فصلنامه علوم اعصاب شفای خاتم
سال هشتم شماره 3 (پیاپی 44، تابستان 1399)

The neurological damage caused by stroke is a leading cause of severe long-term disability. The production of ideal drugs in the treatment of stroke is still a major problem. The aim of the present study was to investigate some protective effects of cherry extract against oxidative stress and edema volume caused by stroke.

In this experimental study, male Wistar rats were used; including 2 control groups of saline, 2 sham groups, 2 non-treated stroke groups, and stroke groups received cherry extract at doses of 175, 200, and 225 mg/kg/day. After 30 days of oral gavage of the extract, the animals were exposed to middle cerebral artery occlusion for one hour. After 24 hours of reperfusion, the malondialdehyde level, catalase activity, and edema volume of the cortex and the sub-cortical tissue were investigated.

Cherry extract at doses of 175 and 200 mg/kg significantly decreased the level of malondialdehyde and edema volume in the cortex and subcortex. This extract at a dose of 225 mg/kg significantly reduced the level of malondialdehyde in the cortex and sub-cortical tissue and significantly decreased the volume of edema in the cortex. Besides, cherry extract at 175 mg/kg increased catalase activity in both cortical and subcortical regions.

The study showed that oral administration of the cherry extract exerts neuroprotective effects against oxidative stress and the edema formation resulted from middle cerebral artery occlusion stroke model in a dose-dependent manner.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the prominent psychological consequences of war that is seen in some veterans. Mentalization-based therapy (MBT) is a psychoactive intervention that can target a range of psychological impairments. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of MBT on the reduction of emotional dysregulation and impulsivity of veterans with PTSD.

In this semi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design, 40 veterans with PTSD who referred to Isar Ardabil psychiatric hospital in 2018 were selected through convenient sampling and randomly assigned to two groups of experimental and control subjects. The data were collected using a PTSD checklist-military (PCL-M) of Weathers, difficulties in emotion regulation Scale (DERS) of Gratz and Roemer and Barratt impulsivity Scale (BIS). Then, the sessions of MBT were performed for 20 sessions of 75 minutes for the experimental group.

After control of pretesting effects, a significant difference between the mean posttest scores of the two groups in emotional dysregulation and impulsivity variables has been observed.

MBT is a suitable strategy for improving the emotional dysregulation and reducing impulsivity of veterans with PTSD and can be used as an effective intervention method.

Metacognitive beliefs and processes contribute to anxiety and depression are often associated with Emotional and behavioral disorders in patients with epilepsy. Despite extensive studies revealed that anxiety and depression contribute to the stigma of patients with epilepsy, little is known on the relationship between metacognition and stigma in epileptic patients. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between metacognition beliefs, anxiety, and depression with the stigma of epilepsy.

In this intermittent-descriptive study, 100 patients, both male and female, with epilepsy treated in different health care centers in khoram-Abad city in 2018 were selected. A short survey on meta-cognition beliefs, a questionnaire of anxiety and depression, analogy of stigma epilepsy, and a questionnaire of comprehension diseases were used.

The results showed that anxiety and cognitive confidence predicted the stigma in epileptic patients. Furthermore, there is a positive correlation between anxiety and stigma and a negative correlation between cognitive confidence and stigma were observed in these patients. The regression analysis revealed that in the first step 44% of stigma variance was predicted by anxiety, and in the second step 52% of stigma variance was predicted by anxiety and cognitive predictor variables.

Our data indicate that a high-level of anxiety and a low-level of cognitive confidence could predict the stigma of patients with epilepsy.

The hippocampus is one of the most important brain regions during adulthood, which has estrogen receptors in both genders. Since, both the estrogen and sesame have neurogenic properties, the objective of the present study was to conduct the impact of estrogen and sesame oil on the hippocampal histomorphologic changes in male mice.

20 male mice aged between 35-45 weeks were categorized into four groups: control, (received normal saline), experimental group I (sesame oil only, 10 µl/ kg/day), experimental group II (estradiol 1 μl/kg/day), and experimental group III (estradiol 10 μl/kg/day). After a month, brain perfusion was done and the cerebral tissues were fixed for morphological evaluation.

