The ability of divalent manganese to enter neurons via calcium channels makes manganese an excellent MRI contrast agent for the imaging of nociception, the afferent neuronal encoding of pain perception. There is growing evidence that nociceptive neurons possess increased expression and activity of calcium channels, which would allow for the selective accumulation of manganese at these sites. In...

A single unicast index coding problem (SUICP) with symmetric and consecutive interference (SCI) has K messages and K receivers, the kth receiver Rk wanting the kth message xk and having interference Ik = {xk−U−m, . . . , xk−m−2, xk−m−1}∪ {xk+m+1, xk+m+2, . . . , xk+m+D} and side-information Kk = (Ik∪xk) . In this paper, we derive a lowerbound on the broadcast rate of single unicast index coding...

SNi-like mechanisms, which involve front-face leaving group departure and nucleophile approach, have been observed experimentally and computationally in chemical and enzymatic substitution at α-glycosyl electrophiles. Since SNi-like, SN1 and SN2 substitution pathways can be energetically comparable, engineered switching could be feasible. Here, engineering of Sulfolobus solfataricus β-glycosida...

Introduction: As sex differences have been observed repeatedly in chronic pain, it is likely that the gonadal hormones are responsible for these differences. To investigate the responsible mechanism for chronic pain different models have been created. This study is examining the effects of gonadal hormones on nociceptive responses of the rats in CCI (chronic constriction injury) and SNI (spread...

Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) is a peptide involved in the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. CRF is distributed not only along the HPA axis but also throughout pain-relevant anatomical sites. CRF elicits potent antinociception at the three main levels of pain transmissions: namely, the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral sensory neurons. The widespread distribut...

BACKGROUND Peripheral nerve injury can result in neuropathic pain, a chronic condition of unclear cause often poorly responsive to current treatments. One possibility is that nerve injury disrupts large A-fiber-mediated inhibition of C-fiber-evoked responses in spinal dorsal horn neurons, leading to central sensitization. A recent study provided a potential molecular mechanism; large dorsal roo...

UNLABELLED Because γ cameras are generally susceptible to environmental conditions and system vulnerabilities, they require routine evaluation of uniformity performance. The metrics for such evaluations are commonly pixel value-based. Although these metrics are typically successful at identifying regional nonuniformities, they often do not adequately reflect subtle periodic structures; therefor...

A single unicast index coding problem (SUICP) with symmetric neighboring interference (SNI) has equal number of K messages and K receivers, the kth receiver Rk wanting the kth message xk and having the side-information Kk = (Ik ∪ xk) , where Ik = {xk−U , . . . , xk−2, xk−1} ∪ {xk+1, xk+2, . . . , xk+D} is the interference with D messages after and U messages before its desired message. Maleki, ...

The development of abnormal primary sensory neuron excitability and neuropathic pain symptoms after peripheral nerve injury is associated with altered expression of voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSCs) and a modification of sodium currents. To investigate whether the beta2 subunit of VGSCs participates in the generation of neuropathic pain, we used the spared nerve injury (SNI) model in rats t...

Descending controls originating in part from the rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM) regulate the excitability of dorsal horn neurons and maintain peripheral pain states. Activation of extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) in RVM neurons has been shown following peripheral inflammation and is involved in generating the accompanying inflammatory hyperalgesia. Here, we show that spared nerve...