Teratogenic effects of gabapentin on neural tube and limb development in mice

[No abstract available

The effect of Urtica dioica extract on the number of astrocytes in the dentate gyrus of diabetic rats

Diabetes mellitus is associated with cerebral alterations in both human and animal models of the disease. These alterations include abnormal expression of hypothalamic neuropeptides and hippocampal astrogliosis. Urtica dioica (Nettle) is among several species listed for their use against diabetes in folk medicine. The aim of this study was the evaluation of the astrocyte number in the dentate gyrus of diabetic rats after treatment with nettle. A total of 21 male albino Wistar rats were used in the present study. The animals were divided into three groups: control, nettle-untreated diabetic, and nettle treated diabetic. Hyperglycaemia was induced by streptozotocin (80 mg/kg) in the animals of the diabetic and treatment groups. One week after injection of the streptozotocin, the animals in the treatment group received a hydroalcoholic extract of Urtica dioica (100 mg/kg/day) for 4 weeks intraperitoneally. After a 5-week survival period, all the rats were sacrificed and coronal sections were taken from the dorsal hippocampal formation of the right cerebral hemispheres. The area densities of the astrocytes were measured and compared between the three groups (p < 0.05). The number of astrocytes increased in the diabetic rats (24.06 ± 9.57) compared with the controls (17.52 ± 6.66). The densities in the treated rats (19.50 ± 6.16) were lower than in the diabetic rats. Furthermore, the control and treated rats showed similar densities. We concluded that U. dioica extract helped compensate for astrocytes in the treatment rats dentate gyrus in comparison with diabetic rats. Copyright © 2009 Via Medica

Epidemiologic aspects of neural tube defects in South East Iran

Objectives: To investigate the rate of neural tube defects (NTDs) and their relation to gender, maternal age, consanguineous marriage, season, and drug consumption in Birjand, Iran. Methods: This research was carried out on 16,785 live or stillborn newborns in Birjand, Iran from April 1997 to December 2001. Results: The rate of NTDs was 2.97 per 1000. This rate was 1.97 per 1000 in males, and 3.55 per 1000 in females. The rate of anencephaly was 1.37 per 1000, and spina bifida was 0.88 per 1000. We found that 32% of mothers with affected newborns had taken drugs during the first trimester of pregnancy, 90% of mothers did not consume folate before and during the first trimester, and 54% of parents had consanguineous marriage. Conclusion: We concluded that folate deficiency, usage of drugs during pregnancy, and consanguineous marriage may play a role of predisposition to NTD

Black Hole Horizon Fluffs: Near Horizon Soft Hairs as Microstates of Three Dimensional Black Holes

We provide the first explicit proposal for all microstates of generic black holes in three dimensions (of Banados-Teitelboim-Zanelli-type): black hole microstates, termed "horizon fluffs", are a particular class of near horizon soft hairs which have zero energy as measured by the horizon observer and cannot be distinguished by observers at finite distance from the horizon. These states are arranged in orbits of the two-dimensional conformal algebra associated with the asymptotic black hole geometry. We count these microstates using the Hardy-Ramanujan formula for the number of partitions of a given integer into non-negative integers, recovering the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. We discuss possible extensions of our black hole microstate construction to astrophysical Kerr-type black holes.Comment: 6 pp, v2: reference added; equation defining black hole microstates made more precise, v3: extended discussion and relation to AdS3/CFT2, v5: discussion about the holographic picture and logarithmic correction to the entropy removed and referred to arXiv:1705.0625

The preventive and treatment effect of Urtica dioica on astrocyte density in the CA1 and CA3 subfields of hippocampus in STZ induced diabetic rats

