Iversen Taylor (jellycut13)

Growth factors are required for cell proliferation and differentiation under physiological conditions but especially in the context of regenerative medicine. The time-prolonged administration of those factors has been explored using different sustained drug delivery systems. These platforms include natural materials such as bacterial inclusion bodies (IBs) that contain chaperones and other bacterial components that might favour protein release. Being successful from a functional point of view, IBs pose regulatory concerns to clinical applications because of the mentioned presence of bacterial cell components, including endotoxins. We have here explored the release and activity of the human fibroblast growth factor-2 (hFGF-2) from a novel synthetic material, namely artificial IBs. Being chemically homogenous and compliant with regulatory restrictions, we wondered if these materials would effectively release functional proteins in absence of accompanying bacterial agents. The data provided here fully supports that artificial hFGF-2 IBs act as true and efficient secretory granules and they slowly disintegrate in cell culture to promote wound healing in an in vitro wound healing model. Free from undesired bacterial components, artificial inclusion bodies show promises as delivery agents in regenerative medicine.Human action-stopping is thought to rely on a prefronto-basal ganglia-thalamocortical network, with right inferior frontal cortex (rIFC) posited to play a critical role in the early stage of implementation. Here we sought causal evidence for this idea in experiments involving healthy human participants. We first show that action-stopping is preceded by bursts of electroencephalographic activity in the beta band over prefrontal electrodes, putatively rIFC, and that the timing of these bursts correlates with the latency of stopping at a single-trial level earlier bursts are associated with faster stopping. From this we reasoned that the integrity of rIFC at the time of beta bursts might be critical to successful stopping. We then used fMRI-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to disrupt rIFC at the approximate time of beta bursting. Stimulation prolonged stopping latencies and, moreover, the prolongation was most pronounced in individuals for whom the pulse appeared closer to the presumed time of beta bursting. These results help validate a model of the neural architecture and temporal dynamics of action-stopping. They also highlight the usefulness of prefrontal beta bursts to index an apparently important sub-process of stopping, the timing of which might help explain within- and between-individual variation in impulse control.Older adults typically perform more poorly than younger adults in free recall memory tests. This age-related deficit has been linked to decline of brain activation and brain prefrontal lateralization, which may be the result of compensatory mechanisms. In the present pilot study, we investigated the effect of age on prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation during performance of a task that requires memory associations (temporal vs. spatial clustering), using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Ten younger adults, ten cognitively high-performing older individuals, and ten low-performing older individuals completed a free recall task, where either a temporal or spatial strategy (but not both simultaneously) could be employed to retrieve groups of same-category stimuli, whilst changes in PFC hemodynamics were recorded by means of a 12-channel fNIRS system. read more The results suggest PFC activation, and right lateralization specific to younger adults. Moreover, age did not affect use of memory organization, given that temporal clustering was preferred over spatial clustering in all groups. These findings are in line with previous literature on the aging brain and on temporal organization of memory. Our results also suggest that the PFC may be specifically involved in memory for tempor