Cholinesterases (ChEs) are classified as acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) according to their substrate specificity and sensitivity to selected inhibitors. The activities of AChE in red blood cells (RBC-AChE) and BChE in serum can be used as potential biomarkers of suppressed and/or heightened activity in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Exposure to organop...

We investigated interactions of bispyridinium para-aldoximes N,N'-(propano)bis(4-hydroxyiminomethyl) pyridinium bromide (TMB-4), N,N'-(ethano)bis(4-hydroxyiminomethyl)pyridinium methanosulphonate (DMB-4), and N,N'-(methano)bis(4-hydroxyiminomethyl)pyridinium chloride (MMB-4) with human erythrocyte acetylcholinesterase phosphorylated by tabun. We analysed aldoxime conformations to determine the ...

Detergent-based mixtures and pure surfactants used as decontaminants in mass casualty scenarios were investigated for their acute 24 h toxicity. Commercial detergents Neodekont, Argos, Dermogel, and FloraFree were tested in male Wistar rats after percutaneous, peroral and intramuscular administration. Pure surfactants althosan MB, sodium alkylbenzene sulphonate, triton X, benzyl dimethyl dodecy...

Gulf War Illness (GWI), which affects at least one fourth of the 700,000 veterans deployed to the Gulf War (GW), is characterized by persistent and heterogeneous symptoms, including pain, fatigue and cognitive problems. As a consequence, this illness remains difficult to diagnose. Rodent models have been shown to exhibit different symptomatic features of GWI following exposure to particular GW ...

The effect of pancuronium bromide (0.025 mg/kg. B.W.) alone or combined with diazepam (1mg/Kg. I.V) were evaluated in six adult ewes. Pancuronium bromide alone exhibited a muscle relaxants effect, but without analgesia. All baseline measurements were taken before the administration the anesthetic agent and were repeated at 5,10,15,20 and 25 min. intervals after induction an aesthesia alone or c...

INTRODUCTION Normal platelet functions are critical for achieving primary haemostasis. Numerous medications have been shown to affect platelet functions. Pyridostigmine (Mestinon), an orally active cholinesterase inhibitor that is commonly used to treat myasthenia gravis has been documented to cause epistaxis and prolonged bleeding after a cut in anectodal reports. This study was initiated afte...

Gulf War syndrome (GWS) is a multi-symptom condition comprising a variety of signs and symptoms described in the literature, which not been fully resolved. The various symptoms of the condition include muscle fatigue and tiredness, malaise, myalgia, impaired cognition, ataxia, diarrhoea, bladder dysfunction, sweating disturbances, headaches, fever, arthralgia, skin rashes, and gastrointestinal ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) are widely used to treat myasthenia gravis (MG). Although AChEIs are usually tolerated well, some MG patients suffer from side effects. Furthermore, a small proportion of MG patients show cholinergic hypersensitivity and cannot tolerate AChEIs. Because repetitive compound muscle action potentials (R-CMAPs) are an electrophysiologic...

PURPOSE Long-term consequences of combined pyridostigmine bromide (PB) and permethrin (PER) exposure in C57BL6/J mice using a well-characterized mouse model of exposure to these Gulf War (GW) agents were explored at the protein level. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We used orthogonal proteomic approaches to identify pathways that are chronically impacted in the mouse CNS due to semiacute GW agent exposu...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Patients with muscle-specific tyrosine kinase (MuSK) antibody (MuSK-Ab)-positive myasthenia gravis (MG) show distinct responses to acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs). Although clinical responses to AChEIs in MuSK-Ab MG are reasonably well known, little is known about the electrophysiologic responses to AChEIs. We therefore investigated the clinical and electrophysio...