PurposeTo study the characteristics of contingent negative variation (CNV) in vascular dementia.MethodsCNV was tested and compared in 24 vascular dementia (VD) patients and 22 normal aged persons. Results The data showed that in compare with normal controls the latencies of early component and late component of CNV in VD were greatly prolonged and closely correlated to the extent of dementia. The amplitude of early component was greatly reduced. The reactive time (RT) was prolonged prominently and also correlated with the extent of dementia. The occurrence of postimperative negative variation (PINV) increased. Conclusions The value of CNV can be used to reflect the extent of dementia. Test the CNV in series may help to evaluate the cognitive impairment in VD.

Objective: To evaluate the applicability, reliability and validity of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (CFT)in Chinese normal elderly. Methods: A total of 111 normal elderly were assessed by the CFT (Form A) and the mini-mental state examination (MMSE). Among these subjects, 40 were also administered the CFT (Form B), the Block Design and the Visual Reproduction tests. Results: No significant difference was found between CFT (Form A) and CFT (Form B) with respect to copy, delayed recall and recognition. Recall performance was related to copying strategy and level of organization. Details of accuracy and their respective placement were evaluated in both copy and delayed recall trials for CFT (Form A). Conclusion: As a measure for visual-spatial constructional ability and visual memory, the CFT (Form A & B) was assessed to be psychometrically reliable and valid to be used in normal Chinese elderly.

Objective To test the efficacy and safety of nicergoline in treatment of vascular dementia patients with mild or moderate cognitive impairment. Methods A multicenter,double blind,randomized,efficient drug controlled clinical trial was carried out All the subjects met the DSM-Ⅲ criteria for vascular dementia We used MMSE and WMS as main assessing items and ADL,CGI as secondary assessing items. Results 103 subjects were assessed MMSE were raised in both groups after the treatment and more obvious in nicergoline group than in anecetan group (1 62?2 33 and 2 88?2 85 respectively) WMS raised in nicergoline group (5 04?10 61),but not in anecetan group (1 98?9 49) ADL and CGI (SI) showed decreased scores in both groups Total efficiency of nicergoline was 80 0% and of anecetan was 56 6%. Conclusions Nicergoline was an effective drug in treatment of vascular dementia and more effective than anecetan Using nicergoline 60 mg per day was safe

Objective: To develop Auditory Verbal Memory Test (AVMT) suitable for Chinese elderly. Method:100 normal elderly and 22 patients with mild to moderate Alz heimer' s disease were evaluated by AVMT, mini mental state examination. 40 person randomly selected from the 100 sample were assessed in follow up by AVMT, Wechsler Memory Scale ( Chinese Revised Version), information and similaritias subtests of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - Chinese Revised Version (WAIS- RC) . Results: The correlation between inter- raters was 0.99, test- retest reliability at 3 months interval were 0.87～0.94. Education was a prominent influence factor of memory and recognition of AVMT. There were significant correlation between third recall, short delayed recall and total scores of VMS- RC, between long delayed recall and verbal sceres of WAIS - RC. Semantic clustering strategy showed gradual strongly correlation with measures of recall ability in higher education group. Performance of Alzheimer group was poorer than that of matched normal control. Scores of long delayed re call differed most obviously in group comparison. Conclusion: AVMT had good reliability and validity

Objective: To analyze auditory verbal memory impairment after isolated stroke lesions in subcerebral structure. Methods: Auditory verbal memory function was examined in 25 normal elderly and 83 patients at 20th day after their admission to hospital for acute cerebrovascular disease with non-aphasiaand solitary lesions as identified by cranial CT or MRI. Results: Test findings suggested patients with stroke of internal capsule-basal ganglia, cerebellum and pons lesion have processing impairments of recent memory and subjective organization which are related to concentration and arousal levels. Conclusion: Stroke of subcortical regions such as lesions of thalamus,internal capsule-basal ganglia,cerebellum and pons may induce memory impairments with unique impaired cognitive coding modalities.

Objective:To investigate the therapeutic efficacy of immunotherapy with dendritic cells-based vaccine against intracranial gliomas in rats.Methods:C6 glioma cells were injected into the brain of Wistar rat under stereotactic monitor to establish an animal model of glioma.The precursors of dendritic cells were isolated from bone marrow of rats,stimulated in vitro with recombinant rat granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor(rrGM-CSF)and interleukin-4(rrIL-4).Cultured cell populations were confirmed to be functional DCs.These DCs were then pulsed ex vivo with C6 tumor-lysates prepared by three cycles of freezing to -80℃ and thawing to 0℃ and subsequently injected subcutaneously into rats harboring intracranial C6 tumor.Rats from different group were treated with five weekly subcutaneous injections of either control media,unpulsed DCs,or DCs pulsed with tumor-lysates.The animals were followed for survival,the percentage of CD8 +T cells in peripheral blood and cytotoxicity assay in vitro were determined by FACS.The level of cytokine IFN-? and IL-10 were detected by ELISA.Results:The results indicated that C6 glioma model rats treated with tumor-lysate-pulsed DCs led to prolonged survival time,increased the percentage of CD8 + T lymphocyte in peripheral blood in comparing with control group.Cytotoxicity assays suggest that vaccination with these tumor-lysate-pulsed DCs can induce specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes against C6 tumor cells compared with control group.Furthermore,significantly enhanced IFN-? and reduced IL-10 (even undetectable)were observed in rats treated with pulsed-DCs.Conclusion:Data supported the therapeutic efficacy of systemic vaccination with DCs pulsed with tumor-lysates against intracranial glioma.

