Daily Archives: February 21, 2022

25 years of Dolly: Whats become of the worlds first cloned sheep? – Deutsche Welle

Posted: February 21, 2022 at 6:12 pm

Twenty-five years ago today, a sheep named Dolly became the first animal to be cloned, using an adult somatic cell.

The Dolly experiment blew up in the news across the globe. It changed the world of stem cell research and on a more personal level, kept the institute that hosted the experiment alive.

"From a personal point of view, one of the most important things that came from Dolly was the survival of the research institute that I work in,"Alan Archibald, who was part of the 1996 experiment facilitated by the UK's Roslin Institute, told DW with a laugh.

"We were facing government cuts. And the money we made by selling the intellectual property to Dolly kept us going until we found alternative sources of money."

Dolly was cloned using a cell taken from another sheep's mammary gland. She was born in July 1996 with a white face a clear sign she'd been cloned, because if she'd been related to her surrogate mother, she'd have had a black face.

Researchers named her Dolly after Dolly Parton, who is known for her large "mammary glands"breasts.

Dolly was the only baby sheep to be born live out of a total of 277 cloned embryos.

She gave birth to six babies and died of lung disease at the age of six.

"It changed the scientific world's view about how flexible [cell] development was,"said Archibald. "There was a view that once a fertilized egg had developed into a multicellular animal, into liver cells and blood cells and brain cells, for thosecells, that was it, it was a dead end. There was no way back to alternative places for those cells to be. So the reprogramming that was critical to the Dolly experiment stood long-standing scientific dogma on its head."

Dolly's cloning helped lead to the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of iPS cells by a team led by Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka.

This is likely the most important development in stem cell research to result from Dolly's cloning, Dr. Robin Lovell-Badge, who heads the Stem Cell Biology and Developmental Genetics Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in London, told DW.

IPS cells offer a way to model human disease and are currently being used in biological research about premature aging, cancer and heart disease.

Dolly the sheep was cloned 25 years ago today

Additionally, Archibald said the genetically modified heart that was used in the world's first pig-to-human heart transplant procedure in January was created using Dolly's technology.

Although a human embryo was successfully cloned in 2013, there's been no progress made so far to clone an entire human being.

But monkeys have been replicated: in China, Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua became the first primates to be cloned using the Dolly technique in January 2018.

Out of nearly 150 cloned embryos, the monkeys' surrogate mothers were the only ones to deliver live babies.

Some progress has also been made to clone animals on the verge of extinction. USresearchers successfully cloned the black footed ferret in 2021 and the endangered Przewalski's horse in 2020.

Efforts are currently underway to clone the wooly mammoth, the giant panda and the northern white rhino.

This woolly miracle started out in a test tube and was born on July 5, 1996, to three mothers - one provided the egg, the second the DNA and the third was the surrogate. Dolly was the world's first mammal cloned from an adult cell. The sheep that made history lived to be six, when she was put down after developing a lung disease. Dolly is on display at Edinburgh's National Museum of Scotland.

Idaho Gem is the very first cloned mule. Born in 2003 in - you guessed it - a town in Idaho, he is an identical genetic copy of his champion racing mule brother. Idaho Gem lived up to expectations and became a successful racing mule. Tougher and more productive than horses, mules are a - usually sterile - cross between a female horse and a male donkey.

The world's first cloned pet was a cat. The Texas scientists who created the clone in 2001 called the furball CC, for carbon copy. Commercial pet cloning hasn't taken off, however, much to the dismay of devoted pet owners.

Noel, Angel, Star, Joy and Mary were born on Christmas Day 2001 at PPL Therapeutics - which is the company that helped make Dolly the sheep: The five healthy female piglet clones, PPL said, had the genetic capability to allow their organs to be transferred to the human body without being rejected.

Injaz ("Achievement") is the first cloned female dromedary, that is one-hump, camel. The gangly Arabian camel was born in 2009 at the Camel Reproduction Center in Dubai. Used for transport, riding and racing, camels still play an important role today in the Persian Gulf society.

Spanish scientists cloned a fighting bull they named Got. In this 2010 photo, the little fellow, cloned from the tough fighting bull Vasito, doesn't look ferocious yet at all. Got's mom was a serene black and white milk cow surrogate.

Unlike Dolly, who was created using a procedure called nuclear transfer, little Tetra the rhesus macaque was created through a technique called embryo splitting. In 2000, scientists in Oregon presented the little primate they had successfully cloned for the first time. Above, Tetra, which means four in Greek, is four months old.

A team of researchers in South Korea managed to clone the first canine in 2005: the Afghan hound Snuppy. In 2014, a biotech company based in Seoul cloned another dog, this one from a 12-year-old dachshund that belongs to a caterer in London who won the procedure in a competition. The result: Mini-Winnie. Experts, however, warn of cloning pets, arguing the animals won't necessarily be the same.

Author: Dagmar Breitrenbach

Along with cell-cloning's ability to study diseases, animal cloning allows major industry farms to produce more food.

The USFood and Drug Administration allows the cloning of cattle, pigs and goats and their offspring for the production of meat and milk. In 2008, the agency said the food is as safe as food derived from non-cloned animals and thus doesn't need to be labeled.

Dolly's body is now on display at the Royal Museum in Edinburgh

It's unclear how much meat and milk derived from cloned animals is sold in US markets.

The practice isn't allowed in Europe in 2015, the European Parliament voted to ban the cloning of all farm animals.

But that doesn't mean lab experiments aren't being facilitated on EU grounds, said Lovell-Badge.

"The field where the cloning procedures are actively being pursued (including in Germany) is for agricultural animals as a way to help generate or propagate pigs or cattle with valuable genetic characteristics,"he told DW.

For example, he said, cells from an animal could be edited by scientists. Then the cloning methods could be used to derive animals carrying the new genetic trait, such as disease resistance, or to make them more suitable as organ donors for humans.

A small industry has been created around the cloning of pets. Examples include the company ViaGen in the US, Sinogene in China, and Sooam Biotech in South Korea.

Snuppy the dog was cloned in 2005 in South Korea, Garlic the cat in July 2019 in China, and USsinger Barbra Streisand's Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett after her dog Samantha died in 2017.

