Background: N-acetylcysteine (NAC) has been indicated against experimental seizures, but with relatively inconclusive results. This study was undertaken to evaluate whether NAC exerts a dose-dependent anticonvulsant effect and to determine NAC safe therapeutic dose range and its muscle-relaxant activity in both acute and chronic uses.Methods: Following intraperitoneal (i.p.) administration of N...

The motor cortex can be excited in adults using electromagnetic stimulation, and the latency to the evoked muscle action potential allows an assessment of the integrity of corticospinal tracts. We applied this technique in children to describe the maturation of corticospinal tracts. The latency from cortical stimulation to the onset of the evoked muscle action potentials and the subject's heigh...

background: alterations in the neuromuscular control of the spine were found in patients with chronic low back pain (clbp). sudden loading of the spine is assumed to be the cause of approximately 12% of lower back injuries. however, some aspects of this problem, such as alterations in the sensory–motor control of the spine, remain questionable. this study investigated postural and neuro–motor c...

A wealth of studies highlight the importance of rapid corrective responses during voluntary motor tasks. These studies used relatively large perturbations to evoke robust muscle activity. Thus it remains unknown whether these corrective responses (latency 20-100 ms) are evoked at perturbation levels approaching the inherent variability of voluntary control. To fill this gap, we examined respons...

In the clinical setting the bulbocavernosus reflex (BCR) is elicited by squeezing the glans penis and digitally palpating the contraction of the bulbocavernosus (BC) muscle. In neurophysiology the BCR is obtained by stimulating the dorsal nerve of the penis or clitoris and by recording the response from BC muscle and it should be performed in selected patients with suspected urinary, bowel, or ...

background: carum carvi l . (caraway), known as black zeera in iran, has been indicated for the treatment of epilepsy in iranian folk medicine. this study evaluated whether the aqueous extract and essential oil of caraway seeds have anticonvulsant effects in mice. methods: the anticonvulsant effects of the aqueous extract (200, 400, 800, 1600, and 3200 mg/kg, i.p.) and essential oil (25, 50, 10...

  Background: Alterations in the neuromuscular control of the spine were found in patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP). Sudden loading of the spine is assumed to be the cause of approximately 12% of lower back injuries. However, some aspects of this problem, such as alterations in the sensory–motor control of the spine, remain questionable. This study investigated postural and neuro–motor...

The earliest neural response to a mechanical perturbation, the short-latency stretch response (R1: 20-45 ms), is known to exhibit "automatic gain-scaling" whereby its magnitude is proportional to preperturbation muscle activity. Because gain-scaling likely reflects an intrinsic property of the motoneuron pool (via the size-recruitment principle), counteracting this property poses a fundamental ...

Background: Carum carvi L. (caraway), known as black zeera in Iran, has been indicated for the treatment of epilepsy in Iranian folk medicine. This study evaluated whether the aqueous extract and essential oil of caraway seeds have anticonvulsant effects in mice.Methods: The anticonvulsant effects of the aqueous extract (200, 400, 800, 1600, and 3200 mg/kg, i.p.) and essential oil (25, 50, 100,...

Acoustic Reflex Latency (ARL) is the time interval between onset of an intense auditory stimulus and onset of middle-ear muscle contraction. Unlike pure tone audiogram, the usual procedure to detect middle ear disorders and conductive hearing loss, ARL can differentiate between cochlear and retrocochlear pathologies, yields information about the nature of the conductive disorder, can detect mil...