Objective: To analyze the ability of Chinese characters reading and characteristics of alexia among patients with mild, moderate and severe Alzheimer's Disease(AD). Methods: Chinese characters reading test was performed in 20 normal controls(average MMSE total score is 27.7), 20 mild AD(average MMSE is 21.2),20 moderate AD(average MMSE is 15.2) and 20 severe AD(average MMSE is 6.9). Chinese characters reading test consists of 22 mark-symbol characters, 17 phonetic symbol characters and 17 meaning-symbol characters. Results: No significant difference were found in scores of Chinese characters reading test among normal controls, patients with mild, moderate AD group. Compared with moderate AD, severe AD showed manifest decline for scores of phonetic symbol characters and meaning-symbol characters reading. There wasn't significant different visual paralexia among 4 groups. Surface alexia occurred at early stage of AD and advanced at late stage of AD. These wrong reading were seen frequently in meaning-symbol characters. Deep alexia occurred only at late stage of AD. Compound words phanomenon is the major class of deep alexia. Conclusion: Ability of Chinese characters reading was helpful to estimate premorbid intelligence of the patients with dementia. There are different classes of alexia between Chinese and western languages.

AIM: The goal of this study was to compare different methods for tumor antigen preparation, to observe the induction of tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes in rats by dendritic cells (DCs) pulsed with different tumor antigens. METHODS: The precursors of dendritic cells were isolated from bone marrow of rats, stimulated in vitro with recombinent rat granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (rrGM-CSF) and interleukin-4 (rrIL-4). Then rat DCs were pulsed with C6 tumor cell antigens prepared with different methods: freeze-thaw, boiling or total protein extracted from ultrasonic crushed tumor cell. Subsequently primed DCs were cocultured with T lymphocytes isolated from spleen to induce CTL. Lymphocyte chemoattractant factor from DCs and cytokine IFN-? release were determined by ELISA, the cytotoxicity of CTL was assayed by JAM test. RESULTS: DCs pulsed with boiled tumor cell in vitro induced an enhanced ability of T-cell proliferation and cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity.CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrated that DCs primed with boiled tumor cell may represent a method for inducing immune responses against the entire repertoire of tumor antigens of malignancies.

Objective To investigate the removal effect of immunoadsorption (IA) on associated antibodies and the efficacy in late-onset myasthenia gravis (MG). Methods A total of 25 late-onset MG patients were randomly selected to enroll in this study. IA therapy was given to 10 patients (IA group), while immunoglobin (0.4 g·kg-1·d-1) was administrated to the other 15 patients for 5 days(Ig group). The titers of Titin antibody (Titin-ab), acetylcholine receptor antibody (AchR-ab) and presynaptic membrane antibody (PrsmR-ab) were detected before and after the treatment. Quantitive MG (QMG) score was assessed before and immediately after the entire course of treatment. The clinical efficacy, the duration of respiratory support and in-hospital were compared between two groups. The correlation between three antibodies and QMG score was also analyzed. Results Compared with that before treatment, the Titin-ab PIN values, the AchR-ab PIN values, and the PrsmR-ab P/N values of IA group were all decreased significantly after treatment (P<0.05, respectively). The P/N value of Titin-ab in IA group was decreased by 54.7%～3.5%, which was significantly higher than that in Ig group(19.9%±3.1%) (P<0.01). QMG score reduced by 42.4%± 4.2% and 23.8%±3.7% in IA group and Ig group respectively (P<0.01, respectively). Symptoms were effectively ameliorated by both treatments, but the effective power of IA group was higher than that of Ig group (70% vs 40%, P<0.05). Remission time of IA group was significantly shorter than that of Ig group [(5.38±0.42) d vs (8.4±1.54) d, P=0.008), so was the duration of in-hospital [(13.50±0.50) d vs (16.50±0.50) d, P<0.05). The number of respiratory support in IA group was less than that in Ig group (1/10 vs 6/15, P<0.05). By the Pearson correlation analysis, the decrease of Titin-ab showed a better longitudinal correlation with the decrease of QMG score than the other two antibodies (r=0.6315, P<0.01). Conclusion IA can rapidly and effectively clear the pathogenic antibodies of late-onset MG patients and its short-term clinical efficacy is better than immunoglobin.

Objective To study the effect of magnetic stimulation on the expression of B cell lymphoma/leukemia gene 2 ( Bcl-2 ) and caspase-3 genes, and the apoptosis of neurons in rats with spinal cord injury (SCI).Methods Sixty rats were randomly divided into a magnetic stimulation group, a model group and a sham-operation group. An SCI model was established in the magnetic stimulation and model groups. The magnetic stimulation was applied at the 6th, 12th, 24th and 72nd hour after the operation to the rats in the magnetic stimulation group, and sham magnetic stimulation was given to the model group and sham-operation group rats at the same time points. Two hours after treatment, 5 rats of each group were sacrificed and their injured spinal cords were sectioned. The gene expressions were detected using immunohistochemical techniques, and apoptosis of neurons was observed by the TUNEL method. Results Few apoptotic cells were found in the sham-operation group, but more were found in the model group. Apoptotic cells in the magnetic stimulation group were significantly fewer than in the model group. The expression of both Bcl-2 and caspase-3 in the magnetic stimulation and model groups was significantly higher than in the sham-operation group at the different time points. Expression of Bcl-2 in the magnetic stimulation group was significantly higher than in the model group, but expression of caspase-3 in the magnetic stimulation group was significantly lower than in the model group. Conclusions Magnetic stimulation up-regulates the expression of Bcl-2 genes and down-regulates the expression of caspase-3 in injured neurons. Magnetic stimulation might have protective and rehabilitative effects after human SCI.