"The justification for doing this is to replace a lost much-loved pet',"said Lovell-Badge. "However, this is nonsense."

Dolly's cloning accelerated stem cell research

He said that although it's true that the cloned animal will essentially have the same genomic DNA as the original pet, animals "aren't simply a product of [their] DNA."

Even if the cloning is successful, an animal's nature is partly determined by its genes, but also by its environment, which means a clone will never be the exact same as the original animal, he said.

Archibald added that although cloning technology is more efficient now than when Dolly was made, the process is still pretty inefficient.

"You would need a lot of female individuals to lay the eggs that would be used in the process,"he said.

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iHeart Will Use Voice Cloning to Amplify Podcasts – Radio World

Posted: at 6:12 pm

Company deploys Veritone synthetic voice technology

By RW Staff Published: February 20, 2022

iHeartMedia plans to use cloned voices to translate and produce podcasts, hoping to reach new markets.

It announced this week that it will use technology from AI software company Veritone for this purpose.

iHeartMedia will leverage Veritones AI platform to make more shows across the iHeartPodcast Network available in multiple languages, helping to expand their podcast market, they said in the announcement. The first use case is to translate iHearts marquee podcasts for Spanish-speaking audiences.

[Related: Veritone Ramps Up Synthetic Voices]

They quoted Veritone President Ryan Steelberg saying, iHeartMedia will not only be able to scale to new markets with localized language translations but retain the brand value of their top talents voice, which is fundamental in podcasting. We are also partnering to develop synthetic voices for advertising and engaging content while reducing time-to-market and production costs for radio, podcasting and the metaverse.

The companies said iHeart voice talent will be able to authorize Veritones synthetic voice solution to produce more podcasts, ads and additional audio in multiple languages with the same energy, cadence and uniqueness of top talent.

[Related: Create Synthetic VOs Just by Typing]

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The cloning and quaking stand of aspen | A Moment of Science – Indiana Public Media

Posted: at 6:12 pm

Y: If youve seen a grove of quaking aspen, youll recall trees with smooth, grey-white bark fissured with black streaks and flat leaves of green and yellow that shimmer with the lightest breeze.

D: A forest canopy of quaking aspen is often dense where sunlight is plentiful because theyre intolerant of shade. This growing pattern allows quaking aspen to colonize large swaths of land, with individual trees of fairly uniform arrangement, size, distribution, and health quality. We call this community of trees a stand.

Y: A stand of quaking aspen may account for an extensive plot or just a minor part of a larger forest, sure to crowd out conifers or shrubs that attempt to invade its space. When one aspen tree falls, often another will quickly take its place and sprout from its roots, rather than a seed.

D: Aspen grow aggressively and take advantage over shade-loving plants to repopulate their own stands. While relatively few of its seeds will become established, an aspen can regenerate individual trees by shoots along its long, lateral roots. A single root system can reproduce hundreds of individual trees in this wayeach one genetically identical to the parent tree.

Y: A group of aspens with a single root system is called a clone. Clones can be less than an acre or up to 100 acres in size. These single organisms become immense and live much longer than any one tree could.

D: Individual aspen often dont live beyond 150 years or so; while a clone can live for generations. The Pando Clone of Utah is one prime example, having outlasted its conifer competitors for the span of many eras.

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How to prevent SIM Swapping, the scam that clones chips and gains access to bank accounts – D1SoftballNews.com

Posted: at 6:11 pm

US authorities have detected an increase in SIM swapping cases. It is a fraud based on social engineering that allows criminal acts to be committed.

That is why it is important to know it, to know how it works and take a series of recommendations so as not to be a victim of a crime.

What is SIM swapping

SIM exchange or SIM swapping includes duplicate SIM card smartphone. The SIM card or Subscriber Identity Module in a mobile phone stores the customer access code and the phone number of the telephone company.

This organization used techniques such as phishing and the smishing (via SMS) to impersonate a trusted person or company to obtain information from the victim, such as password, credit card data or copies of identity documents.

Then, with this information, they communicated with the telephone company pretending to be legitimate users and in this way obtain a new SIM card with the same telephone number.

How are SIM cards duplicated?

The danger of SIM swapping is that you do not need physical access to the mobile device to clone the SIM card. To do this, the cyber criminals they contact the customer service of telephone operators and pose as legitimate users.

If successful, you will get a new SIM card and you will be able to access sensitive information stored on it (contacts, passwords, bank details, etc.). In this way, they will hijack the victims phone line and use all their information, such as requesting a new password and obtaining a verification code to access your online banking.

How to know if you are a victim of SIM-swapping

Camilo Gutirrez Amaya, head of the ESET research laboratory for Latin America, explains that the first sign is the loss of network signal in mobile phones. In fact, when criminals activate SIM cards in their devices, traffic from legitimate users is automatically disabled.

On Latin America This problem also exists. On ArgentinaIn 2021 and so far in 2020, several cases have been reported of victims who say they have suffered money theft as a result of the cloning of the chip.

Last month, for example, a person lost the money they had deposited in their bank account after accessing a Procrear credit. In November 2021, another case was known in which criminals stole access to WhatsApp and social media What Instagram and Facebook.

How to prevent duplicate SIM card

In order to avoid duplication of SIM rates, practice the following tips (and the sooner the better):

Companies do not ask to share personal data by phone, text message services or email. In such situations, contacting the legal entity will help prevent potential scams.

In the event that there is an interruption of the abnormal telephone line, said irregularity must be brought to the attention of the company as soon as possible.

If possible, avoid two-factor authentication via SMS and use options like stand-alone authenticators instead.

Secure destruction of sensitive printed information to prevent SIM swapping and dumpster diving.

In addition, when contacting the operator, it is very important to ask to check the status of the SIM card.

Finally, any suspicious movement in an account must be reported to the bank immediately.

Do not use an easy-to-remember date or number as a PIN or verification code.

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What to Cook Right Now – The New York Times

Posted: at 6:10 pm

Good morning. Happy Presidents Day. Ligaya Mishan had a lovely essay on the origins of country captain in The Times last week, tracing the fragrant, curried chicken dish from its home in the Lowcountry of the American South to its origins in Britain and India, a legacy of colonials with palates newly awakened to the possibilities of spice.

