Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and lipid peroxidation (LPO) have been associated with numerous diseases that few other pathological factors can match, including aging, neoplasia, trauma, and ischemia-reperfusion injury (Halliwell and Gutteridge 1999). The mechanism of involvement of LPO has been an area of intense research aiming to prevent, slow down, and even reverse the development of various diseases. In the case of spinal cord injury, it is well established that LPO plays an important role in neuronal degeneration, cell death, and overall functional deficits (Hall 1989(Hall , 1991Hall and Braughler 1993). This is believed due in part to that fact that neuronal cells contain a relatively large proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids and are rich in mitochondria, both of which are a potential target and source of free radicals. Because of these unique features, the CNS is particularly vulnerable to oxidative injury. In spite of strong evidence suggesting that post-trauma oxidative stress plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of spinal cord injury, conventional strategies aiming to scavenge free radicals have largely failed to produce any effective treatment that can curtail oxidative injury. Hence, further understanding of the mechanisms of oxidative stress and identification of a novel and more effective target is highly warranted and desirable.In addition to the much studied ROS, highly reactive a,b-unsaturated aldehydes, including malondialdehyde, 4-hydroxynonenal (HNE), and acrolein, are produced as a byproduct of LPO (Witz 1989;Esterbauer et al. 1991;Uchida 1999;O'Brien et al. 2005). Among them, acrolein has been shown to be by far the most reactive with various biomolecules including proteins, DNA, and glutathione, and reacts 110-150 times faster with glutathione than HNE or Abbreviations used: AD, Alzheimer's disease; CAP, compound action potential conduction; DTNB, 5,5¢-Dithiobis (2-nitrobenzoic acid); HE, dihydroethidium; HNE, 4-hydroxynonenal; LDH, lactate dehydrogenase; LPO, lipid peroxidation; PB, phosphate buffer; PBS, phosphatebuffered saline; ROS, reactive oxygen species; SOD, superoxide dismutase; TMR, tetramethyl rhodamine dextran. AbstractWe have previously shown that acrolein, a lipid peroxidation byproduct, is significantly increased following spinal cord injury in vivo, and that exposure to neuronal cells results in oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, increased membrane permeability, impaired axonal conductivity, and eventually cell death. Acrolein thus may be a key player in the pathogenesis of spinal cord injury, where lipid peroxidation is known to be involved. The current study demonstrates that the acrolein scavenger hydralazine protects against not only acrolein-mediated injury, but also compression in guinea pig spinal cord ex vivo. Specifically, hydralazine (500 lmol/L to 1 mmol/L) can significantly alleviate acrolein (100-500 lmol/ L)-induced superoxide production, glutathione depletion, mitochondrial dysfunction, loss of membrane integrity, and reduced compound act...

Acrolein, an α,β-unsaturated aldehyde and a reactive product of lipid peroxidation, has been suggested as a key factor in neural post-traumatic secondary injury in SCI, mainly based on in vitro and ex vivo evidence. Here we demonstrate an increase of acrolein up to 300%; the elevation lasted at least two weeks in a rat SCI model. More importantly, hydralazine, a known acrolein scavenger can provide neuroprotection when applied systemically. Besides effectively reducing acrolein, hydralazine treatment also resulted in significant amelioration of tissue damage, motor deficits, and neuropathic pain. This effect was further supported by demonstrating the ability of hydralazine to reach spinal cord tissue at a therapeutic level following intraperitoneal application. This suggests that hydralazine is an effective neuroprotective agent not only in vitro, but in a live animal model of SCI as well. Finally, the role of acrolein in SCI was further validated by the fact that acrolein injection into the spinal cord caused significant SCI-like tissue damage and motor deficits. Taken together, available evidence strongly suggests a critical causal role of acrolein in the pathogenesis of spinal cord trauma. Since acrolein has been linked to a variety of illness and conditions, we believe that acrolein-scavenging measures have the potential to be expanded significantly ensuring a broad impact on human health.

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Immediately following amputation of the limb in salamanders, a strong, steady, and polarized flow of ionic current is produced by the injury. Current flows in a proximodistal direction within the limb stump and is associated with a fall in electrical potential of about 50 mV/mm near the stump's end. This current is electrogenically driven by the Na(+)-dependent, internally positive transcutaneous voltage of the intact skin of the limb stump. Reduction of this EMF, the skin's battery, by topical application of Na+ blocking agents leads to inhibition or disruption of normal limb regeneration. This suggests electrical factors are a critical control of limb regeneration. Here we test another means to reduce the injury current and its associated electrical field within the forelimb stump of red spotted newts. A fine (40 gauge), insulated, multistrand wire was inserted beneath the skin of the animal's back, with the uninsulated portion terminating either at the shoulder region or at the base of the tail. When this cathodal (negative) electrode is connected to a regulated current source, sufficient current was pulled into the stump end from an external anode (placed in the water the animal was immersed in) to markedly reduce or null the endogenous current for the first 8 days following amputation. The extent of limb regeneration in sham-treated and experimentally treated animals was determined 1 month following amputation at the elbow. Sham-treated animals regenerated normally, with most producing digits within this time. Limb regeneration was completely arrested, or caused to be strikingly hypomorphic, in half of the experimentally treated animals. This effect was independent of where the subcutaneous electrode was placed and suggests that electrical (physiological) factors are indeed a critical control of limb regeneration in urodeles.

