No abstract

If backward treadmill walking can improve walking capacity more than forward treadmill training in stroke, it may have broader implications because walking capacity has been shown to predict physical activity level and community participation.

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Recent work has examined the feasibility of robotic-assisted gait training in pediatric patients, including children with cerebral palsy (CP). Herein we present a case series describing clinical outcomes in four children with CP who underwent gait training using a robotic driven gait orthosis (DGO) (Pediatric Lokomat©). Children had a diagnosis of spastic diplegia due to CP. They were paired based on functional abilities and observed gait characteristics. Two children had a GMFCS of III and showed excessive ankle plantarflexion during stance. The other two children had a GMFCS of II and displayed a crouch gait pattern. Each subject participated in a 6-week intervention of robotic-assisted gait training that involved three 30-minute sessions per week. Pre-and post-training evaluations were performed including clinical tests of standing and walking function, walking speed, and walking endurance. Clinical gait analysis was also performed using a motion capture system to assess changes in gait mechanics. All subjects showed an improvement in locomotor function. For lower functioning children, this may be mediated by improved trunk control. The use of augmented feedback was associated with larger. However, these results have to be considered with caution because of the limited sample size of the study.

Several findings have pointed to the role of histaminergic neurotransmission in the modulation of anxiety-like behaviors and emotional memory. The elevated plus-maze (EPM) test has been widely used to investigate the process of anxiety and also has been used to investigate the process of learning and memory. Visual cues are relevant to the formation of spatial maps, and as the hippocampus is involved in this task, experiment 1 explored this issue. Experiment 2 investigated the effects of intraperitoneal (i.p.) injections of l-histidine (LH, a precursor of histamine) and of intra-dorsal hippocampus (intra-DH) injections of chlorpheniramine (CPA, an H1 receptor antagonist) on anxiety and emotional memory in mice re-exposed to the EPM. Mice received saline (SAL) or LH i.p. and SAL or CPA (0.016, 0.052, and 0.16 nmol/0.1 μl) intra-DH prior to Trial 1 (T1) and Trial 2 (T2). No significant changes were observed in the number of enclosed-arm entries (EAE) in T1, an EPM index of general exploratory activity. LH had an anxiolytic-like effect that was reversed by intra-DH injections of CPA. T2 versus T1 analysis revealed that only the lower dose of CPA resulted in impaired emotional memory. Combined injections of LH and CPA revealed that higher doses of CPA impair emotional memory. Taken together, these results suggest that LH and H1 receptors present in the dorsal hippocampus are involved in anxiety-related behaviors and emotional memory in mice submitted to EPM.

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Resumo: Introdução: O Chedoke Arm and Hand Activity Inventory (CAHAI) foi desenvolvido nas línguas inglesa e francesa, com versão original nos dois idiomas, para a avaliação do nível de atividade dos membros superiores em indivíduos com hemiparesia após Acidente Vascular Encefálico (AVE). Objetivo: Realizar o processo de adaptação transcultural do manual de aplicação e da folha de pontuação do CAHAI para a língua portuguesa-Brasil. Método: Constituído de sete etapas, o processo de tradução consistiu em: i) duas traduções independentes; ii) compilação das duas traduções, formando uma única tradução; iii) revisão do layout, da tipografia e da gramática; iv) duas retrotraduções independentes; v) reunião com Comitê de Especialistas; vi) envio para a autora da versão original, e vii) pré-teste da versão CAHAI-Brasil (avaliadores: n=5; sujeitos: n=4). Resultados: A versão CAHAI-Brasil teve resultados satisfatórios nas etapas de tradução e adaptação, e índices de concordância entre os avaliadores adequados (kappa entre 0,76 e 1,00). Houve necessidade de substituir alguns termos utilizados no manual e de adaptar alguns dos materiais utilizados no teste. Conclusão: Este estudo mostra que a versão CAHAI-Brasil foi traduzida e adaptada com êxito.

We determined the effect of an H 1 receptor antagonist on the functional recovery of Carassius auratus submitted to telencephalic ablation. Five days after surgery the fish underwent a spatial-choice learning paradigm test. The fish, weighing 6-12 g, were divided into four groups: telencephalic ablation (A) or sham lesion (S) and saline (SAL) or chlorpheniramine (CPA, ip, 16 mg/kg). For eight consecutive days each animal was trained individually in sessions separated by 24 h (alternate days). Training trials (T1-T8) consisted of finding the food in one of the feeders, which were randomly blocked for each subject. Animals received an intraperitoneal injection of SAL or CPA 10 min after the training trials. The time spent by the animals in each group to find the food (latency) was analyzed separately at T1 and T8 by the Kruskal-Wallis test, followed by the Student Newman-Keuls test. At T1 the latencies (mean ± SEM) of the A-SAL (586.3 ± 13.6) and A-CPA (600 ± 0) groups were significantly longer than those of the S-SAL (226.14 ± 61.15) and S-CPA (356.33 ± 68.8) groups. At T8, the latencies of the A-CPA group (510.11 ± 62.2) remained higher than those of the other groups, all of which showed significantly shorter latencies (A-SAL = 301.91 ± 78.32; S-CPA = 191.58 ± 73.03; S-SAL = 90.28 ± 41) compared with T1. These results support evidence that training can lead to functional recovery of spatial-choice learning in telencephalonless fish and also that the antagonist of the H 1 receptor impairs it.