Attempted brain wave modelling in participants under severe chronic stress using quantitative electroencephalogram.

The paper primarily focuses on differences in electroencephalogram (EEG) brain wave frequencies in the presence of symptoms of severe, chronic stress. In the case of a constant increase of stress triggers, it is important to quickly diagnose people who reveal difficulties coping with difficult situations in order to prevent the occurrence of mental disorders. One way to do this is to diagnose brainwave patterns. The study aimed to identify differences in the brainwave levels of participants reporting intense stress compared to the control group. Differences in brainwave frequency between the right and left hemisphere were also investigated in the study group. The study consisted of two stages. Initially, the study group was enrolled based on their level of stress intensity criterion determined by means of an interview (in which participants declared a sense of chronic stress) and high scores on the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). The control group consisted of subjects with a low score. In the next stage brainwave frequencies were analyzed using quantitative analysis of EEG (electroencephalography, QEEG) recordings. QEEG is a quantitative analysis of the EEG record, in which the data is digitally coded and statistically analyzed using the Fourier transform algorithm. The results demonstrated that people reporting intense, chronic stress statistically significantly more often had higher frequencies of theta, alpha, and beta 2 waves, and a lower level of SMR. Significant differences in the frequencies of the waves in both hemispheres were also noted.

Brain as the house of autistic soul: current trends in analyzing the risk factors and building up the diagnosis in mild forms of autism spectrum disorder.

The number of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has significantly increased over the last few years. On the one hand, this surge may be associated with increased awareness of this entity and the greater availability of diagnostic tools. On the other hand, influence of factors believed to cause or facilitate ASD development (including environment pollution, stress of modern civilization, brain trauma and use of drugs) could have a negative impact on individuals in the phase of their social and psychological development. Due to the increasing problem, more and more attention is being focused on early detection of ASD, what allows to intervene at the earliest time point. In consequence, the quality of life of ASD-affected people may be significantly improved if diagnosed early. In this review, the list of possible risk factors for ASD is critically appraised and some "pearls for practice", helping in early diagnosis of even mild ASD are outlined.

[Operative skull base approaches]. / Operative Zugänge zur Schädelbasis.

CLINICAL ISSUE: Knowledge of skull base anatomy is essential for recognizing the pathological conditions affecting the skull base structures (including cranial nerves and cerebral vasculature), for correct interpretation of their presentation on imaging studies, and finally for proper planning of surgical skull base approaches. PURPOSE OF THE ARTICLE: The main goal of the following work is to present a brief recapitulation of the regular skull base anatomy (with a focus on the bony structures) and based on this, to provide an overview of the most commonly used neurosurgical skull base approaches (illustrated using radiological case presentations). DIAGNOSTIC WORK-UP: Already at the step of the preoperative workup, the suitable radiological technique and proper choice of technical parameters for image acquisition lays the foundation for a successful surgical procedure and for the reliable assessment of operative results. CONCLUSION: Each radiologist should be familiar with basic principles of neurosurgical approaches and operative techniques used in skull base surgery and with their appearance in postoperative images.

Motion reduction and multidimensional denoising in Voltage-sensitive Dye imaging.

Optical Imaging using Voltage-sensitive Dyes is characterized by low fractional changes in fluorescent light intensity upon the application of a stimulus, which leads to slight value differences between pixels on an in-general noisy image sequence. The application of an anisotropic diffusion filtering scheme, in order to contribute to the denoising of the optical images, is proposed as one option to improve its quality and for a better understanding of the physiological processes they represent. We apply an image registration approach to compensate for motion artifacts, such that we do not need to mount a fixed cranial chamber onto the skull. In this work, electrical stimulation to the tibial nerve in a rat model was used to register evoke potentials, imaging the somatosensory cortex of the animal, which was previously stained with the RH1691 dye.

Traumatic brain injury: cause or risk of Alzheimer's disease? A review of experimental studies.

Traumatic Brain Injury is the leading cause of death and disability among young individuals in our society. Moreover, according to some epidemiological studies, head trauma is one of the most potent environmental risk factors for subsequent development of Alzheimer's disease. Interestingly, pathological features that are present also in Alzheimer's disease (in particular deposition of beta-amyloid protein) were observed in traumatised brains already a few hours after the initial insult. The primary objective of this review is to present methodology and results of numerous recent human and animal studies dealing with this issue. Special emphasis was placed on head trauma experiments in transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. We further evaluate the connection between traumatic brain insults and subsequent development of dementia and try to differentiate between primary and secondary pathological mechanisms.

[Clinical and hemodynamic evaluation of 6-week treatment of pulmonary hypertension in chronic obstructive lung diseases (COLD) with low dose of prazosin]. / Kliniczna i hemodynamiczna ocena 6 tygodniowego leczenia nadcisnienia plucnego wystepujacego w przebiegu przewleklej obturacyjnej choroby pluc (p.o.ch.p.) niewielka dawka prazosyny.

The value of vasodilatatory treatment of pulmonary hypertension due to chronic obturative pulmonary disease (c.o.p.d.) is still controversial. However in patients with c.o.p.d. causal treatment as well as chronic domestic oxygen therapy have a wide range of limitations. Among vasodilator alpha-1 blockers show less vasodilator-related adverse effects, and as known from acute trials they exert a potent effect on pulmonary circulation in patients with pulmonary hypertension and c.o.p.d. Prazosin was studied in 11 patients (10 men, 1 women) aged 63 +/- 7 years with advanced c.o.p.d. (FVC 1.8 +/- 0.41, FEV1 0.99 +/- 0.55 l) (s) after their clinical stabilisation. In 4 of them prazosin was added to the maintenance dose of diuretics and digitalis. Subjective status, NYHA functional class, spirometric (FVC, FEV1) and gaseous (PaO2, PCO2) parameters, weight, systemic blood pressure, and heart rate were noted. During Swan-Ganz catheterization mean pulmonary artery pressure (MPAP), right ventricular end-diastolic pressure (RVEDP), pulmonary wedge pressure (PCWP), cardiac output (CO), systemic (SVR) and pulmonary (PVR) vascular resistance were measured. The acute trial with 1 mg prazosin taken orally was followed by 2- and 6-week of 3 mg prazosin treatment assessment. After a single dose of 1 mg prazosin there was a significant decrease in MPAP from 36 +/- 9 to 28 +/- 10 (p = 0.001) and 44% decrease in RVEDP (p = 0.05). CO increased by 16% (p = 0.01). The fall in PVR (30%, p = 0.01) exceeded that in SVR (17%, NS). No adverse effects were observed. During 2-week 3 mg a day prazosin therapy 2 patients were excluded following dyspnea and systemic hypotonia.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)