Several animal model studies have shown that Diabetes mellitus can affect on the activity of hippocampus astrocytes, but these studies reported controversial findings. This study was done to evaluate the preventive and treatment effect of Urtica dioica (U. dioica) on astrocytes density in the CA1 and CA3 subfields of hippocampus of streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic rats. Twenty-eight male albino Wistar rats were randomly allocated equally into control, diabetic, U. dioica treatment and U. dioica preventive groups. Hyperglycemia was induced by STZ (80 mg/kg/BW). One week after injection of the streptozotocin, animals in treatment group were received hydroalcoholic extract of U. dioica (100 mg/kg/BW /day) for 4 weeks by intraperitoneally. In preventive group, diabetic rats were received 100 mg/kg/BW/ daily hydroalcoholic extract of U. dioica for 5 days before STZ injection. Then, animals were sacrificed and coronal sections were taken from the right dorsal hippocampus, stained with PTAH. The area densities of the astrocytes were measured. The number of astrocytes in CA1 of controls, diabetic treatment and preventive groups was 19.00±5.5, 17.14±6.4, 21±8.1 and 16.48±3.2, respectively. The densities of astrocytes in CA3 of controls, diabetic, treatment and preventive groups were 25.45±7.60, 21.54±7.5, 23.75±5.6 and 19.89±3.8, respectively. The density of astrocytes in diabetic rats reduced in comparison with controls (P<0.05). In CA1 and CA3, in spite of preventive administration, treatment of diabetic rats with U. dioica significantly increased the astrocytes. This study showed that treatment with U. dioica extract can help compensate for the CA1 and CA3 subfields of hippocampus astrocytes in diabetic rats

String Memory Effect

In systems with local gauge symmetries, the memory effect corresponds to traces inscribed on a suitable probe when a pure gauge configuration at infinite past dynamically evolves to another pure gauge configuration at infinite future. In this work, we study the memory effect of 2-form gauge fields which is probed by strings. We discuss the "string memory effect" for closed and open strings at classical and quantum levels. The closed string memory is encoded in the internal excited modes of the string, and in the open string case, it is encoded in the relative position of the two endpoints and the noncommutativity parameter associated with the D-brane where the open string endpoints are attached. We also discuss 2-form memory with D-brane probes using boundary state formulation and, the relation between string memory and 2-form soft charges analyzed in [1]

Preventive effect of vitamin B6 on developmental toxicity of carbamazepine in mice

Objective(s): Carbamazepine (CBZ) is an antiepileptic drug that is used widely for the treatment of epileptic seizures. Neural tube defects (NTDs), growth retardation, and nail hypoplasia are the most common features of teratogenic effects of this drug. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of vitamin B6 on the developmental toxicity of CBZ on mice. Materials and Methods: Sixty BALB/c pregnant mice were divided into four experimental and two control groups. Two experimental groups received daily intraperitoneal injection (IP) of 30 mg/kg (I) or 60 mg/kg (II) of CBZ on gestational days (GD) 6 to 15. Two other experimental groups received daily IP injection of 30 mg/kg (III) or 60 mg/kg (IV) of CBZ with 10 mg/kg/day vitamin B6 by gavage 10 days prior to gestation and on GD 6 to 15. Two control groups received normal saline or Tween 20. Dams underwent Cesarean section on GD 18 and embryos were harvested. External/macroscopic observation of fetuses was done by stereomicroscope and external examination for malformations was recorded. Data analyzed by ANOVA and X 2 test using SPSS software. Results: The mean weight and crown-rump of the fetuses in both CBZ-treated experimental groups were significantly reduced compared with those of the control groups. Various malformations were detected such as brachygnathia, eye malformations, NTDs, vertebral deformity, brachydactyly and growth retardation. Vitamin B6 treatment significantly reduced various CBZ-induced malformations. Conclusion: This study showed that vitamin B6 has a preventive effect on the developmental toxicity of CBZ in mice that can be pursued further for clinical research

Nonlinear self-flipping of polarization states in asymmetric waveguides

Waveguides of subwavelength dimensions with asymmetric geometries, such as rib waveguides, can display nonlinear polarization effects in which the nonlinear phase difference dominates the linear contribution, provided the birefringence is sufficiently small. We demonstrate that self-flipping polarization states can appear in such rib waveguides at low (mW) power levels. We describe an optical power limiting device with optimized rib waveguide parameters that can operate at low powers with switching properties