Carotid occlusions are associated with de novo intracranial aneurysm formation in clinical case reports, but this phenomenon is not widely studied. We performed bilateral carotid ligation (n=9) in rabbits to simulate carotid occlusion, and sham surgery (n=3) for control. Upon euthanasia (n=3 at 5 days, n=6 at 6 months post ligation, and n=3 at 5 days after sham operation), vascular corrosion ca...

OBJECTIVE To report a new manifestation of the rare connective tissue disorder arterial tortuosity syndrome in the absence of skin and soft-tissue abnormalities and with bilateral, giant fusiform intracranial aneurysms. DESIGN Case report. SETTING University teaching hospital. PATIENT A 67-year-old man with a history of hypertension presented to medical attention after a syncopal episode....

Extrasynaptic communication between neurons or neurons and glia is mediated by the diffusion of neuroactive substances in the volume of the extracellular space (ECS). The size and irregular geometry of the diffusion channels in the ECS substantially differ not only around individual cells but also in different CNS regions and thus affect and direct the movement of various neuroactive substances...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Prior studies suggest that aerobic exercise may reduce both the brain atrophy and the decline in fractional anisotropy observed with advancing age. It is reasonable to hypothesize that exercise-induced changes to the vasculature may underlie these anatomic differences. The purpose of this blinded study was to compare high-activity and low-activity healthy elderly voluntee...

Vacuum-induced surface freezing of colloidal alumina was used to produce membranes that have elongated, aligned channels and, hence, are tortuous in the direction perpendicular to ice crystal growth. The effective tortuosity of the membranes was measured by steady-state diffusion of a solute, methylene blue. The resulting diffusion profiles show an initial step-increase in amount of dye reachin...

Purpose. To report a new clinical finding related to Fabry disease. Methods. Fabry subjects were enrolled in the study, matched for age and sex with healthy individuals as a control group. This is a prospective review of all upper lid pictures taken for every subject at their last visit. A 4-step grading scale is proposed to classify this new entity. Results. Group A (Fabry) comprised 16 males ...

Changes in extracellular space (ECS) diffusion parameters, DC potentials and extracellular potassium concentration were studied during single and repeated cortical spreading depressions (SD) in 13-15 (P13-15), 21 (P21) and 90-day-old (adult) Wistar rats. The real-time iontophoretic method using tetramethylammonium (TMA+)-selective microelectrodes was employed to measure three ECS parameters in ...

The HANAC syndrome is caused by mutations in the gene coding for collagen4a1, a major component of blood vessel basement membranes. Ocular symptoms include an increase in blood vessel tortuosity and occasional hemorrhages. To examine how vascular defects can affect neuronal function, we analyzed the retinal phenotype of a HANAC mouse model. Heterozygous mutant mice displayed both a thinning of ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate associations between retinal microvascular changes and cognitive impairment in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus. DESIGN Case control study. SETTING A primary care cohort with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus. METHODS For this analysis, we compared 69 cases with lowest decile scores (for the cohort) on the Modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive ...

Over the last ten years, transradial cardiac catheterization has been increasingly applied, primarily because of its lower incidence of complications compared to the femoral approach. However, one of the greatest flaws of the transradial approach is a relatively high incidence of catheterization failure (1%-5%). Anatomic variations of radial artery are ranked second among the reasons for this. ...