Tsung Hsun Hsieh

Effect of the Kinesio tape to muscle activity and vertical jump performance in healthy inactive people

BackgroundElastic taping applied on the triceps surae has been commonly used to improve the performance of lower extremities. However, little objective evidence has been documented. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of elastic taping on the triceps surae during a maximal vertical jump. It was hypothesized that elastic taping to the triceps surae would increase muscle activity and cause positive effect to jump height.MethodsThirty-one healthy adults (19 males and 12 females with mean age, body weight and height for 25.3 ± 3.8 years old, 64.1 ± 6.2 kg, and 169.4 ± 7.3 cm, respectively) were recruited. All participants performed vertical jump tests prior to (without taping) and during elastic taping. Two elastic tapes, Kinesio tape and Mplacebo tape from two different manufacturers, were applied to the participants, respectively.ResultsThe results showed that the vertical ground reaction force increased when Kinesio tape was applied even when the height of jump remained about constant. However, the height of the jump decreased, and there was no difference on the vertical ground reaction force in Mplacebo taping group. Although the EMG activity of medial gastrocnemius tended to increase in Kinesio taping group, we did not see differences in EMG activity for the medial gastrocnemius, tibialis anterior and soleus muscles in either group.ConclusionsBased on the varied effects of Kinesio tape and Mplacebo tape, different intervention technique was suggested for specific purpose during vertical jump movement. Mplacebo tape was demanded for the benefits of stabilization, protection, and the restriction of motion at the ankle joint. On the other hand, the findings may implicate benefits for medial gastrocnemius muscle strength and push-off force when using Kinesio tape.

Time-course gait analysis of hemiparkinsonian rats following 6-hydroxydopamine lesion

We study a class of models with long-range repulsive interactions of the generalized Coulomb form

A new measure of cortical inhibition by mechanomyography and paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation in unanesthetized rats

V(r)\sim 1/r^{\alpha}

Functional Dopaminergic Neurons in Substantia Nigra are Required for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation-Induced Motor Plasticity

. We show that decreasing the interaction exponent in the regime

Quantitative video-based gait pattern analysis for hemiparkinsonian rats

\alpha T_c

A rapid lateral fluid percussion injury rodent model of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic epilepsy.

, which is characterized by an unusual temperature dependence of all quantities. In contrast, the leading critical behavior very close to the charge-ordering temperature remains identical as in models with short-range interactions.We describe conditions on non-gradient drift diffusion Fokker-Planck equations for its solutions to converge to equilibrium with a uniform exponential rate in Wasserstein distance. This asymptotic behaviour is related to a functional inequality, which links the distance with its dissipation and ensures a spectral gap in Wasserstein distance. We give practical criteria for this inequality and compare it to classical ones. The key point is to quantify the contribution of the diffusion term to the rate of convergence, which to our knowledge is a novelty.Gait disturbances similar to those of human Parkinsons disease (PD) can be observed in animals after administration of neurotoxin 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) to induce unilateral nigrostriatal dopamine depletion. However, the relationship between gait disturbances and dopamine depletion following 6-OHDA infusion has not been determined. The present study investigated the longitudinal changes of spatiotemporal gait patterns using a walkway system to acquire footprints and lateral limb images over a 6-week period following unilateral 6-OHDA injection into the medial forebrain bundle of rats. Our results indicated that hemiparkinsonian rats exhibited changes in gait patterns, as compared to normal controls, and pre-lesion levels, including a significantly decreased walking speed and step/stride length as well as an increased base of support and foot angle. The relative percentage of the gait cycle was also altered, showing an increase in the stance to swing ratio, which was more evident in the affected hindlimb. Time-course observations showed that these gait disturbances occurred as early as 4 days post-lesion and gradually increased up to 42 days post-injury. The extents of gait disturbances were compared with conventional apomorphine-induced turning behavior and akinesia bar tests, which were also apparent at 4 days post-lesion but remained relatively unchanged after 28 days. Our time-course gait analysis of a unilateral 6-OHDA rodent model provides insight into the compensatory changes of motor functions during the 6-week development of a nigrostriatal lesion, which might be useful for future objective assessment of novel treatments for human PD subjects.Let d=(d_1,d_2,..., d_n) be a vector of non-negative integers. We study the number of symmetric 0-1 matrices whose row sum vector equals d. While previous work has focussed on the case of zero diagonal, we allow diagonal entries to equal 1. When forming the row sum, each diagonal entry is multiplied by a factor of D, where D is 1 or 2. The case D=1 corresponds to enumeration by the usual row sum of matrices. The case D=2 corresponds to enumeration by degree sequence of undirected graphs with loops but no repeated edges, due to the convention that a loop contributes 2 to the degree of its incident vertex. We obtain asymptotically precise formulae for the number of matrices in the sparse range (where, roughly, the maximum row sum is o(n^{1/2})), and in the dense range (where, roughly, the average row sum is proportional to n and the row sums do not vary greatly).We prove the existence of equiangular tight frames having n=2d-1 elements drawn from either C^d or C^(d-1) whenever n is either 2^k-1 for k in N, or a power of a prime such that n=3 mod 4. We also find a simple explicit expression for the prime power case by establishing a connection to a 2d-element equiangular tight frame based on quadratic residues.Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) at GZK cut off energy (E \geq 55 EeV eV) may keep sharp or diffused directionality wherever their composition is made by nucleon or light nuclei. AUGER UHECR (2007-2010) did show a mild clustering mainly around Cen A. Two over three of the recent discovered AUGER multiplet (a dozen of events each) tail clustering at twenty EeV are pointing to primary sources very near the same UHECR crowded Cen A region. The Tens EeV tail is aligned with the same UHECR events. We foresaw such possibility as fragment tails of lightest UHECR nuclei. We discuss the relevance of this correlation within a model where UHECR are mostly lightest He like nuclei. UHECR fragment multiplet clustering aligned along higher Cen A events (at 55 EeV energy) probe and reinforce our interpretation with an a priori probability near 3 part over a hundred thousand.

