SUMMARY Because a great majority of patients with chronic complete heart block have bilateral bundle-branch lesions, it becomes important to recognize earlier degrees of bilateral bundle-branch block. The H-V interval in the His bundle electrogram during unilateral bundle-branch block reflects the conduction primarily through the contralateral bundle branch, and thus the His bundle electrogram ...

The breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP/ABCG2) is, like P-glycoprotein (P-gp), a member of the ABC family of drug transporters. These proteins actively transport various anticancer drugs from cells, causing multidrug resistance. The physiological expression of P-gp/ABCB1 at the blood-brain barrier (BBB) effectively restricts the brain uptake of many antitumor drugs by mediating their active ...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Although bundle branch block (BBB) is regarded as a frequent finding, data on its prevalence are scarce in the general population and nonexistent in patients on dialysis. The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of complete BBB in patients starting dialysis, to identify factors associated with its presence and, secondarily, to explore its association w...

This review discusses strategies to optimize brain penetration from the perspective of drug discovery and development. Brain penetration kinetics can be described by the extent and time to reach brain equilibrium. The extent is defined as the ratio of free brain concentration to free plasma concentration at steady state. For all central nervous system (CNS) drug discovery programs, optimization...

Blood-brain barrier (BBB) characteristics are induced and maintained by cross-talk between brain microvessel endothelial cells and neighbouring elements of the neurovascular unit. While pericytes are the cells situated closest to brain endothelial cells morphologically and share a common basement membrane, they have not been used in co-culture BBB models for testing drug permeability. We have d...

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and hypoxia inducible factor-1 (HIF-1), and to investigate the role of the HIF-1/VEGF signaling pathway following spinal cord injury (SCI). A total of 90 12-week-old Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into the following three groups: Sham group (operation without SCI); control group (...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We have previously reported that intravenous injection of high-density lipoproteins (HDLs) was neuroprotective in an embolic stroke model. We hypothesized that HDL vasculoprotective actions on the blood-brain barrier (BBB) may decrease hemorrhagic transformation-associated with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) administration in acute stroke. METHODS We used tPA alone ...

PURPOSE To determine efflux systems of the outer blood-retina barrier (oBRB) and compare the oBRB with the blood-brain barrier (BBB). METHODS Porcine oBRB structure and transport characteristics of freshly dissected intact tissue sheets were investigated with scanning electron microscopy, immunocytochemistry, vital dye labeling, and pharmacological agents, using HPLC/mass spectrometry. To com...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Arterial spin-labeling magnetic resonance imaging is sensitive for detecting hyperemic lesions (HLs) in patients with acute ischemic stroke. We evaluated whether HLs could predict blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption and hemorrhagic transformation (HT) in acute ischemic stroke patients. METHODS In a retrospective study, arterial spin-labeling was performed within 6 hour...