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Background and Objective: Parkinson's disease is a neurological disorder caused by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in pars compacta of substantial nigra. The most important symptoms of this disease include slow motion, lack of movement, tremor and imbalance. This study was done to determine the effect of probiotic Lactobacillus paracasei on motor disorders caused by injection of 6-hydroxy dopamine in Parkinson's model in male rats.
Methods: In this experimental study, 48 male rats were randomly allocated into six groups. To create an animal model of Parkinson's disease, a black body component in male rats was injected 6-hydroxy dopamine (6-OHDA) (0.5 mg/kg) unilaterally by stereotaxic apparatus. After 3 weeks of recovery, to evaluation of degradation rate, animals were received apomorphine, intraperitoneally. In the first experiment, rats were randomly divided into Sham and Parkinson's (injured) groups, the Sham group were received only water and food, and the injured group received 6-hydroxy-dopamine. In the second experiment, male rats were divided into 4 groups of 8 rats, each of the 4 groups was injected 6-hydroxy-dopamine and 21 days later, they were tested for assay of apomorphine. The results were recorded, then for 28 days, the first group was taken as control. The second group of saline, the third group of milk, the fourth group of milk and probiotic were gavaged. At the end of day 28, once again, each group was subjected to rotation of apomorphine test and the rotations were recorded.
Results: The behavioral analysis of saline, milk, milk plus probiotics were indicated that the group receiving probiotic Lactobacillus paracasei plus milk was significantly less apomorphine rotation test than the saline group (P<0.05).
Conclusion: It seems that probiotic Lactobacillus paracasei can reduces Parkinson’s disease symptoms.

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Background and Objective: Food restriction may have beneficial or detrimental effects on the brain functions such as learning and memory. Also, dopamine receptors are involved in learning and information retrieval. This study was performed to determine the simultaneous effect of food restriction and dopamine D2 receptor inhibition on spatial memory of rats.
Methods: In this experimental study, 60 male Wistar rats were allocated into 6 groups including controls, 25%, 50% and 75%, food restriction, sulpiride (D2 receptor antagonist, 4 mg/kg/day, ip), 75% food restriction and sulpiride and treated for 21 days. To evaluate the memory, an eight-point radial arm maze was used. Then, the catalase and malondialdehyde level of the hippocampus were measured.
Results: Twenty-five percent food restriction caused to 11.8 percent decrease in spending time to find the food compared to control group (P<0.05). The 75% food restriction and or sulpiride injection significantly increased that time by 24.4% and 18.3%, respectively (P<0.05). The group with 75% food restriction were received sulpiride showed the most increase in the time of food finding compared to all groups (P<0.05). Catalase activity was only significantly reduced in the 75% restricted groups to 17.6% and 22.2%, respectively (P<0.05). Malondialdehyde production was significantly increased in the 75% food restricted groups to 50.2% and 59.3, respectively and sulpiride-received group to 31.2% compared to the control group (P<0.05).
Conclusion: Simultaneous applying of food restriction and inhibition of dopamine D2 receptors resulted in increased hippocampal prooxidant levels and exacerbated memory impairment.

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Background and Objective: Early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) seems necessary due to the high cost of care and treatment, the uncertainty of existing therapies, as well as the worrying future of the patient. This study was conducted to AD diagnosis by MRI images using artificial intelligence methods.
Methods: In this research, a computer system for early detection of AD with using machine learning algorithms is presented in the framework of computer-aided process. Conditional random field and Inception deep neural network have been adapted for brain MR images to detect AD. Since hippocampal tissue is one of the first tissues to be affected by AD, hence for the early detection of this disease, the hippocampus was located from other brain tissues firstly and then due to the extent to which this tissue is affected, the diagnosis was made. Conditional random field could accurately extract hippocampal fragments of different shapes in all three brain planes. These components serve as the basis for feature extraction by the deep network. The proposed method was tested on standard ADNI dataset images and its performance was demonstrated. The used Inception network has been trained on the huge ImageNet dataset. One of the important steps is knowledge transfer of the problem under consideration. To facilitate this, data augmentation process was applied according to the shape and structure of the hippocampus.
Results: The implemented method in this research, achieved to 98.51% accuracy for two-class classification of "Alzheimer" versus "Normal control" and achieved to 93.41% accuracy for two-class classification of "Mild cognitive impairment" versus "Normal control", which increased by 2.56% and 8.41%, compared with the rival methods, respectively.
Conclusion: The achieved results of this study showed that the using of artificial intelligence techniques has highly accurate in diagnosing AD according to MRI images.

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Background and Objective: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a common neurological disease that increases oxidative stress and causes immune system disorders. Curcumin is the active component of turmeric with anti-inflammatory properties. This study was conducted to determine the effects of curcumin on cortisol, catalase, and nerve growth factor (NGF) expression in an animal model of MS.
Methods: This experimental study was conducted on 30 female Wistar rats. Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) was chosen as an experimental model of MS. The rats were divided into 3 groups of 10, including a healthy control group, an affected group, and a group treated with curcumin. The disease was induced by immunization of rats with homogenized guinea pig spinal cord and Freund's complete adjuvant. Then, the immunized animals were allocated into two equal groups. Treatment with curcumin (100 mg/kg daily) was started 12 days after the immunization when the rats showed the first symptoms of neurologic disability. The treatment was continued until day 24 post-immunization. Simultaneously, the EAE group received the medicine solvent (distilled water). Finally, the rats' weights as well as cortisol, catalase, and NGF levels were measured in the study groups.
Results: Curcumin significantly increased the level of cortisol to a level equal to that of healthy rats (P<0.05). It also significantly increased the expression of NGF and reduced the amount of catalase in the affected rats (P<0.05). The curcumin administration significantly increased the overall weight of rats with MS but had no significant effect on the spleen weight of the treated rats.
Conclusion: Curcumin can be beneficial for treating EAE by reducing the destructive effects of oxidative damage and increasing NGF.
 