Im intrigued by Ligayas recipe (above), which comes from Rohan Kamicheril, the founder and editor of Tiffin, a website devoted to the regional cuisines of India. Kamicheril grew up eating country captain in Bangalore, his mothers recipe, handed down by his grandmother, who was of Anglo-Indian descent. There are none of the soupy tomatoes that define the dish in America, only the juice and fat of the chicken, spice-darkened onions, golden potatoes. Its a dish meant to be eaten right away. I cant wait to do that.

Later you can compare it to this recipe I learned from community cookbooks and some of the finest kitchen hands in and around Charleston, S.C. The chicken is fried, then stewed with tomatoes and served over rice with crumbled bacon, slivered almonds and dried currants, occasionally with sliced bananas. Its very Junior League. Also, super delicious.

Country captain for dinner tonight, then! Maybe with Melissa Clarks new recipe for pineapple-ginger coffee cake for dessert and tomorrows breakfast?

And we are standing by to help, should something go wrong in your kitchen or with our technology. Just write cookingcare@nytimes.com and someone will get back to you. (If not, write to me: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I can take a punch. I read every letter sent.)

Now, its a long drive over rough terrain from anything to do with celery root or maple syrup, but I loved Alexandra Jacobss wry review, in The Times, of Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies, by Laura Thompson.

Equally entertaining is Molly Youngs recommendation, in her Read Like the Wind newsletter, of Han Suyins 1962 novella Winter Love. This rec goes out to all my lesbian zoologists, Molly wrote. Make some noise, ladies! Others will thrill to the prose as well. (I found a copy online for about $12.)

Check out the Chris Martin show at the Anton Kern Gallery in New York, with its big Brooklyn-in-the-Catskills energy. (Roberta Smith likes it!)

Finally, Richard Fausset put me on to William Beckmanns cover of Volver, Volver, which Beckmann played live in Texas last year. Listen to that, cook a lot, and Ill be back on Wednesday.

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How Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Helped Remake the Literary Canon – The New Yorker

Posted: at 6:10 pm

Its important to say it up front: I cant claim to approach Henry Louis Gates, Jr.or Skip, as hes knownas a subject of objective journalistic inquiry. Weve known each other first as colleagues at The New Yorker, where he wrote the Profiles that make up his collection Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, and then as friends. Still, I dont think it requires the prejudice of friendship to believe that Gates, who is now seventy-one, has left a lasting, multiform imprint on the culture.

Gates was born in 1950 and grew up in Piedmont, West Virginia, where his family has deep roots. His father worked in a paper mill. Town picnics were still segregated but, with the advent of Brownv.Board of Education, the schools were not. After a year at Potomac State College, Gates transferred to Yale, which was starting to open up to a sizable number of Black students. In New Haven, he began to explore the depths of African American literature and history. His awakening did not take place only in the classroom and university meeting hall. Gates was also fascinated by the trial of Bobby Seale and other members of the Black Panthers at a courthouse near campus, and joined in the student strike in solidarity.

After graduating from Yale, he went, on a fellowship, to study at the University of Cambridge, where his most important mentor was Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright, essayist, and novelist. The English faculty at Cambridge did not take African literature seriously, according to Gates, relegating it to anthropology. Soyinka, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1986, helped convince Gates to study African and African American literature.

As a literary critic, Gates made an impact on the field by helping to establish a canon of African American literatureone that was neither separatist nor a mere appendage to the traditional, white canon. In The Signifying Monkey, he employed the tools of post-structuralism and semiotics to bear on both the vernacular tradition and authors as varied as Zora Neale Hurston and Ishmael Reed. Gates also unearthed and brought forward nineteenth-century texts by African American authors including Harriet E. Wilson (Our Nig) and Hannah Crafts (The Bondwomans Narrative), and assembled the thirty-volume Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers. Gates is a prodigious cultural entrepreneur, editing countless anthologies and reference works (including Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience), co-founding the online publication the Root, and publishing popular volumes about Black culture and history. His book Colored People, which explores his family and upbringing in West Virginia, is an important chapter in the modern history of African American memoirs. A collection of Hurstons essays, You Dont Know Us Negroes, which Gates co-edited with Genevieve West, came out last month; Whos Black and Why? A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race, which he edited with Andrew S. Curran, comes out next month.

Perhaps his most important and lasting role has been as a teacher and an institution builder. Gates arrived at Harvard in 1991, and he swiftly recruited an extraordinary concentration of Black scholarshipWilliam Julius Wilson, Cornel West, Lawrence D. Bobo, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Suzanne Blier, and othersall while reinvigorating the W.E.B. DuBois Research Institute, which is now part of the Hutchins Center. Gates proved a dynamo of both intellectual energy and fund-raising finesse.

In recent years, he has been a prolific filmmaker, mainly for PBS, putting out documentary series on heritage (Finding Your Roots) and history (Reconstruction, The Black Church, Africas Great Civilizations, and The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross). His book Stony the Road, a companion to the series on Reconstruction, credits the research of earlier historians, particularly Eric Foner, yet it is a superb account of the roots of American white supremacy and structural racism that afflict the country to this day. A new film on Frederick Douglass is about to appear.

Gates is married to the Cuban-born historian Marial Iglesias Utset; they live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On the day of an immense snowstorm, we connected over Zoom for a few hours and talked about matters past and present. (We had a subsequent exchange over e-mail.) Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Id like to start out by looking back at your family and West Virginia. You write about this beautifully in your memoir Colored People. Tell me a little about Piedmont, where you grew up.

My family never moved, from fourth great-grandparents down to me. We lived within a thirty-mile radius in eastern West Virginia. I have deep roots in those mountains. Its not what you read about in textbooks like From Slavery to Freedom. It is not a typical Black experience, but it is a real Black experience.

In the year I was born, 1950, I believe there were about two thousand people in Piedmont, and just over three hundred were Black. It was an Irish-Italian paper-mill town. And because my dad worked two jobsin the daytime, at the paper mill, and then as a janitor at the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Companyhe had the highest income of any Black person in Piedmont. We had the nicest house. Wealth and poverty are always relative. In that context, we were in the Black upper-middle class. My mother never worked a job outside the home in my lifetime. When she was a girl, she cleaned houses to make extra money. One of the reasons my father worked two jobs was so my mother would never have to work.

