BACKGROUND Ultrasound gels may contain propylene glycol and glycerol, which are neurotoxic in high concentrations. If the needle passes through gel during regional anesthesia, gel may be injected near the nerve. It is unknown if this practice poses a risk for neurotoxicity. Using an animal model, we assessed the histological changes of perineural propylene glycol on nerves. We then assessed thr...

Parkinson's disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra, decreased striatal dopamine levels, and consequent extrapyramidal motor dysfunction. We now report that minocycline, a semisynthetic tetracycline, recently shown to have neuroprotective effects in animal models of stroke/ischemic injury and Huntington's disease, pre...

BACKGROUND The mechanisms underlying neurotoxicity caused by L-DOPA are not yet completely known. Based on recent findings, we speculated that the increased expression of divalent metal transporter 1 without iron-response element (DMT1-IRE) induced by L-DOPA might play a critical role in the development of L-DOPA neurotoxicity. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the effects of astrocyte-c...

BACKGROUND Lidocaine, a local anesthetic, can be neurotoxic. However, the cellular mechanisms of its neurotoxicity at concentrations encountered during spinal anesthesia remain unclear. METHODS The authors examined the mechanisms of lidocaine neurotoxicity in the ND7 cell line derived from rat dorsal root ganglion. Individual neurons were assayed by flow cytometry or microscopy using fluoresc...

BACKGROUND To establish zebrafish as a developmental toxicity model, we used 7 well-characterized compounds to examine several parameters of neurotoxicity during development. METHODS Embryos were exposed by semistatic immersion from 6 hrs postfertilization (hpf). Teratogenicity was assessed using a modified method previously developed by Phylonix. Dying cells in the brain were assessed by acr...

Cadmium (Cd), a highly ubiquitous heavy metal, is a well-known inducer of neurotoxicity. However, the mechanism underlying cadmium-induced neurotoxicity remains unclear. In this study, we found that Cd inhibits autophagosome-lysosome fusion and impairs lysosomal function by reducing the levels of lysosomal-associated membrane proteins, inhibiting lysosomal proteolysis and altering lysosomal pH,...

BACKGROUND To study the survival outcome and neurotoxicity grades in patients of high-grade glioma (HGG) treated with conformal radiation and temozolamide. MATERIALS AND METHODS Forty-six patients of HGG received conformal post operative radiation and temozolamide in the period 2003 to 2007. Twenty seven patients had near total resection, 17 had subtotal resection and 2 had biopsy only. 33 pa...

Polymorphisms in drug-metabolizing enzymes might not completely explain inter-individual differences in toxicity profiles of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) that receive folinic acid/5-fluorouracil/oxaliplatin (FOLFOX4). Recent data indicate that the immune system could contribute to FOLFOX4 outcomes. In light of the immune inhibitory nature of human leukocyte antigen-G (HLA-G), a non-cla...

Children are being exposed to an increasingly greater variety of anesthetics with advances in pediatric and obstetric surgery. Recent animal and retrospective human data suggest that the general anesthetics commonly used in pediatric medicine could be damaging to the developing brain when used at clinical concentrations. In vivo primate and rodent models have shown that neonatal exposure to cli...

Oxaliplatin has become an integral part of the standard treatment for advanced colorectal cancer. While oxaliplatin has only mild hematologic and gastrointestinal side effects, its dose-limiting toxicity is a cumulative sensory neurotoxicity. Oxaliplatin causes a unique, but frequent, acute sensory neuropathy that is triggered or aggravated by exposure to cold but is rapidly reversible, without...