There was a significant increase in the thickness of the dentate gyrus (DG), Cornu Ammonis 1 (CA1), and Cornu Ammonis3 (CA3) regions of all experimental groups compared to the control mice. Furthermore, there were a significant increase in the number of the granular cells and the pyramidal cells in the mice treated with sesame oil as well as estradiol at 1 µl/kg/day. The mean number of necrosis-like cells in the CA1 and CA3 regions in the groups treated with sesame oil and estradiol at 1 µl/kg/day was significantly lower the mice treated with 10 µl/kg/day estradiol.

Our data indicate that estrogen and sesame oil maintain the thickness of the CA1, CA3 and DG regions and enhance the number of the granular cells and the pyramidal cells in the hippocampal DG and CA1 areas, respectively. These findings suggest the modulatory effects of estrogen and sesame on the hippocampal function.

Health promoting behaviors are vital for anyone, particularly for those with coronary heart disease. Accordingly, the present study has been aimed to survey the effectiveness of mentalization-based therapy on health promoting behaviors in patients with coronary heart disease.

the study is an experimental one with pre-test and post-test design. The sample included 40 men with cardiac disease. They were chosen by purposive sampling and were coincidentally divided into the experimental and control groups. The mentalization therapy was run to the experimental group. The Walker and Hill (1997) health promotion questionnaire were used for data gathering.

Mentalization-based therapy exerted a significant effect on the enhancement of health promoting behaviors in the experimental group compared with controls.

Mentalization-based therapy is an appropriate strategy to increase health promoting behaviors in patients with coronary heart disease and it can be used as an effective intervention method.

Adolescent brain development is recognized by changes in the brain structure and functions. Emotional processing could be affected by these brain changes. The aim of present study was to predict the dynamic emotional processing valences based on absolute brainwaves power (delta, theta, beta, and alpha bands) of five cortical regions.

The study population was 50 healthy adolescents living in Mashhad, Iran. The Tools included mental state interview, EEG device, and Dynamic Emotional Processing Valences Task.

To predict the valences of facial expressions, one model was extracted for sadness and disgust based on the stepwise regression. The beta band in frontal area (for fear), theta band in frontal and beta in central area (for surprise), and beta band in frontal as well as theta band in frontal cortical regions were extracted.

The hypotheses of predictably of dynamic facial expressions is supported by cortical electrophysiological activities during adolescence, and these cortical activities have a number of differences and similarities in comparison to adulthood. Finally, it is recommended that methods, such as Neurofeedback, could be applied to modulate adolescence emotional problems.

Recent studies have proven that anxiety disorders have the highest abundance throughout the world. Almost everyone has experienced an anxiety. This anxiety can have an agonizing impact on a person’s life; however, anxiety can also be invigorating. Invigorating anxiety pushes a person to work with a goal in mind, while the more detrimental type of anxiety limits his or her attention. The purpose of this study was to investigate the brain function in test anxiety during answering mathematical questions.

In this experiment, 22 participants (9 male and 13 female) divided in two groups of test and control. Speelberger and ASRS anxiety tests were taken from all of the participants. Then electroencephalogram signal was recorded on 19 channels for 5 minutes with their eyes open and they were taking a conceptual math test simultaneously. In comparison with the control group, the test group had a shorter time to answer the questions and the video of the test group subjects was recorded while answering to a serious tester. After signal preprocessing, using Neuroguide software, frequency band powers of brain signal was extracted and the inattentional index (Theta/Beta ratio) was compared between the test and control groups using paired sample t-test.

In the test group, a significant decrease in theta to beta index was observed during math test compared to the eyes open condition on T3 (p=0.077, t=1.96), T4 (p=0.026, t=2.619)), T5 (p=0.084, t=1.91) channels. Besides, a nearly significant correlation (r=0.4055, p=0.0612) was found between false answers and percent change of theta/beta index during math test compared to rest condition.

Anxiety in the test group was invigorating and reduced test error and inattention index. In the healthy subjects, due to the imposing anxiety from tester, the level of attention of the subjects increased significantly and their error in answering the questions decreased.

One of the main issues facing the patients with cancer is stress and anxiety. On the other hand, religion and spiritual resources are very effective factors in mental health. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of religious coping, spiritual intelligence, and spiritual well-being in predicting perceived stress in patients with cancer.

In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 120 patients, with cancer who were admitted and treated in blood and oncology department of Imam Khomeini hospital of Ardabil in 2019, were selected as target sample. Data collection tools consisted of perceived stress scale, religious coping scale, spiritual intelligence scale, and spiritual well-being questionnaire.

