The anticholinesterase activities of benzylidene-benzofurane-3-ones as aurone analogs revealed that the compounds bearing piperidinylethoxy residue showed better activities against AChE, introducing these compounds for further drug discovery developments. [Formula: see text].

Purpose: Headache at altitudes has had an incidence of 25-62% through many related studies. Many reasons are identified concerning headache at altitudes such as acute mountain sickness (AMS), sinus headache, migraine, tension type headache, and frontal tension headache. This study tried to compare different types of headache among trekkers on Mount Damavand, a 5671m mountain, Iran, to find their incidence and related symptoms and signs.Methods: Through a cross-sectional study, we evaluated headache incidence and its correlation to AMS among people who climbed Mount Damavand. Lake Louise Score, a self-report questionnaire, was applied to make AMS diagnosis through three separate stages of trekking programs. Chi-square test was employed as the main mean of analysis.Results: Totally, 459 between 13-71 year olds participated in the study among which females were 148 (32.1%) and males 311 (67.8%). Headache was found in 398 (86.7%) among whom 279 (70%) were proved as AMS. Investigating the types of headache in the cases of AMS showed 64.5% to be of steady, 31% throbbing and 4.5% stabbing characters which had significant differences with a P value = 0.003. The majority of headaches were stated as frontal (38.9%) and the least prevalence belonged to the parietal area (4.4%), while global headache was reported in 27%.

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BackgroundHeadache is one of the most common complaints in today's society. Patterns and prevalence of headache, especially headaches associated with physical activity (Exertional Headache) in the population of conscripts in our country is unknown.ObjectivesIn this cross sectional study we tried to answer these questions to some extent.Patients and MethodsUsing a Persian questionnaire based on international headache society criteria of headache types (ICHD-II) and a sample size of 300, filled by two trained medical doctors, we gathered our data and analyzed it with an acceptable P value of < 0.05 and a confidence interval of 95%.ResultsHeadache prevalence among our conscript participants was 78.7%. The prevalence of exertional headache was 12.7%. EH sufferers’ mean age was 22.16 (SD: 2.60) years. EH was found more often bilaterally and almost equally pulsating or compressive. The main location of pain was frontotemporal region. The most common aggravating and alleviating factors of EH were hot environment and discontinuation of exercise respectively.ConclusionsOur team provided a reasonable database of exertional headache and its characteristics in conscripts’ population which could be used in further investigations to improve their general health and function.

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Background: Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common form of focal seizures. To localize the epileptic site for surgery, different neuroimaging tools are used. Perfusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the modalities used to evaluate the cerebral hemodynamics and localize intracranial neoplasia and cerebrovascular events. Two contrast-based perfusion imaging sequences are described, including dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced MRI (DSC-MRI) and dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI). The most commonly measured parameters include the relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV), relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF), and mean transit time (MTT). Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the blood perfusion parameters, such as rCBV and rCBF, in patients diagnosed with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE), using DSC-perfusion MRI to determine whether there is a change in these parameters and if this modality can be used to diagnose and localize the epileptic side. Methods: Twenty-two patients, who were diagnosed with TLE clinically and electrophysiologically by a neurologist, were investigated in this study. The patients were examined for the presence of any other lesions, such as tumors or cerebrovascular disease as the exclusion criteria. Perfusion images were processed by the Siemens perfusion software, and the rCBV and rCBF maps were generated based on the gamma variate fit. For qualitative analysis, coronal reconstruction of rCBV and rCBF maps was performed. For quantitative analysis, a single neuroradiologist placed the region of interest (ROI) on the hippocampus and the parahippocampal gyrus on T1W images at the same level of DSC images. After determining the CBV and CBF values relative to the ROI of each side, the asymmetry index (AI) was calculated. Results: In patients with unilateral epilepsy, the blood perfusion parameters in the ipsilateral side of the brain were significantly lower than the contralateral side (P < 0.0001); the mean values of both parameters were significantly lower in the affected side as compared to the opposite side. Conclusions: In patients with TLE, significantly lower blood perfusion parameters in the affected side of the brain can help radiologists and neurologists to lateralize the MTLE side.

In this paper a novel approach based on fractal analysis has been proposed to determine MS lesions into two subtypes (<i>i.e</i>., Enhancing lesions (Acute), T1 “black holes” (chronic) lesions) in Fluid Attenuated Inversion Recovery (FLAIR) MR images, automatically. In the proposed method, firstly, MS lesion voxels are segmented in FLAIR images using Entropy-Based EM Algorithm and Markov Random Field (MRF) model. Then, Fractal dimension of each lesion voxel is computed in FLAIR images and used with signal intensity features (T1-weighted, gadolinium enhanced T1-weighted, T2-weighted). Finally, a neural network classifier is applied to feature vectors. Evaluation of the proposed method was performed by manual segmentation of chronic and acute lesions in gadolinium enhanced T1-weighted (Gad-E-T1-w) images by studying T1-weighted (T1-w) and T2-weighted (T2-w) images, using similarity criteria. The results showed a good correlation between the lesions segmented by the proposed method and by experts manually. Thus, the suggested method is useful to reduce the need for paramagnetic materials in contrast enhanced MR imaging which is a routine procedure for separation of acute and chronic lesions