Ectopic Pregnancy-Derived Human Trophoblastic Stem Cells Regenerate Dopaminergic Nigrostriatal Pathway to Treat Parkinsonian Rats

Paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (ppTMS) is a safe and noninvasive tool for measuring cortical inhibition in humans, particularly in patients with disorders of cortical inhibition such as epilepsy. However, ppTMS protocols in rodent disease models, where mechanistic insight into the ppTMS physiology and into disease processes may be obtained, have been limited due to the requirement for anesthesia and needle electromyography. To eliminate the confounding factor of anesthesia and to approximate human ppTMS protocols in awake rats, we adapted the mechanomyogram (MMG) method to investigate the ppTMS inhibitory phenomenon in awake rats and then applied differential pharmacology to test the hypothesis that long-interval cortical inhibition is mediated by the GABA(A) receptor. Bilateral hindlimb-evoked MMGs were elicited in awake rats by long-interval ppTMS protocols with 50-, 100-, and 200-ms interstimulus intervals. Acute changes in ppTMS-MMG were measured before and after intraperitoneal injections of saline, the GABA(A) agonist pentobarbital (PB), and GABA(A) antagonist pentylenetetrazole (PTZ). An evoked MMG was obtained in 100% of animals by single-pulse stimulation, and ppTMS resulted in predictable inhibition of the test-evoked MMG. With increasing TMS intensity, MMG amplitudes increased in proportion to machine output to produce reliable input-output curves. Simultaneous recordings of electromyography and MMG showed a predictable latency discrepancy between the motor-evoked potential and the evoked MMG (7.55 ± 0.08 and 9.16 ± 0.14 ms, respectively). With pharmacological testing, time course observations showed that ppTMS-MMG inhibition was acutely reduced following PTZ (P < 0.05), acutely enhanced after PB (P < 0.01) injection, and then recovered to pretreatment baseline after 1 h. Our data support the application of the ppTMS-MMG technique for measuring the cortical excitability in awake rats and provide the evidence that GABA(A) receptor contributes to long-interval paired-pulse cortical inhibition. Thus ppTMS-MMG appears a well-tolerated biomarker for measuring GABA(A)-mediated cortical inhibition in rats.

