ObjectivesBrain stroke is the second most important events that lead to disability and morbidity these days. Although, stroke is important, there is no treatment for curing this problem. Nowadays, cell therapy has opened a new window for treating central nervous system disease. In some previous studies the Mesenchymal stem cells and neural stem cells. In this study, we have designed an experiment to assess the combination cell therapy (Mesenchymal and Neural stem cells) effects on brain stroke.Method and MaterialsThe Mesenchymal stem cells were isolated from adult rat bone marrow and the neural stem cells were isolated from ganglion eminence of rat embryo 14 days. The Mesenchymal stem cells were injected 1 day after middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) and the neural stem cells transplanted 7 day after MCAO. After 28 days, the neurological outcomes and brain lesion volumes were evaluated. Also, the activity of Caspase 3 was assessed in different groups.ResultThe group which received combination cell therapy had better neurological examination and less brain lesion. Also the combination cell therapy group had the least Caspase 3 activity among the groups.ConclusionsThe combination cell therapy is more effective than Mesenchymal stem cell therapy and neural stem cell therapy separately in treating the brain stroke in rats.

Objective: Breast cancer is the most common cancer and leading cause of mortality in women worldwide. Diagnosis of axillary lymph node involvement, frequently by axillary ultrasonography (AUS), is an important step in patients with primary breast cancer, while the gold standard pathological examination is only applicable during surgery. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the predictive value of AUS in detection of lymph node involvement. Methods: A total of 56 patients with primary breast cancer, who were candidate of mastectomy were included in this study. A single radiologist performed pre-operative axillary sonography for all the patients and reported the results in a checklist. The results were then compared with intra-operative pathological results of lymph node dissection to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of AUS in detection of the disease. Result: The results showed that pre-operative AUS had a sensitivity of 63.3%, specificity of 84.6%, positive predictive value of 82.6%, and negative predictive value of 66.6%. Correlation between axillary lymph node characteristics revealed that the absence of fatty hilum, cortical thickness, and loss of ovality of the lymph nodes were the most specific factors in detection of lymph nodes' involvement. Conclusion: AUS has a low sensitivity and cannot determine the presence of micro-metastases and suspicious lymph nodes accurately in early stages of the disease, and it seems that defining new parameters may help for increasing the sensitivity and specificity of the axillary lymph node sonography. Apparently, pathological examination remains the gold standard diagnostic method.

Bistable perception is a form of visual illusion that is widely used in the context of brain research. The spinning dancer illusion is a form of bistable perception that can be used to study the perception of motion and rotation. However, the underlying mechanism of such bistability is not fully understood. To determine the possible mechanisms involved, psychophysical methods may provide valuable tools. In the present study, we investigated the effects of stimulus position in the visual field on the duration and number of perceptual reversals in the spinning dancer task. The results indicated that the duration of counterclockwise perception was significantly shorter when the stimulus was presented in the left hemifield compared with the right hemifield (p Ͻ .01). Neural adaptation in the right hemisphere might play a role in shortening the duration of counterclockwise perception in left hemifield trials. We suggest that the usual optical flow can explain the basic clockwise tendency of the right hemisphere in rotation perception. Our results are consistent with previous functional MRI studies, supporting the hypothesis that right hemisphere dominance in motion perception causes a bias toward clockwise perception in the spinning dancer task.

BackgroundNowadays, stroke leads to a significant part of the adult mortality and morbidity and also it could result in some neurological deficits in the patients’ lives. Cell therapy has opened a new approach to treat the brain ischemia and reduce its terrible effects on the patients’ lives. There are several articles which show that the cell therapy could be beneficial for treating brain stroke. In this study, we have planned to present a new cell therapy method for stroke by administration of Mesenchymal stem cells and differentiated neural stem cells without astrocytes.Method and MaterialsThe Mesenchymal stem cells were isolated from tibia and femur of a 250~300 g rat and they were cultured in DMEM/F12, 10% fetal bovine serum, 1% Pen/Strep. Neural stem cells were isolated from 14 days rat embryo ganglion eminence and were cultured in NSA media containing Neurobasal, 2% B27, bFGF 10 ng/ml and EGF 20 ng/ml after 5 days they formed some neurospheres. The isolated neural stem cells were differentiated to neural lineages by adding 5% fetal bovine serum to their culture media. After 48 hours the astrocytes were depleted by using MACS kit.ResultsThe group that received Mesenchymal stem cells systemically and differentiated neural stem cells without astrocytes had the best neurological outcomes and the least infarct volume and apoptosis. It could be understood that this cell therapy method might cause almost full recovery after brain stoke.ConclusionUsing combination cell therapy with Mesenchymal stem cells and differentiated neural stem cells with removed astrocyte could provide a novel method for curing brain stroke.

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