stimming

T cell Ig and mucin domain-containing molecule 3 (Tim-3) has been found to play important roles in autoimmune diseases, but whether Tim-3-mediated engulfment of apoptotic cells is involved in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) remains to be elucidated. In this study, we verified the role of human Tim-3 (hTim-3) as the receptor of phosphatidylserine (PS) in human embryonic kidney (HEK)293 cells, which initiated the engulfment of apoptotic cells. Both IgV and the mucin domain of Tim-3 were crucial in the phagocytosis of apoptotic cells, and there existed the key cytoplasmic domain for signal transduction...

Many daily activities, such as tying one's shoe laces, opening a jar of jam or performing a free throw in basketball, require the skillful coordinated use of both hands. Even though the non-invasive method of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been repeatedly shown to improve unimanual motor performance, little is known about its effects on bimanual motor performance. More knowledge about how tDCS may improve bimanual behavior would be relevant to motor recovery, e.g., in persons with bilateral impairment of hand function...

An important role in intracellular calcium signaling is played by store-operated channels activated by STIM proteins, calcium sensors of the endoplasmic reticulum. In stable STIM1 knockdown HEK S4 cells, single channels activated by depletion of intracellular calcium stores were detected by cell-attached patch-clamp technique and their electrophysiological parameters were described. Comparison of the properties of single channels in HEK293 and HEK S4 cells revealed no significant differences in their current-voltage curves, while regulation of store-operated calcium channels in these cell lines depended on the level of STIM1 expression...

BACKGROUND: Several studies have demonstrated that approximately one-half of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) who receive treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) and achieve and maintain a deep molecular response (DMR) are able to successfully discontinue therapy. In patients who have a molecular relapse, a DMR is rapidly regained upon treatment re-initiation. METHODS: The authors report the results from RE-STIM, a French observational, multicenter study that evaluated treatment-free remission (TFR) in 70 patients who re-attempted TKI discontinuation after a first unsuccessful attempt...

OBJECTIVE: To study the impact of not performing an awake clinical evaluation during the robot-assisted implantation subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) electrodes on the stimulation parameters and clinical outcome in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). METHODS: A total of 23 PD patients underwent robot-assisted surgery for the bilateral implantation of STN-DBS electrodes. Thirteen patients received general anesthesia (GA) and a limited intraoperative evaluation (side effects only), whereas 10 received local anesthesia and a full evaluation...

Visual P300-based Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) spellers enable communication or interaction with the environment by flashing elements in a matrix and exploiting consequent changes in end-user's brain activity. Despite research efforts, performance variability and BCI-illiteracy still are critical issues for real world applications. Moreover, there is a quite unaddressed kind of BCI-illiteracy, which becomes apparent when the same end-user operates BCI-spellers intended for different applications: our aim is to understand why some well performers can become BCI-illiterate depending on speller type...

BACKGROUND: Chemotherapy for breast cancer may have a negative impact on reproductive function due to gonadotoxicity. Fertility preservation via banking of oocytes or embryos after ovarian stimulation with FSH can increase the likelihood of a future live birth. It has been hypothesized that elevated serum estrogen levels during ovarian stimulation may induce breast tumour growth. This has led to the use of alternative stimulation protocols with addition of tamoxifen or letrozole. The effectiveness of these stimulation protocols in terms of oocyte yield is unknown...

The aim of this study was to compare current application, practice patterns, clinical outcomes, and professional attitudes of dysphagia practitioners regarding electrical stimulation (e-stim) therapy with similar data obtained in 2005. A web-based survey was posted on the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Special Interest Group 13 webpage for 1 month. A total of 271 survey responses were analyzed and descriptively compared with the archived responses from the 2005 survey. Results suggested that e-stim application increased by 47% among dysphagia practitioners over the last 10 years...

Importance: Tetrabenazine is efficacious for chorea control; however, tolerability concerns exist. Deutetrabenazine, a novel molecule that reduces chorea, was well tolerated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Objectives: To evaluate the safety and explore the efficacy of conversion from tetrabenazine to deutetrabenazine in patients with chorea associated with Huntington disease (HD). Design, Setting, and Participants: In this ongoing, open-label, single-arm study that started on December 21, 2013, 37 patients at 13 Huntington Study Group sites in the United States and Australia who were taking stable doses of tetrabenazine that provided a therapeutic benefit were switched overnight to deutetrabenazine therapy...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effects of l-dopa and deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (DBS-STN) on saccadic eye movements in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). METHODS: Visually and internally guided horizontal saccades were evaluated using a saccadometer in 64 patients with advanced PD and 48 healthy controls. Forty-four pharmacologically treated patients were assessed in their "med-off" (OFF) and "med-on" (ON) status, whereas 20 DBS-STN treated patients were assessed in their "med-off, stim-off" (OFF) and "med-off, stim-on" (ON) status...