Trajectory of Parvalbumin Cell Impairment and Loss of Cortical Inhibition in Traumatic Brain Injury

Repetitive magnetic stimulation (rTMS), including theta burst stimulation (TBS), is capable of modulating motor cortical excitability through plasticity-like mechanisms and might have therapeutic potential for Parkinsons disease (PD). An animal model would be helpful for elucidating the mechanism of rTMS that remain unclear and controversial. Here, we have established a TMS model in rat and applied this model to study the impact of substantia nigra dopamine neuron on TBS-induced motor plasticity in PD rats. In parallel with human results, continuous TBS (cTBS) successfully suppressed motor evoked potentials (MEPs), while MEPs increased after intermittent TBS (iTBS) in healthy rats. We then tested the effect of iTBS in early and advanced 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-lesioned PD. Moreover, dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra and rotation behavior were assessed to correlate with the amount of iTBS-induced plasticity. In results, iTBS-induced potentiation was reduced in early PD rats and was absent in advanced PD rats. Such reduction in plasticity strongly correlated with the dopaminergic cell loss and the count of rotation in PD rats. In conclusion, we have established a TMS PD rat model. With the help of this model, we confirmed the loss of domaninergic neurons in substantia nigra resulting in reduced rTMS-induced motor plasticity in PD.

Post-traumatic administration of the p53 inactivator pifithrin-α oxygen analogue reduces hippocampal neuronal loss and improves cognitive deficits after experimental traumatic brain injury

Gait disturbances are common in the rat model of Parkinson’s disease (PD) by administrating 6-hydroxydopamine. However, few studies have simultaneously assessed spatiotemporal gait indices and the kinematic information of PD rats during overground locomotion. This study utilized a simple, accurate, and reproducible method for quantifying the spatiotemporal and kinematic changes of gait patterns in hemiparkinsonian rats. A transparent walkway with a tilted mirror was set to capture underview footprints and lateral joint ankle images using a high-speed and high-resolution digital camera. The footprint images were semi-automatically processed with a threshold setting to identify the boundaries of soles and the critical points of each hindlimb for deriving the spatiotemporal and kinematic indices of gait. Following PD lesion, asymmetrical gait patterns including a significant decrease in the step/stride length and increases in the base of support and ankle joint angle were found. The increased footprint length, toe spread, and intermediary toe spread were found, indicating a compensatory gait pattern for impaired locomotor function. The temporal indices showed a significant decrease in the walking speed with increased durations of the stance/swing phase and double support time, which was more evident in the affected hindlimb. Furthermore, the ankle kinematic data showed that the joint angle decreased at the toe contact stage. We conclude that the proposed gait analysis method can be used to precisely detect locomotor function changes in PD rats, which is useful for objective assessments of investigating novel treatments for PD animal model.

The effect of tenocyte/hyaluronic acid therapy on the early recovery of healing Achilles tendon in rats

Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of acquired epilepsy. Initially described in 1989, lateral fluid percussion injury (LFPI) has since become the most extensively used and well-characterized rodent traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic epilepsy model. Universal findings, particularly seizures that reliably develop after an initial latent period, are evident across studies from multiple laboratories. However, the LFPI procedure is a two-stage process, requiring initial surgical attachment of a skull fluid cannula and then reanesthesia for delivery of the epidural fluid pressure wave. We now describe a modification of the original technique, termed ‘rapid lateral fluid percussion injury’ (rLFPI), which allows for a one-stage procedure and thus shorter operating time and reduced anesthesia exposure. Anesthetized male Long–Evans rats were subjected to rLFPI through a length of plastic tubing fitted with a pipette tip cannula with a 4-mm aperture. The cannula opening was positioned over a craniectomy of slightly smaller diameter and exposed dura such that the edges of the cannula fit tightly when pressed to the skull with a micromanipulator. Fluid percussion was then delivered immediately thereafter, in the same surgery session. rLFPI resulted in nonlethal focal cortical injury in all animals. We previously demonstrated that the rLFPI procedure resulted in post-traumatic seizures and regional gliosis, but had not examined other histopathologic elements. Now, we show apoptotic cell death confined to the perilesional cortex and chronic pathologic changes such as ipsilesional ventriculomegaly that are seen in the classic model. We conclude that the rLFPI method is a viable alternative to classic LFPI, and – being a one-stage procedure – has the advantage of shorter experiment turnaround and reduced exposure to anesthetics.