by Alina Khan  , Tengfei Wan  , Catherine Hunter  , Pavel Schweizer  , Abbas Ishaq  , Shobha Nagarathanam  , Julia Morris  , Minyu Chan  and Gabriele Saretzki

Received: 13 March 2019;  Published: 01 August 2019;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.1903036

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most commonly occurring neurodegenerative disease and is classed as a synucleinopathy due to the critical role of α-synuclein (α-Syn) in its pathology. α-Syn is able to translocate from the cytoplasm to the nucleus and cause DNA damage. Methods: SH-SY5Y cells were stably transfected with plasmids containing wildtype α-Syn and A53T mutant α-Syn as fusion proteins with EGFP and an EGFP only control vector. The cells were treated with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and anal [...]

by Hideki Kanamaru  , Fumihiro Kawakita  , Reona Asada  and Hidenori Suzuki

Received: 07 May 2019;  Published: 29 July 2019;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.1903035

Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) causes serious brain injury and the mechanisms have not been completely found out yet. The causative factors of brain injury initiated by aneurysm rupture, which is called as early brain injury (EBI), consists of elevated intracranial pressure, cerebral hypoperfusion and blood contents directly exposed to brain surface. At 4-14 days post-aSAH, delayed cerebral ischemia (DCI) often develops and may critically worsen neurological outcomes. DCI may be the sequence of EBI. Unde [...]

by Jun Kohyama

Received: 21 February 2019;  Published: 22 July 2019;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.1903034

Background: Japan is the most sleepless nation in the world. This study aimed to understand short sleep pupils in Japan. Since academic performance is known to worsen with sleep problems, self-reported academic performance (s-rAP) was also investigated. Methods: A total of 1766 completed questionnaires were obtained from grades 7 to 12 pupils in Japan. Queries included issues on sleeping, eating, defecation, physical activity, screen time, after-school activity (ASA), body mass index (BMI) and s-rAP. Multinomial l [...]

by Srinivasan Periasamy  , Se-Ping Chien  , Bing-Fang Lee  , Dur-Zong Hsu  and Ming-Yie Liu

Received: 31 March 2019;  Published: 17 July 2019;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.1903033

(1) Background: Sinusoidal obstruction syndrome is a liver injury induced either by accidental ingestion of pyrrolizidine alkaloid monocrotaline or by chemotherapeutic drug oxaliplatin used for the treatment of colorectal cancer. Sinusoidal obstruction syndrome is characterized by rounding and swelling of the sinusoidal endothelial cell, which leads to obstruction of blood vessels, leukocyte infiltration and oxidative stress. Melatonin, a powerful antioxidant, prevents acute liver injury. We investigated the effect [...]

by Kate Howells  and Andrew P. Smith

Received: 02 April 2019;  Published: 02 July 2019;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.1903032

Background: Previous research suggests that insufficient daily sleep has negative effects on both well-being and academic attainment. Much of the research in this field has focused on adolescents and children rather than university students in the UK. Methods: The present study used the Student Well-Being Process Questionnaire and independent sleep questions to measure subjective well-being and levels of sleep in a student sample who completed the survey online. Academic attainment was measured with exam and course [...]

by Daniel Goyal  , Fatma Mansab  , James Neil  and Jaleel Miyan

Received: 05 March 2019;  Published: 28 June 2019;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.1902031

Research into the effects of microflora on health and in disease has increased recently. Such enthusiasm seems well placed. Should the preliminary studies translate through the larger, more powerful studies, the medical community may well have an entirely new platform from which to intervene for health and against disease. Delineating the pathways involved in the microflora and host interaction is likely to yield further avenues for intervention. Here we examine autonomic function and correlate this to composit [...]

by Daniel Z. Lieberman  , Sara Teichholtz  and Brenna R. Emery

Received: 25 February 2019;  Published: 28 June 2019;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.1902030

Is it ethically permissible to sacrifice the life of one human being in order to save the lives of five others? This question forms the basis of the famous thought experiment called “the trolley problem.” Surveys have found that 90 percent of people agree it is permissible when the victim to be sacrificed is described as off in the distance, whereas the opposite result occurs if the victim is described as up close. No consistent ethical principle has been identified that account for these results. In this paper we [...]

by Kelly P. Attard  , Robert JT Adams  , Andrew Vakulin  and Amy C. Reynolds

Received: 22 March 2019;  Published: 27 June 2019;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.1902029

Inadequate sleep is a largely under recognised problem in Australian communities despite researchers consistently highlighting it as a key component of health and wellbeing. Over a third of Australian adults now experience some form of inadequate sleep, which is strongly linked to a range of accompanying physical and mental health concerns. In addition to the health burden on the individual, the associated financial burden incurred by the community is extremely high with inadequate sleep costing over $66.3 billion [...]

by Laura Alonso canal  , Cecilia Paredes Mercado  , María José Quiles Blanco  and Marco Motta Calderón

Received: 01 April 2019;  Published: 14 May 2019;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.1902028

Lyme disease is a disease transmitted by ticks with a broad spectrum of comorbidity associated, from purely osteoarticular to neurological, as well as great variability comorbidity depending on the age of the individual. It currently represents an epidemic recognized by the CDC and confers a very important morbidity burden in our environment due to the frequent lack of diagnosis and early treatment. This infection has been related in the scientific literature to conditions such as fibromyalgia, autism or ADHD, amo [...]

by Ekta Kumari  , Fernando J. Velloso  and Steven W. Levison

Received: 13 February 2019;  Published: 13 May 2019;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.1902027

A number of studies have highlighted the connection between infections during pregnancy in mothers and increased risk for neuropsychiatric disorders later in life leading to the view that maternal immune activation is a significant contributor to psychiatric illnesses. Meta-analyses have revealed associations between the incidence of premature birth and perinatal inflammation with smaller total brain volumes, cognitive, motor and behavioral deficits in childhood and adolescents. In animal studies where inflammati [...]