Among fetuses with PFA, those with cerebellar hypoplasia, vermis hypoplasia, or Dandy-Walker malformation are at the highest risk of clinically significant CNVs. Chromosomal microarray analysis revealed the most frequent chromosomal aberrations associated with CH.
In adult mammals, restoration of function after peripheral nerve injury is often poor and effective therapies are not available. Previously we have shown in mice that a peptide which functionally mimics the human natural killer cell (HNK)-1 trisaccharide epitope significantly improves the outcome of femoral nerve injury. Here we evaluated the translational potential of this treatment using primates. We applied a linear HNK-1 mimetic or a functionally inactive control peptide in silicone cuffs used to reconstruct the cut femoral nerves of adult cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis). Functional recovery was evaluated using video-based gait analysis over a 160-day observation period. The final outcome was further assessed using force measurements, H-reflex recordings, nerve histology, and ELISA to assess immunoreactivity to HNK-1 in the treated monkeys. Gait deficits were significantly reduced in HNK-1 mimetic-treated compared with control peptide-treated animals between 60 and 160 days after injury. Better outcome at 160 days after surgery in treated versus control animals was also confirmed by improved quadriceps muscle force, enhanced H-reflex amplitude, decreased H-reflex latency, and larger diameters of regenerated axons. No adverse reactions to the mimetic, in particular immune responses resulting in antibodies against the HNK-1 mimetic or immune cell infiltration into the damaged nerve, were observed. These results indicate the potential of the HNK-1 mimetic as an efficient, feasible, and safe adjunct treatment for nerve injuries requiring surgical repair in clinical settings.
Weightlessness is an extreme environment that can cause a series of adaptive changes in the human body. Findings from real and simulated weightlessness indicate altered cardiovascular functions, such as reduction in left ventricular (LV) mass, cardiac arrhythmia, reduced vascular tone and so on. These alterations induced by weightlessness are detrimental to the health, safety and working performance of the astronauts, therefore it is important to study the effects of weightlessness on the cardiovascular functions of humans. The cardiovascular functional alterations caused by weightlessness (including long-term spaceflight and simulated weightlessness) are briefly reviewed in terms of the cardiac and peripheral vascular functions. The alterations include: changes of shape and mass of the heart; cardiac function alterations; the cardiac arrhythmia; lower body vascular regulation and upper body vascular regulation. A series of conclusions are reported, some of which are analyzed, and a few potential directions are presented.
Thermal sweating is the thermoregulatory activity of the human body in hot and warm environments, which is critical to the human thermal comfort and health. The sweating of a human body in a real weightlessness environment has seldom been researched, and simulated weightlessness has usually been conducted under comfortable environments. In order to study the sweating of the human body under weightlessness, a 7-day −6° head down bed rest experiment was carried out on six male subjects lying on their backs to simulate the physiological changes that occur under a weightless environment. The skin microcurrents of the subjects were recorded to evaluate sweating under a range of environments. The results showed that sweating was more significant in the torso and head areas than on the arms and lower body. The whole body sweat rates of subjects were lower than those before the simulated weightlessness experiment. However, the threshold air temperature for the onset of sweating under simulated weightlessness was higher than that before the simulation. This was possibly due to the raising of thermoregulatory set-point temperature of the body. Findings have shown that the sweating behaviour and thermal response of a male human body in a weightless environment could be different to those in the terrestrial condition.
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