As I understand it, your fathers attitude toward white folks in town was more easygoing than your moms.

My mother was very suspicious of white people. To help support her family, by the age of twelve, she was cleaning the Thompson house. She told us this awful story of them planting a twenty-dollar bill in the cushions of a sofa, to see what she would do. And she, of course, returned it. But, even at that age, she had figured out that this was a test, and she deeply resented that.

Brownv. Board of Education, the pivotal school-integration case, came along when you were a kid.

In 1956, when I started first grade, the schools had integrated, without a peep, though big social events, like town picnics, were segregated.

You describe the school in very positive terms.

Ive thought about this a lot and Ive been asked about it a lot. But I never once experienced racial discrimination in the classroom. Right before I started the first grade, someone knocked on our door, and it was a white person from the school system. They had tested all the kids entering our first-grade class. My parents took this white person into our formal living room, where nobody ever sat down and all the furniture was covered in clear plastic. They were whispering in hushed tones. And then the white person left.

My parents came out in the kitchen, where Id been cloistered, and they sat down and they said, Skippy, you took that test a couple weeks ago. And it had five hundred questions, and you got four hundred and eighty-nine questions right. That set the tone for the next twelve years of my life. They expected me to be the smartest kid in the class. The classroom was my playground. I was one of those kids, those little assholes, who hated summer vacation, man!

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History – Complementary and Alternative Medicine …

Posted: at 6:10 pm

AyurvedicMedicine

Originating in India more than 3,000 years ago,Ayurvedicis one of the world's oldest medical systems.Many practices predate written records and were handed down by word of mouth.Ayurvedahas three broad typesof treatment: elimination therapies,pacification therapies,and nourishing therapies.Physicians prescribe individualized treatments, including compounds of herbs or other ingredients (including metals), diet, exercise, yoga,body manipulation, and lifestylerecommendations.

Much of the information was drawn from theNCCIH:AyurvedicMedicine

Native American Traditional Healing

Unlike standard western practices, Native American wellness and traditional healing focus on the balance of mental, physical, and spiritual wellness. The connection between communities, nature, tradition, and the Great Spirit is the guiding principal for continued well-being in Native cultures. Though practices may differ from tribe to tribe foundations of Native American healing include plants, story-telling, tobacco, music, smudging, and ceremonies. While ahealer or medicine man will be present in communitiesto facilitatetreatmentsit is believed that health and well-being is an individual responsibility.

Explore theNLM'sdigital collectionon Native Americanhealing.

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Medical Adherence and Progression of Diabetic Chronic Kidney | PPA – Dove Medical Press

Posted: at 6:10 pm

Introduction

Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is one of the most frequent and serious complications in diabetic patients and is the leading cause of chronic kidney disease (CKD) worldwide.1 It is usually accompanied by hypertension, albuminuria, and progressive decline in renal function, with excess morbidity and mortality due to macro- and microvascular complications. Effective management of DKD thus entails a comprehensive approach not only to slow kidney disease progression but also to minimize the risk of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular events including dietary control, lifestyle modification, and a wide array of medications for metabolic and hypertensive control.2

Based on the chronic and complex nature of the disease, patients with DKD are at risk to develop medication non-adherence and self-usage of complementary or alternative medicines (CAM).3 The World Health Organization defines medication adherence as the degree to which a persons behavior, including taking medications, corresponds with the agreed recommendations from a health-care provider. It has been shown that low adherence to prescribed anti-diabetes medicines is more common in developing countries and responsible for 30% to 50% of treatment failure to achieve adequate glycemic control.4 In addition, many studies have reported that usage of CAM is common in these patients, while its efficacy and safety data remain in question.5 Medication adherence is similarly important in CKD patients, given its potential impact on disease progression, its complications and quality of life.6,7

The number of patients with diabetes in Thailand was reported as 4.4 million in 2018, with the estimated prevalence of CKD of around 30%.8 Similar to other countries worldwide, DKD is currently the most common cause of advanced CKD requiring renal replacement therapy (RRT) and its economic burden is a significant contributor to overall healthcare spending in Thailand.9 Currently, the cost of treatment (including RRT) is covered by three national health-care schemes, which are the Civil Servant/State Enterprise Medical Benefit Scheme (CSMBS) for civil officers and dependents, the Social Security Scheme (SSS) for private employees, and the Universal Health Coverage Scheme (UCS) for the remaining citizens, respectively. Quantification of the problem with medication-taking behavior in the patients, and also identification of those who are at risk should be concerned as one important factor that may improve therapeutic effectiveness. We hypothesized that low medication adherence and CAM usage would also be common in Thai patients, and this might be associated with worse clinical outcome. To address this issue, we conducted a self-reported survey to identify the prevalence of medication non-adherence and self-usage of herbal or complementary medicines in Thais with pre-dialysis diabetic CKD, predictive factors, and their effects on the kidney disease progression.

This cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted at the outpatient clinics of Siriraj Hospital, the largest university-based tertiary care center in Thailand, from May 2018 to April 2021. The study was carried out in accordance with the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Siriraj Institutional Review Board, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University prior to the study (Si349/2018).

Patients were individually invited to participate in the study if they were more than 18 years old, had been diagnosed at our hospital with DM type 2 and CKD for more than one year without dialysis treatment. Patients will be excluded if they had any other significantly debilitating diseases, apparent cognitive or psychiatric problems, or were unable to communicate in Thai. A written informed consent was obtained from all participants who agreed to complete the study questionnaire and permitted for review of their electronic medical records. Relevant clinical data including the blood pressure, prescribed medicines and important laboratory results documented on the study date and the latest visit date in the period of approximately one year earlier were abstracted and recorded for further analysis.

