A causative role of blood-brain barrier (BBB) impairment is suggested in the pathogenesis of vascular dementia with leakage of serum components from small vessels leading to neuronal and glial damage. We examined the BBB function of young adult spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) in order to determine earlier changes in the BBB in chronic hypertension. SHR and stroke-prone SHR (SHRSP) were injected with horseradish peroxidase (HRP) as an indicator of BBB function and compared with Wistar Kyoto rats (WKY). The brain tissues were further examined with cationized ferritin, a marker for evaluating glycocalyx. The staining for HRP was distributed around the vessels in the hippocampal fissure of SHR and SHRSP, but not in WKY. With electron microscopy, the extravasated reaction product of HRP appeared in abluminal pits of the endothelial cells of arterioles and within the basal lamina in the hippocampus, but not the cerebral cortex, of SHR and SHRSP. On the contrary, the reaction product of HRP was never seen in the abluminal pits of the endothelial cells or the basal lamina of vessels in WKY. The number of cationized ferritin particles binding to the endothelial cells of capillaries was decreased in the hippocampus of SHR and SHRSP, while the number decreased in the cerebral cortex of SHRSP compared with those in WKY. However, the cationized ferritin binding was preserved in the endothelial cells of the arterioles with an increased vascular permeability. These findings suggest that the chronic hypertensive state induces BBB dysfunction in the hippocampus at an early stage.

These findings suggest that FDG PET-derived parameters including SUV and especially percent change value may have the potential to predict response to chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy in patients with advanced gynecological cancer.

The main objective of this study was to assess the blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability in periventricular areas of the normal mouse brain to test the hypothesis that the fragility of the BBB in periventricular areas may play a role in periventricular white matter lesions. Vascular permeability to intravenously injected horseradish peroxidase (HRP) was examined in the periventricular areas of adult mouse brain using light and electron microscopy. Staining for HRP appeared in the periventricular area adjacent to medial side of the lateral ventricle as well as in BBB-free areas, in the lateral septal nucleus, in the medial portion of the hippocampus and in the dorsal portion of the thalamus. In addition, the staining for HRP appeared in ependymal cell layer located near the choroid plexus and was found early after HRP injection in the wall of some vessels located at medial side of the optic tract. Ultrastructural examination of the vessel wall revealed that staining for HRP in the perfusion-fixed mice after circulation of the tracer for 5 min appeared in the perivascular space, in the basal lamina, in several vesicular profiles of the endothelial cell cytoplasm including abluminal pits, in vesicular profiles of perivascular cells and in the adjacent extracellular space. In the mice perfusion-fixed after HRP circulation for 90 min, staining for HRP in the vessels at medial side of the optic tract appeared in the cytoplasm of the perivascular cells, in vesicular structures of the endothelial cell cytoplasm such as plasmalemmal vesicles, endosomes and multivesicular bodies and occasionally in the vascular basal lamina. No clear staining reaction for HRP was found in the periventricular areas adjacent to lateral side of the lateral ventricles. These findings indicate that the BBB in the periventricular area adjacent to medial side of the lateral ventricle near the root of the choroid plexus is not so tight as it is in the cortex or in the lateral periventricular areas, and suggest that the perivascular cells play a scavenger role in the periventricular area as a component of the BBB. In addition, they indicate that blood-borne macromolecules can also invade the areas adjacent to the ventricles such as the lateral septal nucleus, the medial portion of the hippocampus and the dorsal portion of the thalamus.

The results indicate that facial expressions can be used as an indicator of normal fetal neurologic development from the second to the third trimester. 4D ultrasound may be a valuable tool for assessing fetal neurobehavioral development during gestation.

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Frequencies of complicated facial expressions such as smiling and scowling may increase with advancing gestation owing to the development of the fetal brain and central nervous system.

Real-time 3-D sonography provides a novel means for evaluation of fetal movement, particularly fetal facial expression, in the second and third trimesters. Real-time 3-D sonography might be an important modality in future fetal behavior research and in evaluation of fetal well-being.

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