Arthritic joints are chock-full of activated immune cells. These cells produce chemotactic proteins that lure other cells into the joint, setting up a vicious cycle of inflammation. But what instigates this cycle in the first place? A study by Kim et al. (page 829) puts much of the blame on neutrophils. Neutrophils—granular cells that are among the immune system’s earliest responders during inf...

The large surface area and the short diffusion distance from capillaries of the blood brain barrier (BBB) to the neurons facilitate the drugs and nutrients access to the brain. Penetration of chemicals to the BBB occurs using a combination of intra and intercellular passages. Tight junctions regulate the intracellular passage of molecules according to their physicochemical properties (e.g. lipo...

In autoimmune neurologic disorders, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) plays a central role in immunopathogenesis, since this vascular interface is an entry path for cells and effector molecules of the peripheral immune system to reach the target organ, the central nervous system (CNS). The BBB's unique anatomic structure and the tightly regulated interplay of its cellular and acellular components a...

The graphical tools (see Section 4) showed that the logarithmic transformation applied to both the response (concentration ratio) and the explanatory variable sacrifice time makes the relationship between the two variables approximately linear. In this section we will examine the relationship between the logarithm of concentration ratio (LNRATIO) and the eight explanatory variables with the fol...

Objective(s):Protective effects of diuretics, particularly of hydrochlorothiazide (HCT), for the development of seizure attacksepilepsy have been described in vivo. However, itsthe mechanism of action of HCT is unknownneeds to be elucidated. Materials and Methods: Extracellular field potentials were recorded from the CA1- and CA3-subfields of the hippocampus of rats. Epileptiform discharges wer...