The questionnaire used in the study consisted of three parts mainly to evaluate the prescribed medication adherence and the practice of self-medication. The first part obtained the demographic data of the participants, including age, gender, education level, monthly income, health-care scheme, disease duration, and home medicine management. The second was the Medication Taking Behavior in Thai (MTB-Thai) questionnaire of which has been developed and validated to use in Thai patients since 2016, with permission obtained from the original researcher.10 The MTB-Thai questionnaire consists of 6 items relevant to medication adherence in the past 2 weeks with the response choices in a 4-point Likert scale. The total score for the MTB-Thai ranges from 0 to 24, and medication adherence is graded as high (24 score), medium (2223 score) and low (<22 score) based on its original validation. The third part evaluated self-usage of herbal or complementary medicines using questions modified from a part of the international complementary and alternative medicine questionnaire (ICAM-Q).11 In brief, the participants will be asked to list the non-prescribed products including the over-the-counter analgesics, herbs/herbal medicine, vitamins/minerals or other supplements that were taken in the past 12 months; the source of product information, and the reasons for self-administration.

The sample size was calculated using an estimating proportion of one group based on the report prevalence of 45.8% for medication misbehavior in Thai diabetic patients.12 This would require the sample size to be around 200 to achieve the margin of error of 15% and a 95% confidence interval (CI).

Descriptive data for continuous variables were presented as median with interquartile range (IQR) or mean with standard deviation (SD) based on ShapiroWilk test for normality, and frequency distribution with percentage for categorical variables. Comparing the parameters from two-time points and difference between groups of defined medication adherence status was determined using chi-square test of categorical data, and t-test or non-parametric equivalent for continuous data with non-normal distribution, and a P value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. To investigate determinants for medication adherence, we used a multivariate linear regression analysis as independent variables of aforementioned socio-demographic data (age, gender, education level, monthly income level, medical welfare scheme), vision problems, type of home medicine management, number of prescribed medicine, history of CAM usage, the level of glycemic or hypertensive control, and CKD staging were stratified. In addition, multinomial logistic regression was used to identify medication adherence and patient factors (age, sex, health-care scheme, the level of glycemic and hypertensive control, CAM usage) with the risk of being rapid CKD progressor (annual rate of eGFR decline greater than 5 mL/min/1.73 m2) as previously defined by the KIDGO consensus conference.13

Table 1 details the demographic and baseline characteristics of survey participants. The final sample with adequate questionnaire responses for purpose of analysis comprised 220 pre-dialysis diabetic CKD participants, out of which 54.1% were male with the mean age of 71.3 years (older than 65 in 72.3%). In terms of educational background, 2.7% had received no formal education and nearly half of participants educated at the primary level or lower (47.4%). A substantial proportion were classified as having a low to middle income of less than 10,000 to 10,00030,000 Thai baht per month (30.6% and 46.6% respectively). The medical service/drug expense was covered by the CSMBS in approximately half of the participants (54.5%), followed by the UCS (20.9%).

Table 1 Socio-Demographic and Baseline Characteristics of Survey Participants

The median duration of known diabetes and CKD were 14 and 4.5 years with the mean number of 7.6 different prescribed medicines. Most patients received co-medication of both oral anti-diabetics and anti-hypertensive (95.4%) while lipid lowering medicines were prescribed in 84.8%. Sulfonylurea and metformin were two most commonly used anti-diabetic medicines (58.8% and 48.9%), while 57.2% received combination of medications including insulin. As for the anti-hypertensive agents, renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blocker were most frequently prescribed (55.7%). The majority of patients reported self-administration of the prescribed medicine at home (80.3%).

Table 2 shows comparison of clinical and laboratory results between the study visit and those in the previous visit of around one year earlier (10.2 2.9 months). Overall, most patients were classified in CKD stage III (eGFR 3059 mL/min/1.73 m2, 71.9% vs 73.1%) followed by stage IV (eGFR 1529 mL/min/1.73 m2, 18.6% vs 15.0%) and stage II (eGFR 6089 mL/min/1.73 m2, 4.5% vs 8.2%). There were no significant differences in the systolic blood pressure and the biochemical-metabolic parameters including blood sugar, HbA1C and cholesterol levels. However, compared to the previous year, the serum creatinine was significantly higher 1.5 (1.3, 2.0) vs 1.4 (1.2, 1.9) mg/dL and eGFR was lower 40.2 14.4 vs 42.4 14.2 mL/min/1.73 m2 (p<0.0001). The median average eGFR decline of patients in this study was 1.9 mL/min/1.73 m2 per year.

Table 2 Comparison of the Clinical and Laboratory Results at the Study Visit and Earlier Period of Approximately One Year (Median, IQR)

Medication adherence level as measured by the sum score from MTB-Thai questionnaire and classified as having high, medium and low adherence was observed in 50.9%, 24.1% and 25.0% of survey participants, respectively. Considering the frequency of responses to the MTB-Thai-6 items, not taking medicines as times prescribed, forget to take mediciness and adjust dosage regimens were three most commonly reported non-adherence practices (Table 3).

Table 3 Medication Adherence Analysis from the 6-Item MTB-Thai Questionnaire as Reported by Survey Participants

Self-medication with over-the-counter analgesics including non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs was reported in 4.8% (Table 4). However, usage of herb/herbal or complementary medicines in the past 12 months was more frequent in the participants (24.1%), mostly aimed to promote general health or to treat symptomatic conditions (Table 4). Commonly used products included unidentified Thai herbal mixture (11), Cordyceps (6), Cod liver oil (6), Nan Fui Chao leaf (6), Turmeric (6), Ginkgo (4), Ginseng (4), Ling Zhi mushroom (4), Bitter gourd extract (3), non-specified Chinese herb (3), Red seaweed (2), and River spiderwort leaf (2). Responses from the participant revealed that information about possible product benefit was primarily derived from personal source including friends or other patients (19) and relatives (17); media source including television (11), radio (4) and social networks (2); self-perception (8); and providers in the drug store (2). No signs of toxicity or adverse events were observed at the visit.

Table 4 Self-Medication in the Past 3 Months as Reported by Survey Participants

In order to identify factors determining medication adherence, analysis of its association with the socio-demographic and selected clinical variables was conducted and shown in Table 5. As compared to the high- and medium-adherence group, individuals with low adherence were significantly more likely to be younger (<65), with lower educational status, vision problems, poorly controlled hypertension and lower eGFR value at the study visit by univariate analysis (Chi-square test, p < 0.05). Lower adherence was more frequently observed in diabetic CKD patients stage IVV (51.9%) compared to stage III (17.3%) and stage II (none reported). On cross-sectional multivariate linear regression analysis, only CKD stage IVV was found to be associated with low medication adherence (adjusted odds ratio 5.54, 95% CI 2.82 to 10.88, p < 0.001).