Calcium (Ca(2+)) signaling plays a critical role in regulating plethora of cellular functions including cell survival, proliferation and migration. The perturbations in cellular Ca(2+) homeostasis can lead to cell death either by activating autophagic pathways or through induction of apoptosis. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the major storehouse of Ca(2+) within cells and a number of physiological agonists mediate ER Ca(2+) release by activating IP3 receptors (IP3R). This decrease in ER Ca(2+) levels is sensed by STIM, which physically interacts and activates plasma membrane Ca(2+) selective Orai channels...

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal-dominant, progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by selective loss of neurons in the striatum and cortex, which leads to progressive motor dysfunction, cognitive decline and behavioral symptoms. HD is caused by a trinucleotide (CAG) repeat expansion in the gene encoding for huntingtin (HTT). Despite the fact that the HD gene was identified over 20 years ago, there is no effective disease-modifying therapy for HD and only symptomatic therapies are available to date...

The purpose of the present study was to assess whether urinary soluble T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain-containing protein 3 (sTim-3) could be adopted as a novel non‑invasive biomarker for acute rejection (AR) following renal transplantation. A total of 156 patients were enrolled between January 2006 and December 2009, comprising 49 patients with biopsy‑proven AR, 58 patients with stable grafts and no abnormal histological findings (NO‑AR), 10 patients with subclinical rejection (SCR) in protocol biopsies, 10 patients with acute tubular necrosis (ATN) and 29 patients with chronic allograft nephropathy (CAN)...

BACKGROUND: Prediction of motor diagnosis in Huntington's disease (HD) can be improved by incorporating other phenotypic and biological clinical measures in addition to cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) repeat length and age. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to compare various clinical and biomarker trajectories for tracking HD progression and predicting motor conversion. METHODS: Participants were from the PREDICT-HD study. We constructed a mixed-effect model to describe the change of measures while jointly modeling the process with time to HD diagnosis...

BACKGROUND: Chloroquine, a bitter tastant, inhibits Ca(2+) signaling, resulting in suppression of B cell activation; however, the inhibitory mechanism remains unclear. RESULTS: In this study, thapsigargin (TG), but not caffeine, induced sustained intracellular Ca(2+) increases in mouse splenic primary B lymphocytes, which were markedly inhibited by chloroquine. Under Ca(2+)-free conditions, TG elicited transient Ca(2+) increases, which additionally elevated upon the restoration of 2 mM Ca(2+)...

AIM: Children treated with a growth hormone (GH) for idiopathic growth hormone deficiency (IGHD) may be monitored with the first-year prediction model from the Pfizer International Growth Database (KIGS) using auxology, age, GH dose and the maximum GH concentration from a stimulation test (GHmax stim). We tested the hypothesis that using a 12-hour spontaneous profile (GHmax 12h) would be as accurate. METHODS: We studied 98 prepubertal Swedish children (78 boys) aged 2-12 years enrolled in KIGS...

BACKGROUND: Subthalamic deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) is an established treatment for the motor complications of Parkinson's disease (PD) and may have beneficial effects on non-motor symptoms (NMS). However, the acute effect of STN stimulation on NMS has only been explored in small PD cohorts with short post-surgical follow-up. OBJECTIVE: To study NMS response to an acute stimulation challenge in an STN-DBS PD population with a medium/long-term post-surgical follow-up...

Tight control of basal cytosolic Ca(2+) concentration is essential for cell survival and to fine-tune Ca(2+)-dependent cell functions. A way to control this basal cytosolic Ca(2+) concentration is to regulate membrane Ca(2+) channels including store-operated Ca(2+) channels and secondary messenger-operated channels linked to G-protein-coupled or tyrosine kinase receptor activation. Orai, with or without its reticular STIM partner and Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) proteins, were considered to be the main Ca(2+) channels involved...

PURPOSE: To determine whether fertility preservation with ovarian stimulation (OS) results in treatment delay in breast cancer (BC) patients receiving neoadjuvant therapy (NAT). METHODS: This is a retrospective study of women screened for the prospective neoadjuvant ISPY2 trial at the University of California San Francisco. All patients were <43, had stage II-III BC, and received neoadjuvant therapy. Time to initiation of NAT was compared between women who underwent OS (STIM) and women who did not (control)...

We investigated the role of Na(+)/ Ca(2+) exchange (NCX) in the refilling of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) Ca(2+) in vascular endothelial cells under various conditions of cell stimulation and plasma membrane (PM) polarization. Better understanding of the mechanisms behind basic ER Ca(2+) content regulation is important, since current hypotheses on the possible ultimate causes of ER stress point to deterioration of the Ca(2+) transport mechanism to/from ER itself. We measured [Ca(2+)]i temporal changes by Fura-2 fluorescence under experimental protocols that inhibit a host of transporters (NCX, Orai, non-selective transient receptor potential canonical (TRPC) channels, sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+) ATPase (SERCA), Na(+)/ K(+) ATPase (NKA)) involved in the Ca(2+) communication between the extracellular space and the ER...