The purpose of this study was to investigate if multi-domain cognitive training, especially robot-assisted training, alters cortical thickness in the brains of elderly participants. A controlled trial was conducted with 85 volunteers without cognitive impairment who were 60 years old or older. Participants were first randomized into two groups. One group consisted of 48 participants who would receive cognitive training and 37 who would not receive training. The cognitive training group was randomly divided into two groups, 24 who received traditional cognitive training and 24 who received robot-assisted cognitive training. The training for both groups consisted of daily 90-min-session, five days a week for a total of 12 weeks. The primary outcome was the changes in cortical thickness. When compared to the control group, both groups who underwent cognitive training demonstrated attenuation of age related cortical thinning in the frontotemporal association cortices. When the robot and the traditional interventions were directly compared, the robot group showed less cortical thinning in the anterior cingulate cortices. Our results suggest that cognitive training can mitigate age-associated structural brain changes in the elderly.Trial RegistrationClnicalTrials.gov NCT01596205

Propofol-based total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) has been reported to improve long-term outcome following cancer surgery, when compared with inhalation agents. However, such investigational reports are still controversial, and no studies have been conducted in relation to non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) surgery. The present study aimed to compare the favorable effects of TIVA versus inhalation agents on recurrence-free survival and overall survival after curative resection of NSCLC. This retrospective cohort study examined medical records of the patients who were diagnosed with NSCLC and underwent curative resection at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital from August 2003 to July 2012. The primary outcome included the comparison of postoperative overall survival and recurrence-free survival in both groups. To balance the 2 groups for analysis, a propensity matching method was used, and stratified Cox proportional hazard models were used for statistical analysis. This study included 943 cases of NSCLC for final analysis, and the cases were divided into the TIVA group (n = 749) and inhalation group (n = 194). Propensity matching produced 196 patients in each group. The final analysis revealed no significant difference in the hazard ratio (HR) for recurrence between the TIVA and inhalation groups (P = .233). The HR for death between the 2 groups was not significantly different either (P = .551). In this study, we found no benefit of propofol-based TIVA for long-term oncologic outcome after NSCLC surgery, relative to inhalation agents.

An FIC block is more efficacious than i.v. alfentanil in terms of facilitating the lateral position for spinal anaesthesia in elderly patients undergoing surgery for femoral neck fractures.

Our previous studies demonstrated that transplantation of human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hUCB-MSCs) into the hippocampus of a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease (AD) reduced amyloid-b (Ab) plaques and enhanced cognitive function through paracrine action. Due to the limited life span of hUCB-MSCs after their transplantation, the extension of hUCB-MSC efficacy was essential for AD treatment. In this study, we show that repeated cisterna magna injections of hUCB-MSCs activated endogenous hippocampal neurogenesis and significantly reduced Ab42 levels. To identify the paracrine factors released from the hUCB-MSCs that stimulated endogenous hippocampal neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus, we cocultured adult mouse neural stem cells (NSCs) with hUCB-MSCs and analyzed the cocultured media with cytokine arrays. Growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) levels were significantly increased in the media. GDF-15 suppression in hUCB-MSCs with GDF-15 small interfering RNA reduced the proliferation of NSCs in cocultures. Conversely, recombinant GDF-15 treatment in both in vitro and in vivo enhanced hippocampal NSC proliferation and neuronal differentiation. Repeated administration of hUBC-MSCs markedly promoted the expression of synaptic vesicle markers, including synaptophysin, which are downregulated in patients with AD. In addition, in vitro synaptic activity through GDF-15 was promoted. Taken together, these results indicated that repeated cisterna magna administration of hUCB-MSCs enhanced endogenous adult hippocampal neurogenesis and synaptic activity through a paracrine factor of GDF-15, suggesting a possible role of hUCB-MSCs in future treatment strategies for AD.