Table 5 Association of Medication Adherence Level with Socio-Demographic and Relevant Clinical Parameters

Considering the effect of medication adherence level on the clinical outcomes in particular of metabolic control and kidney function, we observed no differences in the FBS, HbA1C and cholesterol levels among group. However, patients with low medication adherence had higher systolic blood pressure (147 (134164) vs 133 (122143) and 137 (130147) mmHg; p = 0.0004) and lower eGFR (29.9 (23.6, 39.6) vs 43.9 (32.2, 51.2) and 43.4 (35.5, 50.8) mL/min/1.73 m2; p = 0.00001) at the study visit. Figure 1 shows that calculated annual eGFR change was significantly higher in the low medication adherence group (6.48 vs 2.27 and 0.5 mL/min/1.73 m2; p = 0.00001). In addition, the multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that the only variable that represented a risk of being rapid CKD progressor was medication adherence, but not the age, gender, the level of glycemic or hypertensive control, or usage of herb/herbal or complementary medicines (p = 0.0002). Calculation for the risk of rapid CKD progressor over 12 months by dividing the number of rapid CKD progressor by the total number of patients stratified by the medication adherence level showed a statistically significant odds ratio of 1.15 (95% CI 1.06 to 1.25) in patients with low medication adherence.

Figure 1 Box plot (median, lower and upper quartiles, and range) showing changes in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) from the study visit and prior visit of around one-year in participants with low-, medium- and high-medication adherence (A) and calculated difference (median + SEM) in annual eGFR decline rate among these patient group (B).

The behavior of patients for not adhering to medication and self-using of complementary or alternative medicines is a growing concern in many countries around the world. While the problem has been investigated in several chronic non-communicable diseases, not much is known about the prevalence of low medication adherence and its impact on the outcome specifically in diabetic patients with CKD. In this study, data obtained from self-reported survey revealed that 24.1% and 25.0% of Thai patients with diabetic CKD were medium- and low-adherent to prescribed medicine, and 24.1% used herb/herbal or complementary medicines. Our findings are in the same range as those of previous reports and reviews in diabetic patients from low to middle income and Middle East countries.1417 Moreover, our data showed that the adherence level was lowest in diabetic patients with stage IVV of CKD with a significant odds ratio of 5.54, and low adherence was associated with an increased risk of being rapid CKD progressor. The study confirms that medication adherence is common and may result in poorer outcome in diabetic patients with CKD.

It is generally accepted that medication adherence in patients with chronic disease may be affected by various factors.4 Recent systematic review and meta-analysis studies revealed that 67.4% of pre-dialysis CKD patients had the problems of medication adherence, and a total of 19 factors have been identified including socio-demographic, patient-related, therapy related, disease related and health care service related components.18,19 Insights into the factors that may influence medication adherence are important for identification of patients at risk and also the adherence barriers that should be overcome. We found in this study that the factors of age, educational status, vision problems, poorly controlled hypertension and late CKD stage were statistically correlated by univariate analysis. The effect of age on medication adherence was similarly observed in another study in Thai CKD patients, but not other factors.17 It is not surprising to us that medication adherence is higher in the elderly 65 years. The reason for this tendency has been explained by the health belief model in that older patients generally perceive greater severity of the illness and increase awareness in self-care.20,21 Additionally, the patients who participated in this study do not have significant cognitive or functional impairment, including anxiety or depression problems, that may limit their understanding, implementation and adherence to therapy.19,21 Low educational status is most likely related to insufficient health literacy (for example, specific purpose of each medicine, disease knowledge and management plan) which is known to be positively correlated with medication adherence.15,18

We found in this study that severity of CKD stage in the diabetic patient was the significant predictor for low adherence by multivariate analysis, the data which is similar to that published in a recent systematic review in pre-dialysis CKD patients.19 Earlier studies have reported 1253% of patients with CKD stage IIIIV and 2174% with advanced kidney disease to be non-adherent.18,21 A similar proportion was observed in our study when comparing among CKD stages. The low adherent percentage increased from null in stage 2 to 17.3% and 51.9% in CKD stage III and IVV respectively. Another study also revealed that adherence to antihypertensive agents worsens with declining renal function, and poor adherence is associated with a greater risk of uncontrolled hypertension.22 The major factors contributing to non-adherence in later CKD stage might include higher pill burden (and also costs), personal concern for drug interaction, and suspected efficacy of some prescribed medicines.23,24 It is likely that these problems will be more apparent as the illness becomes longer and more severe. Further studies are needed to clarify to what extent these components influence medication taking behavior in diabetic CKD patients.

There remains a limited and inconclusive data concerning the effect of medication adherence on the clinical outcomes in DKD. Prior studies from United States and our country showed that stage IIIIV CKD patients with poor adherence were associated with increased risk of CKD progression,5,17 while result from the African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension did not verify this correlation.25 It is interesting to note that the causes of CKD in these studies were diverse and not detailed. Our results indeed support the findings of an increased risk for diabetic patients with low medication adherence to have rapid CKD progression. The subtle but statistically significant risk should be primarily explained by uncontrolled hypertension since the parameters other than the systolic blood pressure (including the level of glycemic and lipid controls) were not different among group. Noteworthy, the concept of healthy adherer effect should also be considered since medication adherence may be just a surrogate marker for the personality or behavior relevant to motivation for healthy lifestyle and overall well-being.5

Finally, regarding self-usage of herbal or complementary products in nearly one-fourth of the patients, we observe no association with socio-demographic or clinical variables and no significant effects on the measured clinical outcomes. Slightly lower prevalence in our study compared to finding from previous Thai reports may be explained by the characteristics of our patients who mostly lived in the urban area.17,26 Interestingly, our participants gained knowledge of potential product benefit from various sources, and it is likely that they will not disclose if the issue was not raised at the visit. It is known that such products may be harmful if its toxicity has not been properly investigated (particularly in CKD patients) or preparations may be contaminated with other toxic non-herbal compounds.27 Moreover, interaction between a concurrently used medicine and these products may occur and result in adverse events or negative clinical outcomes.28 It is thus important that health-care providers should recognize self-usage of herb, complementary or alternative medicine in their patients, so as to avoid any potential adverse effects or toxicity that may occur.