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Background and Objective: Acrylamide is a neurotoxic agent that increases oxidative stress by creating an imbalance between the production and removal of free radicals, which in turn contributes to the pathogenesis of some neurodegenerative disorders. Thymoquinone extracted from Nigella satvia has prominent antioxidant effects. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of thymoquinone on hippocampal oxidative stress and neuronal density following acrylamide administration in male rats.
Methods: In this experimental study, 28 male Wistar rats aged 10-12 weeks and weighing 180-200 g were randomly divided into 4 groups of 7 rats: control, acrylamide, acrylamide + thymoquinone treatment (1 mg/kg), and acrylamide + thymoquinone treatment (5 mg/kg). For induction of brain injury, 50 mg/kg of acrylamide was injected intraperitoneally. Two days after the acrylamide injection, the rats were sacrificed, and malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione (GSH), and catalase levels were measured in hippocampal homogenate. Evaluation of neuronal density in hippocampal CA1 region was also performed by Nissl staining.
Results: Acrylamide injection significantly increased MDA level and reduced GSH content and catalase activity in comparison with the control group (P<0.05). Administration of 5 mg/kg thymoquinone significantly reduced MDA level (P<0.05) but improved GSH and catalase activity in comparison with the acrylamide group (P<0.05). In addition, neuron density of hippocampal CA1 region did not differ significantly between the groups.
Conclusion: Thymoquinone can attenuate oxidative stress markers in a dose-dependent manner.
 

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Background and Objective: Temporal lobe epilepsy is characterized by the degeneration of hippocampal neurons and the sprouting of mossy fibers in the dentate area. This study aimed to investigate the impact of the hydroalcoholic extract of Rosa damascene on hippocampal tissue changes induced by kainic acid-induced epilepsy in rats.
Methods: In this experimental study, 28 male Wistar rats weighing between 185-225 grams were used. The animals were divided into four groups: sham group, sham treated with hydroalcoholic extract, epilepsy (kainic acid), and epilepsy pretreated with hydroalcoholic extract. Kainic acid was used for intra-hippocampal and unilateral injection to induce epilepsy in the animals at 0.8 micrograms per rat. The rats were given 500 mg/kg of the extract intraperitoneally daily for one week before surgery. Five weeks after surgery, thionin and Tim staining methods were performed on the hippocampal slices.
Results: Kainic acid-induced epilepsy resulted in convulsive behavior, and pretreatment with the hydroalcoholic extract significantly reduced the intensity of convulsive attacks (P<0.05). The density of neurons in the CA3 area of the hippocampus in the kainic acid group showed a significant decrease compared to the sham group (P<0.05), while pretreatment with the extract caused a significant increase in the number of neurons in this area compared to the kainic acid group. Additionally, a significant increase in the intensity of mossy fiber sprouting was observed in epileptic rats compared to the sham group, and pretreatment with the extract significantly decreased its intensity (P<0.05).
Conclusion: The pre-treatment with the hydroalcoholic extract of Rosa damascena decreased convulsive behavior, protected hippocampal CA3 neurons and reduced the intensity of sprouting in the hippocampal dentate region in the experimental model of temporal lobe epilepsy induced by kainic acid.
 

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Background and Objective: Demyelinating lesions, widespread tissue damage, and neuronal connectivity impairments in white matter are associated with reduced cognitive decline in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. These findings are particularly prominent in the corpus callosum of the brain. Interleukin-10 (IL-10) is an anti-inflammatory cytokine secreted by regulatory T cells (Tregs) with anti-inflammatory properties and can inhibit the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines produced by macrophages and T cells. IL-6 is a multifunctional cytokine involved in the immune system of autoimmune diseases. The IL-6 gene consists of 5 exons, 4 introns, and a proximal promoter region located on the 7p21 chromosomal locus in humans. This study aimed to determine the effects of IL-10 (-1082/-819) and IL-6 (-174) gene polymorphisms on corpus callosum changes in women with MS.
Methods: This case-control study was conducted on 40 women with MS aged 20-40 years referring to Golestan and Kowsar Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) centers in Gorgan and 20 women without MS, autoimmune or inflammatory diseases over 40 years during 2015. Ten mL of blood was taken from the subjects for genotyping. Additionally, DNA extraction was performed using the phenol-chloroform method, and DNA genotyping was performed using the sequence specific primer-polymerase chain reaction (SSP-PCR) method. Brain MRI images of the subjects were employed to measure the corpus callosum and to investigate the relationship with the investigated polymorphisms.
Results: After performing the tests and obtaining different IL-6, IL-10 (-819), and IL-10 (-1082) genotypes, no significant statistical correlation was observed between IL genotypes in the case and control groups. Additionally, no significant correlation was observed between the different IL-6, IL-10 (-819), and IL-10 (-1082) genotypes and changes in the size of different parts of the corpus callosum, including rostrum width, splenium width, body width, the ratio of body length to anteroposterior length, and the ratio of body length to maximum height between the case and control groups. Reductions in the variables of rostrum width, splenium width, body width, the ratio of body width to anteroposterior length, and the ratio of body width to maximum height were significant in both case and control groups (P<0.05). Only the reduction in splenium width was significantly associated with the occurrence of MS (P<0.009, odds ratio [OR]=2.35, 95% confidence interval [CI]=4.51-1.22).
Conclusion: There was no relationship between the morphometric changes of reduced corpus callosum and the changes in IL-6, IL-10 (-819), and IL-10 (-1082) genotypes in patients with MS.