Background and Objectives:Chronic hypertension induces changes in the cardiac structure and function; however, the effects of transient hypertension are unclear. Pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) offers a natural and spontaneous model of this condition. Subjects and Methods:20 women, aged 30.3±5.1 years, with pregnancy-induced hypertension, defined as a blood pressure higher than 140/90 mmHg...

The aim of this study was to determine if skeletal muscle capillary density is lower in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) and if capillary density relates to functional limitations. PAD patients with intermittent claudication (IC) have a decreased exercise tolerance due to exercise-induced muscle ischemia. Despite the apparent role diminished arterial flow has in this population, th...

A Gabor filtering method for texture based classification of color images is presented. The algorithm is robust and can be used with different color representations. It involves a filter selection process based on texture smoothness. Unichannel and interchannel correlation features are computed. Two types of color representations have been considered: (1) computing chromaticity values from xyY,...

BACKGROUND Neuropathic pain is characterized by hypersensitivity to innocuous stimuli (tactile allodynia) that is nearly always resistant to NSAIDs or even opioids. Gabapentin, a GABA analogue, was originally developed to treat epilepsy. Accumulating clinical evidence supports the effectiveness of this drug for diverse neuropathic pain. In this study, we showed that the anti-allodynic effect of...

Activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), especially p38 MAPK, plays an important role in the development of central sensitization related to persistent inflammatory pain. Electroacupuncture (EA) is well known to relieve persistent inflammatory pain. However, little is known about relationship between EA and p38 MAPK. Inflammatory pain rat model was induced by intraplantar inject...

The purpose of this study was to further validate the Walking Impairment Questionnaire (WIQ) as a self-report tool to aid in the clinical identification of walking ability of patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). 132 patients with PAD and an ankle brachial index (ABI) ≤0.90 were enrolled; 123 provided complete data for the WIQ and standardized graded treadmill test. The WIQ scores were...

Repeated and long-term administration of opioids is often accompanied by the initiation of opioid-induced analgesic tolerance and hyperalgesia in chronic pain patients. Our previous studies showed that repeated intrathecal morphine injection activated the mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) in spinal dorsal horn neurons and that blocking this activation prevented the initiation of ...

The treatment of neuropathic pain (NP) currently remains clinically challenging. In an attempt to identify novel targets of known opioids, we found that dezocine, a non-addictive opioid, inhibits norepinephrine and serotonin reuptake through their transporter proteins which open the potential for dezocine to manage NP. In the present study, the effect of dezocine on NP was observed in a rat mod...

Neuropathic pain is usually defined as a chronic pain state caused by peripheral or central nerve injury as a result of acute damage or systemic diseases. It remains a difficult disease to treat. Recent studies showed that the frequency of action potentials in nociceptive afferents is affected by the activity of hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated cation channels (HCN) family. I...

BACKGROUND The role of coronary atherosclerosis (CA+) in ventricular remodeling after aortic valve replacement (AVR) for isolated aortic stenosis (AS) is not well defined. We sought to evaluate the impact of not revascularized moderate coronary atherosclerosis in long-term left ventricular (LV) remodeling after AVR. METHODS We assessed by coronariography the coronary artery disease in 66 pati...