There are some limitations in our study. First, we used self-report questionnaire as a tool for measuring medication adherence which is known to be associated with over-estimation of adherence. Further study using a mixed-method approach that combines feasible subjective questionnaires and objective measurement of adherence will be valuable. Second, in our study, we selected patient-related and disease-related factors previously described to be associated with medication adherence by gathering data from the questionnaire and the electronic health record. Other predictors, such as psychological factors, factors of intention (motivation), medication knowledge, health care provider related factors, and other non-therapeutic factors were not accounted for. However, it is likely that these factors would not have had a major influence in this particular patient group and might not be much varied among our participants who were all treated in a single center. Third, we cannot clearly establish the temporal sequence of the estimated associations between low adherence and CKD outcome as these were measured at the same time. However, the clinical baseline of approximately one-year earlier was similar among group and adherence level was associated with a significant change in the last eGFR measurement at the study visit. It is thus suggested that diabetic CKD patients with low medication adherence are at risk for worse kidney outcome. Finally, similar to other observational studies, the possibility of residual confounding and bias cannot be ruled out.29

To our knowledge, this study is the first to identify medication adherence and its association with clinical outcome, specifically in patients with pre-dialysis diabetic CKD. We show that a significant proportion of patients self-reported suboptimal adherence to their medications, and usage of herbal and/or complementary medicines. Late CKD stage is the factor significantly associated with low adherence and it further heightened the risk for disease progression. Though we need more information to contextualize the adherence issue in diabetic CKD patients, our study underscores the urgent need for effective interventions to improve adherence and thus to improve clinical outcome in these high-risk group patients.

The raw data of our study are in Thai and can only be made available upon request with modifications that will provide data security to the participants of our study.

We are grateful to Ms. Naparat Kaewkaukul (Renal Division, Siriraj Hospital) for her invaluable assistance in data collection and preparation.

All authors made substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; took part in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; agreed to submit to the current journal; gave final approval of the version to be published; and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

The authors report no conflicts of interest for this work and declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

1. Alicic RZ, Rooney MT, Tuttle KR. Diabetic kidney disease: challenges, progress, and possibilities. Clin J Am Soc Nephrol. 2017;12(12):20322045. doi:10.2215/CJN.11491116

2. Persson F, Rossing P. Diagnosis of diabetic kidney disease: state of the art and future perspective. Kidney Int Suppl. 2018;8(1):27. doi:10.1016/j.kisu.2017.10.003

3. Brown MT, Bussell J, Dutta S, Davis K, Strong S, Mathew S. Medication adherence: truth and consequences. Am J Med Sci. 2016;351(4):387399. doi:10.1016/j.amjms.2016.01.010

4. Sabat E. Adherence to Long-Term Therapies: Evidence for Action. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2003.

5. Kifle ZD. Prevalence and correlates of complementary and alternative medicine use among diabetic patients in a resource-limited setting. Metabol Open. 2021;13(10):100095. doi:10.1016/j.metop.2021.100095

6. Wee HL, Seng BJ, Lee JJ, et al. Association of anemia and mineral and bone disorder with health-related quality of life in Asian pre-dialysis patients. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2016;14:94. doi:10.1186/s12955-016-0477-8

7. Cedillo-Couvert EA, Ricardo AC, Chen J, et al. Self-reported medication adherence and CKD progression. Kidney Int Rep. 2018;3(3):645651. doi:10.1016/j.ekir.2018.01.007

8. United States Renal Data System. 2018 USRDS annual data report: epidemiology of kidney disease in the United States. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; 2018.

9. Kanjanabuch T, Takkavatakarn K. Global dialysis perspective: Thailand. Kidney360. 2020;1(7):671675. doi:10.34067/KID.0000762020

10. Sakthong P, Sonsa-Ardjit N, Sukarnjanaset P, Munpan W, Suksanga P. Development and psychometric testing of the medication taking behavior in Thai patients (MTB-Thai). Int J Clin Pharm. 2016;38(2):438445. doi:10.1007/s11096-016-0275-8

11. Quandt SA, Verhoef MJ, Arcury TA, et al. Development of an international questionnaire to measure use of complementary and alternative medicine. J Altern Complement Med. 2009;15(4):331339. doi:10.1089/acm.2008.0521

12. Sakthong P, Chabunthom R, Charoenvisuthiwongs R. Psychometric properties of the Thai version of the 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale in patients with type 2 diabetes. Ann Pharmacother. 2009;43(5):950957. doi:10.1345/aph.1L453

13. Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) CKD Work Group. KDIGO 2012 clinical practice guideline for the evaluation and management of chronic kidney disease. Kidney Int Suppl. 2013;3(1):1150.

14. Azharuddin M, Adil M, Sharma M, Gyawali B. A systematic review and meta-analysis of non-adherence to anti-diabetic medication: evidence from low- and middle-income countries. Int J Clin Pract. 2021;75(11):e14717. doi:10.1111/ijcp.14717

15. Alalami U, Saeed KA, Khan MA. Prevalence and pattern of traditional and complementary alternative medicine use in diabetic patients in Dubai, UAE. Arab J Nutr Exerc. 2017;2017:10.

