purpose: to present two patients with acute corneal hydrops, superimposed with infectious keratitis using topical steroids. patients and findings: the first case was a 44-year-old man with acute corneal hydrops in his left eye which was on topical steroids for one week. visual acuity was hand motion at presentation and there was a large epithelial defect with stromal infiltration and corneal ed...

conclusions exposure to formaldehyde vapor can destroy testicular structure and decrease percentages of sperm count and progressive motility. the present study indicated that a reduction in the percentage of progressive motile sperm may be potentiated by noise (700-5700 hz) in the simultaneous exposure to formaldehyde and noise group. thus, it can be anticipated that simultaneous exposure to fo...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE There have now been numerous phase III trials of neuroprotection that have failed to live up to the expectations created by preclinical testing in animal models, the most recent of which was the second pivotal trial of the spin trap agent NXY-059. We have reached a stage at which research in this area should stop altogether or radical new approaches adopted. The purpose o...

Ischemic preconditioning (IPC) via protein kinase C epsilon (PKCɛ) activation induces neuroprotection against lethal ischemia. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a pro-survival signaling molecule that modulates synaptic plasticity and neurogenesis. Interestingly, BDNF mRNA expression increases after IPC. In this study, we investigated whether IPC or pharmacological preconditioning (PKC...

C erebral neuroprotection for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) is defined as a therapy aimed at enhancing the brain's resilience to ischemia to improve the clinical outcome of affected individuals. Although traditionally aimed at the salvage of neurons, this term may be equally applicable to all the cellular constituents of the brain, including cells of cerebral blood vessels, neurons, and glia. Pha...

Chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 2 (CCL2), also known as monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, plays a critical role in leukocyte recruitment and activation. In the present study, we identify an additional role for CCL2 that of neuroprotection against HIV-1 transactivator protein (Tat) toxicity in rat primary midbrain neurons. Furthermore, we report the involvement of transient receptor potential can...

Ischemic tolerance in the brain, in which sub-threshold insults increase resistance to subsequent injurious ischemia, is a powerful adaptive defense that involves an endogenous program of neuroprotection. Emerging evidence from genomic studies suggests diverse stimuli that trigger preconditioning achieve neuroprotection through a common process which depends on a fundamental reprogramming of th...

Parkinson's disease (PD) manifests clinically as bradykinesia, rigidity, and development of a resting tremor, primarily due to degeneration of dopaminergic nigrostriatal pathways in the brain. Intranigral administration of the irreversible ubiquitin proteasome system inhibitor, lactacystin, has been used extensively to model nigrostriatal degeneration in rats, and study the effects of candidate...

Carbon monoxide neuroprotective role has been studied in a cell autonomous mode. Herein a new concept is disclosed: CO affects astrocyte-neuron communication in a paracrine manner towards neuroprotection. Neuronal survival was assessed whenever co-cultured with astrocytes pre-treated or not with CO. CO-pre-treated astrocytes reduced neuronal cell death and the cellular mechanisms were pursued, ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor is believed to mediate part of the ischemic neuronal damage caused by the excitatory amino acid glutamate. (+)SKF 10,047, the prototypic sigma-agonist, interacts with the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor. Therefore, we studied the neuroprotective effect of (+)SKF 10,047 on cultured rat cerebellar neurons and on CA1 hippocampal neurons of ger...