White Matter Microstructural Alterations over the Year after Acute Ischemic Stroke in Patients with Baseline Impaired Cognitive Functions.

Background: The disruption of white matter (WM) integrity is related to poststroke cognitive impairment (PSCI). The exploration of WM integrity alterations in the chronic stage of acute ischemic stroke (AIS) may help to improve the long-term outcomes of PSCI. Methods: Sixty patients showing impaired cognitive functions within 3 days after AIS (baseline) and 25 healthy controls underwent diffusion kurtosis imaging scan and cognitive assessment at baseline and 1 year. Based on the tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS), kurtosis fractional anisotropy (KFA) and mean kurtosis (MK) were compared in WM tracts between the groups. Results: One year after AIS, 25 patients were diagnosed with PSCI and 35 patients with non-cognitive impairment (NCI). Compared with baseline, cognitive performance improved in 54 patients and remained unchanged in 6 patients at 1 year. TBSS analysis showed that there were no significant differences in WM tract integrity between the AIS and control groups at baseline (P > 0.05). Compared with the control group, the KFA and MK in multiple WM tracts in the AIS group decreased significantly at 1 year (P < 0.05). Longitudinal analysis showed that the KFA and MK of multiple WM tracts recorded at 1 year were significantly lower than those recorded at baseline in the AIS, PSCI, and NCI groups (P < 0.05), and PSCI group had a faster degeneration than NCI group (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The finding suggests that the patients with baseline impaired cognitive functions still have WM microstructural damages at 1 year poststroke, even if their cognitive function has improved or returned to normal. Cautions should be taken against the possible negative impact of these changes on long-term cognition.

[Highly Efficient Bioflocculation of Microalgae Using Mucor circinelloides].

Harvesting of microalgae is the major challenge in cost-efficient large-scale microalgal biomass production due to their low concentration and small cell size in the culture medium. The present paper aimed to study the efficiency of the filamentous fungus Mucor circinelloides spores suspensions to harvest the green unicellular microalga Chlorella pyrenoidosa grown in synthetic medium. Results showed that the optimal co-culture conditions were pH=6.0, 1.25 g·L-1 glucose and 1:250 fungi to microalgae ratio with harvest efficiency of 91.08%. In addition, the mentioned optimal conditions could be applied for actual sewage with harvest efficiency of 92.33%. Polysaccharide concentrations measured before and after 48 h of cultivation showed that the polysaccharide of C. pyrenoidosa cultured alone was increased by 0.047 g·L-1, while co-cultured mixture showed increase in polysaccharides by 0.019 g·L-1. The recorded decrease in polysaccharides concentration in the co-culture might be attributed to using of excreted polysaccharides by M. circinelloides to grow, confirming the symbiotic association of both organisms. Furthermore, with decreasing the pH, C. pyrenoidosa Zeta potential was stable, while it was increased from -37.7 mV to -9.87 mV in M. circinelloides, which indicated that charge neutralization was the mechanism of flocculation between algae and fungi.