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Increase in the life expectancy of the population is associated with a tendency of aging in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). Gender, age and genetic differences of the individual risk factors are still discussed in the aspect of influence on the heart failure clinical phenotype. The study aimed to identify the gender and age differences of chronic heart failure clinical characteristics in terms of the ZBTB17 gene (rs10927875) polymorphism. Materials and methods. A total of 351 patients with CHF of ischemic etiology of both genders were examined. The average age of men was 65.3±9.9, women  ̶  69.7±9.61 years. Results and conclusions: CHF of ischemic etiology in the absence of differences in the burdened family history, previous myocardial infarction (MI) observed mainly in middle-aged and elderly men and elderly and senile women. Significant gender differences in comorbidities were revealed: in 40% of men, CHF was associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in 47.3% of women ‒ with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and in 32.2% - with diabetes mellitus (DM). The distribution of rs10927875 polymorphism ZBTB17 genotypes were corresponded to the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (χ2 = 0.272, p = 0.873). CC genotype in men was associated with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). CT genotype in women associated with CHF FC III and IV due to the frequent indications in the past on myocardial infarction, concomitant DM, obesity and hypercholesterolemia. The CT genotype rs10927875 was characterized by a frequent combination of CHF with COPD in men and CKD and DM in women.

The aim of the work was to study the effects of photobiomodulation (PBM) in the red spectrum (640 nm) with fluences from 3 mJ/cm² to 2 J/cm² in combination with ionizing radiation (IR) at doses of 2-6 Gy against human BJ-5ta-hTERT - postnatal fibroblasts. The cells were exposed to low-intensity red light before or after their exposure to IR, the viability of the cells was determined by MTT 24 hours after the last exposure. It is shown that the effects of PBM depend on the fluence of PBM, the dose of IR and the sequence of the actions of these physical factors on cells. The adaptive effect of PBM was observed only for high fluences-1 and 2 J/cm² when exposed to PBM and subsequent (after 1 hour) irradiation of IR. At the same time, the stimulating effect of PBM was observed only for low fluences from 3 to 300 mJ/cm² under IR irradiation and subsequent (after 1 hour) exposure to PBM. These data should be taken into account when using PBM for the correction of adverse events of radiation therapy in an oncological clinic.

Mitochondria-endoplasmic reticulum contacts (MERC) are known as one of the key regulators of many cell functions. In particular, MERC effects on the mobility and morphology of mitochondria, exchange of calcium and lipids between organelles, and participates in the processes of autophagy and apoptosis that are crucial for neuronal development. MERC can influence the functioning of the neurotrophic factor BDNF through the activation of the Sigma-1 receptor. That points to the presence of feedback i.e. itself BDNF influence on the structural characteristics of MERC. At the same time, the effect of chronic stimulation of BDNF or blockade of TrkB receptors on an ability to form contacts between mitochondria and ER is different and depends on cellular compartment.

Plastic changes in the neurons of the amygdala during learning in fear conditioning and their contribution to the modifications of behavior are well known, but the impact of hippocampal neurons in this behavioral task is not well studied to date. Recently a novel technique for simultaneous recording of calcium signal in multiple neurons in the brain of awake freely moving animals by miniature fluorescent microscope (miniscope) was developed. With the use of the miniscope, we have investigated neuronal activity in the CA1 area of hippocampus during memory formation and a recall in the task of contextual fear conditioning and correlated it with recorded mice behavior. Three epochs during learning were analyzed in mice behavior and brain activity: 120 s before, 2 s during, and 30 s after the electric shock. Memory retrieval was induced by placement of the animals for 180 s in the same context 24 h and 48 h after learning. The total amount of the neurons recorded in three mice was 507 during learning and 401 during memory retrieval. The patterns of neuronal activity were analyzed and discussed.

The information influence in the modern globalizing world is a serious challenge to the security of any state. This article presents the results of an experimental study of the way the modern Internet media affect the cognitive attitudes of individuals on the example of two leading international TV channels – RT and BBC. In order to conduct this study our team developed an experimental plan for the psychophysiological recording of deformation of cognitive attitudes under the external informational influence. The study was conducted at the Department of Psychophysiology of the Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod from March to May 2018. The experiment was conducted on twenty-one (21) volunteers aged from nineteen to thirty-six, the average age of the group being twenty-four. Since the largest audience of modern communication networks is the younger generation, they became the focus of the study. The authors analyzed the deformations of the cognitive attitudes of individuals to identify distinctive features of these processes.