There was a negative and significant relationship between the perceived stress with the spiritual well-being (β=-0/359: p<0/001), spiritual intelligence (β=-0/170: p<0/007), positive religious coping (β=-0/172: p<0/011) and positive and significant relationship with negative religious coping (β=0/328: p<0/001) in subjects with cancer. The spiritual well-being, religious coping and spiritual intelligence predicted 70% of variance of perceived stress scores of patients with cancer (p<0/01).

Our findings indicate that positive and negative religious coping, spiritual intelligence, and spiritual well-being are associated with perceived stress and can explain onechr('39')s attitude toward illness. Therefore, training patients to empower them in these areas have beneficial effects on their health-related quality of life.

Tissue engineering is the science of tissue design for the healing and regeneration of tissue lesions. Peripheral nerves are typically in danger of physical injury. Peripheral nerve injuries can cause by construction and transport accidents, natural disasters, war-related injuries, and surgical complications. Spontaneous repair of the peripheral nerve is often incomplete, with poor functional recovery. Therefore, nerve tissue engineering researchers have invented scaffolds that can help neural tissue repair due to the type of conformation and their constituents. If the nerve gap in the peripheral nervous system is less than 1 cm in length, the two ends of the gap can be surgically connected, for larger gaps neural autograft is the gold standard. Applying autograft is restricted due to the deficiency of donor nerves and the requirement of multiple surgeries. The central nervous system is more challenging as the neural repair inhibitor environment is created after injury. Therefore, design of various scaffolds to facilitate nerve tissue repair and regeneration could be a promising method to overcome these problems.

Nervous system tissue engineering using nerve scaffolds is one of the therapeutic approaches to replace damaged nerve tissue. To this end, this paper examines the properties of ideal scaffolds and the biomaterials used in scaffold construction, as well as the cells and growth factors appropriate for the treatment of nerve lesions.

Vitamin D is implicated in regulation of various biological processes, including calcium homeostasis, neurogenesis, synaptic plasticity, the immune system, and inflammation. Nowadays, most part of the population worldwide is affected by vitamin D deficiency. The decreases in different factors, including the cutaneous thickness, the sun exposure time, muscle mass, kidney efficiency, and sex steroids in aged people (especially women), as well as malnutrition cause vitamin D deficiency, which in turn may act as an important risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). There is a reciprocal relationship between amyloid β (Aβ) as a core factor that initiates the onset and progression of AD and the increases in calcium (Ca2+) levels in neurons. Vitamin D via genomic functions, including either a decreasing expression of L-type Ca2+ channels or increasing expression of Ca2+ pumps, Na+/Ca2+ exchanger, as well as Ca2+ buffers, has the main role in Ca2+ homeostasis. Therefore, vitamin D through influencing intracellular Ca2+ can prevent Aβ production and inhibit its subsequent neurotoxic effects. It also indirectly controls neuroinflammation and oxidative stress via influencing intracellular Ca2+ levels and thereby postpone either onset or progress of AD.

Taken together, this review shows that vitamin D can control the normal process of physiological aging, and its deficiency may initiate AD by disrupting different cellular and molecular mechanisms in the neural system. Therefore, vitamin D as a food and drug supplement along with other effective drugs may have a preventive role in the induction and progression of AD.

The new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has recently emerged around the world as a pandemic. The disease has various symptoms such as cough, dyspnea, and fever. The disease causes failure in different organs, including the respiratory, gastrointestinal, kidney, and central nervous systems. The exact pathobiology of the virus is incompletely known. In this study, by reviewing previous evidence and studies, we have reviewed the possible mechanisms and ways of contracting the central nervous system.

One way for coronavirus to enter the nervous system is through the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor. This receptor express in different tissues and the severity of virus infection are directly related to the amount of receptor in the tissues. Viruses can enter the brain directly through neuronal and blood circulation pathways. Common symptoms of the central nervous system during `SARS-CoV-2 infection include dizziness, headaches, weakness, decreased consciousness, and paresthesia. Encephalitis, demyelination, neuropathy, and stroke have been reported in association with SARS-CoV-2. Invasion of the medullary cardiorespiratory control center by SARS-CoV-2 may contribute to the refractory respiratory failure observed in severe COVID-19 infected patients. The neuro-invasive and neurotrophic effects of coronaviruses might be related to the entry of pro-inflammatory cytokines from the peripheral circulatory system during the cytokine storm, as well as the production of these cytokines by microglia and astrocytes.