Objective: To explore the neuropsychological sequelae of blast-induced mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), several neuropsychological tests and self-reported measures of cognitive and emotional functioning were administered to 138 Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)/Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) veterans. We hypothesized that veterans affected by mTBI and PTSD would manifest differences in neuropsychological testing and self-report measures compared to a group of healthy veteran controls and to veterans with only PTSD. Method: Participants included 3 groups of veterans: (a) healthy controls (n ϭ 43); (b) PTSD only (n ϭ 48); and (c) comorbid blast-induced mTBI and PTSD (n ϭ 47). An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to extract a smaller number of latent dimensions for group comparison. Results: The EFA supported an 8-factor model. A multivariate analysis of variance on the 8 factor scores demonstrated 3 significant factor mean differences: (a) perceived cognitive complications (PCC), (b) perceived emotional distress (PED), and (c) processing speed (PS). Post hoc analyses showed significant group mean difference in PS between the comorbid and the control groups. In addition, the comorbid group presented with the highest levels of PCC and PED. Conclusions: Results suggest that among OIF/OEF veterans with blast-induced mTBI, PTSD with its accompanying emotional distress may be a significant determinant of subjective sense of well-being both cognitively and emotionally. The objective discrepancy in PS between the comorbid group and the healthy controls also appears largely due to PTSD more so than the remote blast-induced mTBI, as the group mean difference in PS became negligible after controlling for PTSD levels.
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Microtubules are hollow protein filaments consisting of the alpha/beta-tubulin subunit, and they play important roles in various biological processes such as cell division, intracellular transport, cell motility and cell morphogenesis. The dynamics of microtubules is critical to the proper function of microtubules in cell division. One of the challenges in improving our understanding of microtubule dynamics is the small size of tubulin subunits. Because each subunit is only few nanometers in size and significantly smaller than the wavelength of light, optical microscopy cannot be used to resolve the interactions of the subunits, which lead to the formation of microtubules, in real time. We developed an in vitro spectroscopy assay for detecting microtubule formation below the diffraction limit of light. The assay is based on Förster resonance energy transfer between fluorescent molecules of a single type (homoFRET). Our results indicate that homoFRET can be used to detect short microtubules even when they are diffraction limited (smaller than few hundred nanometers). We also demonstrate that when fluorophores with appropriate Förster distance are used, this technique can be highly sensitive to the formation of microtubules but less sensitive to the extent of microtubule elongation, making it suitable for detecting microtubule nucleation.
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