Gamma band oscillations (25 - 70 Hz) play an important role in processing of information by neocortical neurons. In simple cells of the cat's visual cortex, it was previously shown that strength of gamma oscillations is modulated by the membrane potential oscillations at the temporal frequency of the stimulus. More recently, theoretical studies using a conductance-based neuronal model have shown that this coupling significantly improves visual stimulus encoding. Due to the availability of a broad range of genetic tools, mice had recently become an important experimental subject for research in various fields of neuroscience, including visual physiology. It has been suggested that gamma oscillations in the mouse visual cortex play a minor role in visual processing due to the lack of specialized neurons that take part in generating gamma oscillations. Here we show, using patch clamp recording from simple cells in the visual cortex of anesthetized mice, that the strength of gamma oscillations is modulated by the phase of stimulus-induced oscillations during visual stimulation with moving gratings. In addition, using patch clamp recording from mouse visual cortex neurons in slices, we demonstrated benefits of gamma activity modulation for encoding of slow sinusoidal signals into sequences of action potentials. Thus, the phenomenon of amplitude modulation of gamma oscillations by temporal frequency of stimulus, originally described in the visual system of cats, may represent a universal mechanism that improves encoding of visual information which is present even in animals with a relatively poorly developed visual system, such as mice.

Spontaneous activity is known to be a characteristic feature of the vast majority of the neocortical principal cells including neurons of the primary sensory areas. The question of how spontaneous activity interacts with perception and encoding of sensory information remains open. In the present study, pyramidal neurons of the mouse primary visual cortex were recorded extracellularly under urethane anesthesia and simultaneous single-channel EEG recording was performed. To evaluate orientation and direction selectivity of the recorded neurons, mice were presented with visual stimuli consisting of moving sinusoidal gratings of different orientations displayed on a monitor. We noted quite regular bursts of generalized brain activity that were manifested in the recorded neuron as bundles of action potentials accompanied with a distinctive EEG pattern. Clearly, whenever such spontaneous activity shows up during visual stimulation, it is considered as noise, which significantly compromises the characteristics of the neuron’s measured visual response. To eliminate this effect, we developed a machine learning-based algorithm that enables to identify EEG predictors of generalized spontaneous activity and then to exclude spontaneous (i.e. not evoked by visual stimulation) action potentials from the recording. Our algorithm was shown to reliably detect action potentials that have been caused by generalized brain activity. Removal of action potentials of this origin from extracellular recordings obtained during visual stimulation allows for a more adequate estimation of parameters of neuronal receptive fields, in particular their orientation selectivity.

The study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of previously developed methods of adaptive neurostimulation in correcting stress-induced states in specialists who demonstrate signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and professional burnout syndrome (PBS). Materials and methods. Each of the 17 stressed subjects participated in three examinations, alternated in random order. In the control experiment (control), simple listening to classical music was used. In two other examinations, musical or light-musical stimulation was used, automatically modulated by feedback signals from the rhythmic components of the subject's electroencephalogram (EEG). In the first case (musical feedback), the subjects were presented with music-like stimuli formed on the basis of the subject's alpha EEG oscillator. In the second case (double feedback), such musical stimulation was supplemented by rhythmic light stimuli generated by online transformations of the native EEG of the subject. Results. Comparison of the effects of both experimental conditions with the control one allowed us to establish that only in the presence of feedback from the EEG, there is a significant increase in the power of alpha EEG rhythm, accompanied by positive emotional reactions, a decrease in the level of disadaptation and stress, as well as a significant increase in the assessments of health and mood of the subjects. The most pronounced psychophysiological effects were recorded under light-music stimulation with double feedback from the EEG. Conclusion. The obtained results make it possible to suggest the described methods of adaptive neurostimulation as a means of psychotherapeutic correction of PTSD and PBS, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The three-dimensional structure of tumor tissue and particularly cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix adhesion is an important factor that can determine the phenotype of tumor cells. In this work, we have investigated the abundance profile of actin-binding adhesion proteins in human ovarian adenocarcinoma cell lines SKOV-3 and SKOV-3.ip. We have investigated levels of total and superficially localized adherens junctions proteins E- and N-cadherin, gap junction protein сonnexin-43 and cell-extracellular matrix contacting integrin beta-1. Our results indicate a complete absence of epithelial marker E-cadherin, a low level of mesenchymal N-cadherin and high levels of connexin-43 and integrin beta-1. Modest superficial localization of the represented proteins was observed, indicating their mislocalization. SKOV-3 cell line was characterized by higher levels of the total content of studied cell-cell contacts proteins and a lower level of superficially localized integrin beta-1, which is both considered to be associated with lower tumor aggressiveness. The revealed differences in the profile of adhesion proteins are in line with the accepted view on SKOV-3.ip cell line having a more aggressive phenotype than that of SKOV-3. The revealed features of the total abundance of the adhesion proteins and their superficially localized pool made it possible to supplement the information on the nature of phenotypic differences between the studied cell lines.