Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a multifactorial disease affecting approximately 1-4% of teenagers especially girls at the age of 10-16, but its etiopathogenesis remains uncertain. Previous study has revealed that the cortical thickness in AIS patients is different from that in normal controls. Cortical thickness measurements are known to be strongly correlated between regions that are...

BACKGROUND In contrast to the well-characterized body growth and development of females with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), the pubertal growth pattern of male patients has not been well-documented. Recently, significantly lower body weight (BW) and body mass index (BMI) were reported in males with AIS, and were thought to be related to curve progression. A case-control study was carrie...

Alterations in synaptic input, persisting for hours to days, elicit homeostatic plastic changes in the axon initial segment (AIS), which is pivotal for spike generation. Here, in hippocampal pyramidal neurons of both primary cultures and slices, we triggered a unique form of AIS plasticity by selectively targeting M-type K+ channels, which predominantly localize to the AIS and are essential for...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to examine the association between serum level of chemerin with AIS and carotid artery atherosclerosis, and to investigate the level of chemerin as a potential novel cerebrovascular risk factor. MATERIAL AND METHODS We compared the serum chemerin levels and cerebrovascular parameters between 70 AIS patients and 70 non-AIS subjects in a Chinese population. ...

The axon initial segment (AIS), the domain responsible for action potential initiation and maintenance of neuronal polarity, is targeted for disruption in a variety of central nervous system pathological insults. Previous work in our laboratory implicates oxidative stress as a potential mediator of structural AIS alterations in two separate mouse models of central nervous system inflammation, a...

Abnormalities in the melatonin signaling pathway and the involvement of melatonin receptor MT2 have been reported in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS). Whether these abnormalities were involved in the systemic abnormal skeletal growth in AIS during the peripubertal period remain unknown. In this cross-sectional case-control study, growth plate chondrocytes (GPCs) were cultured...

Accumulating evidence suggests that extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling plays a significant role following acute ischemic stroke (AIS). Decorin (DCN) is a well-recognized molecule present in the ECM; however, the role of DCN in AIS remains unknown. The present study aimed to investigate whether plasma concentrations of DCN are altered in patients following an AIS and whether they are correlat...

BACKGROUND Women with breast cancer treated with aromatase inhibitors (AIs) may experience musculoskeletal symptoms that lead to discontinuation of effective therapy. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate the clinical and genetic predictors for AIs-related musculoskeletal adverse events(MS-AEs). METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We recruited 436 postmenopausal Chinese Han women rec...

In the developed world, the incidence of cervical squamous cell carcinoma has decreased, however, the incidence of adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS) and invasive adenocarcinoma increased, predominantly in young females. The goal of this study was to evaluate the most recent incidence rates of AIS, adenocarcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix in the Netherlands in 2004-2013. By u...

The semantic web has created various exciting opportunities to explore. Here we present a nature inspired solution to one such opportunity; that of semantic queries for information retrieval. We take our inspiration from the human immune system and develop an analogy between antibodies and queries. Successful antibodies are those that are activated by an infection. These antibodies are stimulat...