A sciatic nerve-pinch injury is easy to produce but the reliability of this model for evaluating pain behavior has not been examined. The current study evaluated pain-related behavior and change in pain markers in the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) of rats in a simple, sciatic nerve-pinch injury model. In the model, the sciatic nerve was pinched for 2 s using forceps (n = 20), but not injured in sham-operated animals (n = 20). Mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia
were measured every second day for 2 weeks using von Frey filaments and a Hargreaves device. Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), activating transcription factor-3 (ATF-3), phosphorylated p38 mitogen activated protein (Map) kinase (p-p38), and nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappa B; p65) expression in L5 DRGs were examined at 4 and this website 7 days after surgery using https://www.selleckchem.com/products/netarsudil-ar-13324.html immunohistochemistry. The proportion of neurons immunoreactive for these markers was compared between the two groups. Mechanical (during 8 days) and thermal hyperalgesia (during 6 days) were found in the pinch group rats, but not in the sham-operated animals (p < 0.05); however, hyperalgesia was not significant from days 10 to 14. CGRP, ATF-3, p-p38, and NF-kappa B expression in L5 DRGs was upregulated in the nerve-injured rats compared with the sham-operated rats (p < 0.01). Our results indicate that a simple sciatic nerve pinch produced pain-related behavior. Upregulation of the pain-marker
expression in the nerve-injury model suggested it could be used as a model of pain. However, it was not considered as suitable for long-term studies.”
“Background: Right ventricular ejection fraction (RV-EF) has traditionally been used to measure and compare RV function serially over time, but may be a relatively insensitive marker of change in RV myocardial contractile function. We developed a cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) tagging-based technique with a view to rapid and reproducible measurement of RV long axis function and applied it in patients with congenital heart disease.
Methods: We studied 84 patients: 56 with repaired Tetralogy of Fallot (rTOF); 28 with atrial septal defect (ASD): 13 Selleckchem S3I-201 with and 15
without pulmonary hypertension (RV pressure > 40 mmHG by echocardiography). For comparison, 20 healthy controls were studied. CMR acquisitions included an anatomically defined four chamber cine followed by a cine gradient echo-planar sequence in the same plane with a labelling pre-pulse giving a tag line across the basal myocardium. RV tag displacement was measured with automated registration and tracking of the tag line together with standard measurement of RV-EF.
Results: Mean RV displacement was higher in the control (26 +/- 3 mm) than in rTOF (16 +/- 4 mm) and ASD with pulmonary hypertension (18 +/- 3 mm) groups, but lower than in the ASD group without (30 +/- 4 mm), P < 0.001. The technique was reproducible with inter-study bias +/- 95% limits of agreement of 0.7 +/- 2.7 mm.