We have tested the effectiveness of polyethylene glycol (PEG) to restore the integrity of neuronal membranes after mechanical damage secondary to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) produced by a standardized head injury model in rats. We provide additional detail on the standardization of this model, particularly the use and storage of foam bedding that serves to both support the animal during the impact procedure-and as a dampener to the acceleration of the brass weight. Further, we employed a dye exclusion technique using ethidium bromide (EB; quantitative evaluation) and horseradish peroxidase (HRP; qualitative evaluation). Both have been successfully used previously to evaluate neural injury in the spinal cord since they enter cells when their plasma membranes are damaged. We quantified EB labeling (90 microM in 110 microL of sterile saline) after injection into the left lateral ventricle of the rat brain 2 h after injury. At six h after injection and 8 h after injury, the animals were sacrificed and the brains were analyzed. In the injured rat brain, EB entered cells lining and medial to the ventricles, particularly the axons of the corpus callosum. There was minimal EB labeling in uninjured control brains, limited to cells lining the luminal surfaces of the ventricles. Intravenous injections of PEG (1 cc of saline, 30% by volume, 2000 MW) immediately after severe TBI resulted in significantly decreased EB uptake compared with injured control animals. A similar result was achieved using the larger marker, HRP. PEG-treated brains closely resembled those of uninjured animals.

Objective The goal of this review is to investigate the relationship between indirect physiological measurements and direct measures of situation awareness (SA). Background Assessments of SA are often performed using techniques designed specifically to directly measure SA, such as SA global assessment technique (SAGAT), situation present assessment method (SPAM), and/or SA rating technique (SART). However, research suggests that physiological sensing methods may also be capable of inferring SA. Method Seven databases were searched. Eligibility criteria included human–subject experiments that used at least one direct SA assessment technique as well as at least one physiological measurement. Information extracted from each article were the physiological metric(s), direct SA measurement(s), correlation between these two metrics, and experimental task(s). Results Twenty-five articles were included in this review. Eye tracking techniques were the most commonly used physiological measures, and correlations between conscious aspects of eye movement measures and direct SA scores were observed. Evidence for cardiovascular predictors of SA was mixed. Only three electroencephalography (EEG) studies were identified, and their results suggest that EEG was sensitive to changes in SA. Overall, medium correlations were observed among the studies that reported a correlation coefficient between physiological and direct SA measures. Conclusion Reviewed studies observed relationships between a wide range of physiological measurements and direct assessments of SA. However, further investigations are needed to methodically collect more evidence. Application This review provides researchers and practitioners a summary of observed methods to indirectly assess SA with sensors and highlights research gaps to be addressed in future work.

Speech recognition (SR) technologies were evaluated in different classroom environments to assist students to automatically convert oral lectures into text. Two distinct methods of SR-mediated lecture acquisition (SR-mLA), real-time captioning (RTC) and postlecture transcription (PLT), were evaluated in situ life and social sciences lecture courses employing typical classroom equipment. Both methods were compared according to technical feasibility and reliability of classroom implementation, instructors' experiences, word recognition accuracy, and student class performance. RTC provided near-instantaneous display of the instructor's speech for students during class. PLT employed a user-independent SR algorithm to optimally generate multimedia class notes with synchronized lecture transcripts, instructor audio, and class PowerPoint slides for students to access online after class. PLT resulted in greater word recognition accuracy than RTC. During a science course, students were more likely to take optional online quizzes and received higher quiz scores with PLT than when multimedia class notes were unavailable. Overall class grades were also higher when multimedia class notes were available. The potential benefits of SR-mLA for students who have difficulty taking notes accurately and independently were discussed, particularly for nonnative English speakers and students with disabilities. Field-tested best practices for optimizing SR accuracy for both SR-mLA methods were outlined.

We have studied the ability of nonionic detergents and hydrophilic polymers to seal permeabilized membranes of damaged cells, rescuing them from progressive dissolution, degeneration, and death. We report that a single subcutaneous injection of the tri-block copolymer, Poloxamer 188 (P188) 6 hr after a severe compression of the adult guinea pig spinal cord is able to: (1). preserve the anatomic integrity of the cord; (2). produce a rapid recovery of nerve impulse conduction through the lesion; and (3). produce a behavioral recovery of a spinal cord dependent long tract spinal cord reflex. These observations stood out against a control group in blinded evaluation. Conduction through the lesion was monitored by stimulating the tibial nerve of the hind limb, and measuring the arrival of evoked potentials at the contralateral sensory cortex of the brain (somatosensory evoked potentials; SSEP). Behavioral recovery was determined by a return of sensitivity of formerly areflexic receptive fields of the cutaneous trunchi muscle (CTM) reflex. This contraction of back skin in response to tactile stimulation is totally dependent on the integrity of an identified bilateral column of ascending long tract axons. A statistically significant recovery of both SSEP conduction through the lesion and the CTM reflex occurred in P188-treated animals compared to vehicle-treated controls. Quantitative 3D computer reconstruction of the lesioned vertebral segment of spinal cord revealed a statistically significant sparing of spinal cord parenchyma and a significant reduction in cavitation of the spinal cord compared to control animals We determined that the proportion of P188-treated animals that recovered evoked potentials were nearly identical to that produced by a subcutaneous injection of polyethylene glycol (PEG). In contrast, P188 was not as effective as PEG in producing a recovery of CTM functioning. We discuss the likely differences in the mechanisms of action of these two polymers, and the possibilities inherent in a combined treatment.