Lipid emulsion-induced recovery from unconsciousness caused by lidocaine toxicity: A case report.

Lipid emulsion is used to treat systemic toxicity caused by local anesthetics. In addition, lipid emulsion was reported to be effective in ameliorating cardiovascular depression evoked by non-local anesthetic drug toxicity with high lipid solubility. A 47-year-old woman underwent local anesthetic infiltration with 40 mL of 2% lidocaine (20 and 20 mL) to remove a mass in the upper back. After operation, she experienced convulsions and loss of consciousness due to lidocaine toxicity. Midazolam followed by lipid emulsion was administered to treat central nervous system symptoms including unconsciousness and decreased Glasgow Coma Scale. The patient recovered from unconsciousness and presented improved Glasgow Coma Scale after lipid emulsion administration, and then fully recovered from local anesthetic systemic toxicity. This case suggests that early lipid emulsion treatment, before further progression of local anesthetic systemic toxicity, provides an enhanced recovery from unconsciousness and decreased Glasgow Coma Scale due to lidocaine toxicity.

Lipid emulsion inhibits the cardiac toxicity caused by chloroquine via inhibition of reactive oxygen species production.

BACKGROUND: Lipid emulsion (LE) is effective in treating intractable cardiac depression induced by the toxicity of highly lipid-soluble drugs including local anesthetics. However, the effect of LE on chloroquine (CQ)-evoked cardiac toxicity remains unclear. This study aimed to examine the effect of Lipofundin MCT/LCT, an LE, on the cardiotoxicity caused by CQ in H9c2 rat cardiomyoblasts and elucidate the underlying cellular mechanism. METHODS: The effects of CQ (1 × 10-4 M), LE, and the reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavengers mitotempo and N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), alone or combined, on cell viability and migration, apoptosis, ROS production, calcium levels, mitochondrial membrane potential, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) were examined. Additionally, the effects of LE on the activities of catalase (CAT), malondialdehyde (MDA), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) induced by CQ were assessed. RESULTS: Pretreatment with LE, mitotempo, or NAC reversed the reduction in cell migration and viability, mitochondrial membrane potential, and ATP levels evoked by CQ, and inhibited the increase in cleaved caspase-3, ROS, and calcium concentration induced by CQ. LE inhibited the increase in Bax expression, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling-positive cells, MDA activity, and late apoptosis, and reversed the reduction in SOD and CAT activity induced by CQ. CQ did not significantly affect cleaved caspase-8 expression, and LE did not significantly affect CQ concentration. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, these results suggest that LE (Lipofundin MCT/LCT) inhibits the cardiotoxicity and late apoptosis induced by CQ toxicity via the intrinsic mitochondrial apoptotic pathway that is associated with direct inhibition of ROS production.

Resolving Atomic-Scale Interactions in Nonfullerene Acceptor Organic Solar Cells with Solid-State NMR Spectroscopy, Crystallographic Modelling, and Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

Fused-ring core nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs), designated "Y-series," have enabled high-performance organic solar cells (OSCs) achieving over 18% power conversion efficiency (PCE). Since the introduction of these NFAs, much effort has been expended to understand the reasons for their exceptional performance. While several studies have identified key optoelectronic properties that govern high PCEs, little is known about the molecular level origins of large variations in performance, spanning from 5% to 18% PCE, for example, in the case of PM6:Y6 OSCs. Here, a combined solid-state NMR, crystallography, and molecular modeling approach to elucidate the atomic-scale interactions in Y6 crystals, thin films, and PM6:Y6 bulk heterojunction (BHJ) blends is introduced. It is shown that the Y6 morphologies in BHJ blends are not governed by the morphology in neat films or single crystals. Notably, PM6:Y6 blends processed from different solvents self-assemble into different structures and morphologies, whereby the relative orientations of the sidechains and end groups of the Y6 molecules to their fused-ring cores play a crucial role in determining the resulting morphology and overall performance of the solar cells. The molecular-level understanding of BHJs enabled by this approach will guide the engineering of next-generation NFAs for stable and efficient OSCs.

Lipid emulsion attenuates extrinsic apoptosis induced by amlodipine toxicity in rat cardiomyoblasts.

