hoc repeated-measure ANOVA was applied to examine longitudinal FC reorganization. <i>Results</i>. At baseline stage, significant differences were detected between the contralateral VA and ipsilateral postcentral gyrus (cl_VA-ip_postcentral), contralateral VL and ipsilateral precentral gyrus (cl_VL-ip_precentral). Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that the FC change of cl_VA-ip_postcentral differ significantly among the three groups over time. The significant changes of FC between cl_VA and ip_postcentral at different time points in the thalamic infarction group showed that compared with 7 days after stroke onset, there was significantly increased FC of cl_VA-ip_postcentral at 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after stroke onset. <i>Conclusions</i>. The different patterns of sensorimotor functional damage and reorganization in patients with pontine infarction and thalamic infarction may provide insights into the neural mechanisms underlying functional recovery after stroke.</p>","PeriodicalId":51299,"journal":{"name":"Neural Plasticity","volume":" ","pages":"7031178"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8519702/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39528446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Electroacupuncture Promotes the Survival of the Grafted Human MGE Neural Progenitors in Rats with Cerebral Ischemia by Promoting Angiogenesis and Inhibiting Inflammation.","authors":"Juan Li,&nbsp;Luting Chen,&nbsp;Danping Li,&nbsp;Min Lu,&nbsp;Xiaolin Huang,&nbsp;Xiaohua Han,&nbsp;Hong Chen","doi":"10.1155/2021/4894881","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/4894881","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Stem cells have the potential as a regenerative therapy for cerebral ischemia by improving functional outcomes. However, cell transplantation has some limitations, including a low rate of the grafted cell survival. There is still a major challenge of promoting the harmonious symbiosis between grafted cells and the host. Acupuncture can effectively improve the functional outcome after cerebral ischemia. The present study evaluated the therapeutic effects and explored the mechanism of combined medial ganglionic eminence (MGE) neural progenitors differentiated from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) with electroacupuncture (EA) in a bilateral common carotid artery occlusion (2VO) rat model. The results showed that EA could promote the survival of the grafted MGE neural progenitors differentiated from hESCs and alleviate learning and memory impairment in rats with cerebral ischemia. This may have partially resulted from inhibited expression of TNF-<i>α</i> and IL-1<i>β</i> and increased vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression and blood vessel density in the hippocampus. Our findings indicated that EA could promote the survival of the grafted MGE neural progenitors and enhance transplantation therapy's efficacy by promoting angiogenesis and inhibiting inflammation.</p>","PeriodicalId":51299,"journal":{"name":"Neural Plasticity","volume":" ","pages":"4894881"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8516583/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39528445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Functional Restoration following Global Cerebral Ischemia in Juvenile Mice following Inhibition of Transient Receptor Potential M2 (TRPM2) Ion Channels.","authors":"Robert M Dietz,&nbsp;James E Orfila,&nbsp;Nicholas Chalmers,&nbsp;Crystal Minjarez,&nbsp;Jose Vigil,&nbsp;Guying Deng,&nbsp;Nidia Quillinan,&nbsp;Paco S Herson","doi":"10.1155/2021/8774663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/8774663","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Hippocampal cell death and cognitive dysfunction are common following global cerebral ischemia across all ages, including children. Most research has focused on preventing neuronal death. Restoration of neuronal function after cell death is an alternative approach (neurorestoration). We previously identified transient receptor potential M2 (TRPM2) ion channels as a potential target for acute neuroprotection and delayed neurorestoration in an adult CA/CPR mouse model. Cardiac arrest/cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CA/CPR) in juvenile (p20-25) mice was used to investigate the role of ion TRPM2 channels in neuroprotection and ischemia-induced synaptic dysfunction in the developing brain. Our novel TRPM2 inhibitor, tatM2NX, did not confer protection against CA1 pyramidal cell death but attenuated synaptic plasticity (long-term plasticity (LTP)) deficits in both sexes. Further, <i>in vivo</i> administration of tatM2NX two weeks after CA/CPR reduced LTP impairments and restored memory function. These data provide evidence that pharmacological synaptic restoration of the surviving hippocampal network can occur independent of neuroprotection via inhibition of TRPM2 channels, providing a novel strategy to improve cognitive recovery in children following cerebral ischemia. Importantly, these data underscore the importance of age-appropriate models in disease research.</p>","PeriodicalId":51299,"journal":{"name":"Neural Plasticity","volume":" ","pages":"8774663"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8514917/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39527389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Interactions between Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and Autophagy: Implications for Apoptosis and Neuroplasticity-Related Proteins in Palmitic Acid-Treated Prefrontal Cells.","authors":"Xiangli Xue,&nbsp;Feng Li,&nbsp;Ming Cai,&nbsp;Jingyun Hu,&nbsp;Qian Wang,&nbsp;Shujie Lou","doi":"10.1155/2021/8851327","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/8851327","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Lipotoxicity of palmitic acid (PA) or high-fat diets has been reported to increase endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and autophagy in peripheral tissue as well as apoptotic cell death. It also can lead to an AD-like pathological pattern. However, it has been unknown that PA-induced ER stress and autophagy are involved in the regulation of neuroplastic abnormalities. Here, we investigated the roles of ER stress and autophagy in apoptosis and neuroplasticity-related protein expression in PA-treated prefrontal cells. Prefrontal cells dissected from newborn Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with PA compound with ER stress inhibitor 4-phenylbutyric acid (4-PBA) and autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3-MA) or PA alone. PA promoted ER stress and autophagy and also cause apoptosis as well as a decline in the expression of neuroplasticity-related proteins. Inhibition of ER stress decreased the expressions of neuroplasticity-related proteins and reduced autophagy activation and apoptosis in PA-treated prefrontal cells. Inhibition of autophagy exacerbated apoptosis and enhanced ER stress in PA-treated prefrontal cells. The present study illustrated that both ER stress and autophagy could be involved in apoptosis and decreased neuroplasticity-related proteins, and the interaction between ER stress and autophagy may play a critical role in apoptosis in PA-treated prefrontal cells. Our results provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms in vitro of lipotoxicity in obesity-related cognitive dysfunction.</p>","PeriodicalId":51299,"journal":{"name":"Neural Plasticity","volume":" ","pages":"8851327"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8505096/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39515503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Effect of Mental Fatigue and Gender on Working Memory Performance during Repeated Practice by Young and Older Adults.","authors":"Valentina Pergher,&nbsp;Nele Vanbilsen,&nbsp;Marc Van Hulle","doi":"10.1155/2021/6612805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6612805","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Working memory (WM) is one of the most investigated cognitive functions albeit the extent to which individual characteristics impact on performance is still unclear, especially when older adults are involved. The present study considers repeated practice of a visual <i>N</i>-Back task with three difficulty levels (1-, 2-, and 3-Back) in healthy young and older individuals. Our results reveal that, for both age groups, the expected mental fatigue was countered by a learning effect, in terms of accuracies and reaction times, which turned out to benefit females more than males, for all three <i>N</i>-Back levels. We conclude that future WM studies, in particular when relying on repeated <i>N</i>-Back sessions, should account for learning effects in relation to mental fatigue and gender, in both young and older adults.</p>","PeriodicalId":51299,"journal":{"name":"Neural Plasticity","volume":" ","pages":"6612805"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8505107/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39515501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}