Amlodipine-induced toxicity has detrimental effects on cardiac cells. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of lipid emulsion on decreased H9c2 rat cardiomyoblast viability induced by amlodipine toxicity. The effects of amlodipine, lipid emulsion, LY 294002, and glibenclamide, either alone or in combination, on cell viability and count, apoptosis, and expression of cleaved caspase-3 and -8, and Bax were examined. LY 294002 and glibenclamide partially reversed lipid emulsion-mediated attenuation of decreased cell viability and count induced by amlodipine. Amlodipine increased caspase-3 and -8 expression, but it did not alter Bax expression. LY 294002 and glibenclamide reversed lipid emulsion-mediated inhibition of cleaved caspase-3 and -8 expression induced by amlodipine. Lipid emulsion inhibited early and late apoptosis induced by amlodipine. LY 294002 and glibenclamide inhibited lipid emulsion-mediated inhibition of late apoptosis induced by amlodipine, but they did not significantly alter lipid emulsion-mediated inhibition of early apoptosis induced by amlodipine. Lipid emulsion decreased amlodipine-induced TUNEL-positive cells. These results suggest that lipid emulsion inhibits late apoptosis induced by amlodipine at toxic dose via the activation of phosphoinositide-3 kinase and ATP-sensitive potassium channels in the extrinsic apoptotic pathway.

Toward High Conductivity of Electrospun Indium Tin Oxide Nanofibers with Fiber Morphology Dependent Surface Coverage: Postannealing and Polymer Ratio Effects.

High electrical conductivity of metal oxide thin films needs uniform surface coverage, which has been the issue for the thin films based on electrospun nanofibers (NFs) that have advantage over the sputtered/spin-coated films with respect to large surface area and mechanical flexibility. Herein, we investigated a reduction in the sheet resistance of electrospun indium tin oxide (ITO) NF films with improved surface coverage. We found that the surface coverage depends significantly on the electrospinnable polymer concentration in the precursor solutions, especially after post-hot-plate annealing following the infrared radiation furnace treatment. The postannealing process increases crystallinity and oxygen vacancies. However, with a higher PVP content, it makes the surface of ITO NFs more prominently rough as a result of the formation of larger sphere-shaped ITO particles on the NF surface, which gives rise to poor surface coverage. A less poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) content in ITO NF films by electrospinning for short deposition times was found to improve surface coverage even after postannealing. The sheet resistance notably decreases, down to as low as 350 Ω/sq, with a high transmittance of over 90%. Our study provides an understanding on how to achieve high electrical conductivity of ITO NF films with high surface coverage, which can be utilized for the optoelectronic and sensing applications.

Enhanced Polarization Ratio of Electrospun Nanofibers with Increased Intrachain Order by Postsolvent Treatments.

Polarized emission that is beneficial to lighting and display applications can be demonstrated by aligning emissive chromophores, which can be achieved using an electrospinning technique. We investigate the photophysical properties of nanofibers based on poly[2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene]/poly(ethylene oxide) blends both with and without postsolvent treatments. Two different solvents were sequentially used in an attempt to extract the insulating electrospinnable polymer and increase the polarization ratio of the nanofiber meshes by molecular reorganization. The polarization ratio of emission from the nanofiber meshes treated with N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) following treatment with acetonitrile solvents was found to be increased. An increase in the 0-0 emission vibronic intensity relative to that of the 0-1 peak and a reduction in the photoluminescence (PL) bandwidth were found. In addition, the PL decays faster and the parallel component along the nanofiber axis increases after the DMF treatment, indicating that the radiative recombination process becomes faster. Our results consistently show that postsolvent treatment promotes stronger J-aggregate character, with longer coherence lengths of the exciton along the long axis of the nanofibers, due to enhanced intrachain order.

Implementation of active-type Lamina 3D display system.

Lamina 3D display is a new type of multi-layer 3D display, which utilizes the polarization state as a new dimension of depth information. Lamina 3D display system has advanced properties - to reduce the data amount representing 3D image, to be easily made using the conventional projectors, and to have a potential being applied to the many applications. However, the system might have some limitations in depth range and viewing angle due to the properties of the expressive volume components. In this paper, we propose the volume using the layers of switchable diffusers to implement the active-type Lamina 3D display system. Because the diffusing rate of the layers has no relation with the polarization state, the polarizer wheel is applied to the proposed system in purpose of making the sectioned image synchronized with the diffusing layer at the designated location. The imaging volume of the proposed system consists of five layers of polymer dispersed liquid crystal and the total size of the implemented volume is 24x18x12 mm3(3). The proposed system can achieve the improvements of viewing qualities such as enhanced depth expression and widened viewing angle.

Lamina 3D display: projection-type depth-fused display using polarization-encoded depth information.

In order to realize three-dimensional (3D) displays, various multiplexing methods have been proposed to add the depth dimension to two-dimensional scenes. However, most of these methods have faced challenges such as the degradation of viewing qualities, the requirement of complicated equipment, and large amounts of data. In this paper, we further developed our previous concept, polarization distributed depth map, to propose the Lamina 3D display as a method for encoding and reconstructing depth information using the polarization status. By adopting projection optics to the depth encoding system, reconstructed 3D images can be scaled like images of 2D projection displays. 3D reconstruction characteristics of the polarization-encoded images are analyzed with simulation and experiment. The experimental system is also demonstrated to show feasibility of the proposed method.