16. Alsanad S, Aboushanab T, Khalil M, Alkhamees OA. A descriptive review of the prevalence and usage of traditional and complementary medicine among Saudi diabetic patients. Scientifica. 2018;2018:6303190. doi:10.1155/2018/6303190

17. Tangkiatkumjai M, Walker DM, Praditpornsilpa K, Boardman H. Association between medication adherence and clinical outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease: a prospective cohort study. Clin Exp Nephrol. 2017;21:504512. doi:10.1007/s10157-016-1312-6

18. Mechta Nielsen T, Frjk Juhl M, Feldt-Rasmussen B, Thomsen T. Adherence to medication in patients with chronic kidney disease: a systematic review of qualitative research. Clin Kidney J. 2018;11(4):513527. doi:10.1093/ckj/sfx140

19. Seng JJB, Tan JY, Yeam CT, et al. Factors affecting medication adherence among pre-dialysis chronic kidney disease patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis of literature. Int Urol Nephrol. 2020;52:903916. doi:10.1007/s11255-020-02452-8

20. Huang CW, Wee PH, Low LL, et al. Prevalence and risk factors for elevated anxiety symptoms and anxiety disorders in chronic kidney disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2021;69:2740. doi:10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2020.12.003

21. Karamanidou C, Clatworthy J, Weinman J, Horne R. A systematic review of the prevalence and determinants of nonadherence to phosphate binding medication in patients with end-stage renal disease. BMC Nephrol. 2008;9:2. doi:10.1186/1471-2369-9-2

22. Schmitt KE, Edie CF, Laflam P, Simbartl LA, Thakar CV. Adherence to antihypertensive agents and blood pressure control in chronic kidney disease. Am J Nephrol. 2010;32(6):541548. doi:10.1159/000321688

23. Rifkin DE, Laws MB, Rao M, Balakrishnan VS, Sarnak MJ, Wilson IB. Medication adherence behavior and priorities among older adults with CKD: a semistructured interview study. Am J Kidney Dis. 2010;56(3):439446. doi:10.1053/j.ajkd.2010.04.021

24. Tesfaye WH, Erku D, Mekonnen A, et al. Medication non-adherence in chronic kidney disease: a mixed-methods review and synthesis using the theoretical domains framework and the behavioural change wheel. J Nephrol. 2021;34(4):10911125. doi:10.1007/s40620-020-00895-x

25. Ku E, Sarnak MJ, Toto R, et al. Effect of blood pressure control on long-term risk of end-stage renal disease and death among subgroups of patients with chronic kidney disease. J Am Heart Assoc. 2019;8(16):e012749. doi:10.1161/JAHA.119.012749

26. Tangkiatkumjai M, Boardman H, Praditpornsilpa K, Walker DM. Prevalence of herbal and dietary supplement usage in Thai outpatients with chronic kidney disease: a cross-sectional survey. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2013;13:153. doi:10.1186/1472-6882-13-153

27. Jha V. Herbal medicines and chronic kidney disease. Nephrology. 2010;15(Suppl 2):1017. doi:10.1111/j.1440-1797.2010.01305.x

28. Mohammadi S, Asghari G, Emami-Naini A, Mansourian M, Badri S. Herbal supplement use and herb-drug interactions among patients with kidney disease. J Res Pharm Pract. 2020;9(2):6167. doi:10.4103/jrpp.JRPP_20_30

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Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market Covid-19 Impact | Analysis by Current Industry Status & Growth Opportunities and Top Key Players…

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The Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market report includes in-depth competitive analysis with the aim of estimating financial growth and maximizing profit potential of the business.In the Complementary and Alternative Medicine market research report, industry trends are plotted at macro level which helps clients and businesses to understand the market and possible future issues.The comprehensive data and brilliant forecasting techniques used in this report coincide with precision and accuracy.Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market can be obtained through market details such as growth drivers, latest developments, market business strategies, regional study and future status of the market.The report also covers insights, including the latest opportunities and challenges in the complementary and alternative medicine industry, as well as historical and future market trends.The geographic scope of products is also methodically taken into account for major global areas such as Asia, North America, South America and Africa.An international complementary and alternative medicine report offers appropriate solutions to complex business challenges and works towards an effortless decision-making process.

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Major players dominating the market across the globe are:

Nordic Naturals, Natures Bounty, Unity Woods Yoga Center, Columbia Nutritional, First Natural Brands Ltd., Ayush Ayurveda, Sheng Chang Pharmaceutical Company, Pure Encapsulations, LLC.Quantum-Touch et Herb Pharm, LLC

Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market Segmentation:

By Type (Alternative Medical Systems, Mind-Body Interventions, Biology-Based Therapies, Manipulative and Body-Based Methods, Energy Therapies, Others)

By end users (hospitals, specialized clinics, therapy centers, others)

By distribution channel (hospital, specialized clinics/centres, direct contact, online training, others)

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Answers to key questions in the report:

Country Level Analysis of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market:

Asia-Pacific: China, Japan, India and Rest of Asia-Pacific

Europe: Germany, UK, France and Rest of Europe

North America: United States, Mexico and Canada

Latin America: Brazil and Rest of Latin America

Middle East and Africa: GCC countries and rest of Middle East and Africa

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Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market Covid-19 Impact | Analysis by Current Industry Status & Growth Opportunities and Top Key Players...

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New Brain Target Could Improve Treatment for Parkinson’s – Technology Networks

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Parkinson is a neurodegenerative disease where dopaminergic neurons progressively die in the brainstem. Tremor and difficulties to walk are recognizable movement symptoms for many people suffering from Parkinson. Over time, nearly a quarter of patients will have so much trouble walking that they often end up freezing on the spot and falling, and many become housebound.

People are primarily treated with medicine, but in some cases doctors use Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). In DBS, the surgeon places a thin metal wire in the brain, which can be used to send electrical pulses. DBS is effective in treating tremor, but alleviating difficulties in walking and freezing remains a challenge.

Now, a study from the University of Copenhagen conducted in mice demonstrate that DBS treatment of walking problems in Parkinson could be optimised by targeting specific eurons in the brainstem possibly benefitting some of the more than 7 to 10 million people suffering from the disease worldwide.

Based on previous animal studies of motor circuits, which are responsible for the planning, control, and execution of voluntary movements, scientists has hypothesized that freezing of walking in Parkinson could be alleviated. That would require DBS to stimulate neurons in the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN), which is located in the brainstem. The PPN was thought to send signals from the brain to the spinal cord leading to body movements.

However, initial results from clinical trials with DBS of the PPN had very variable effect on movement recovery, particularly in patients who experience freezing of walking. It has therefore been debated where within the brainstem an optimal stimulation should be. Our study brings new knowledge to the table regarding the best area for DBS in order to alleviate this particular symptom, says corresponding author Professor Ole Kiehn at the Department of Neuroscience.

Previous results from the group showed that stimulation of so-called excitatory neurons in the PPN could initiate locomotion in normal mice. It raised the possibility that these nerve cells could indeed be used to treat movement symptoms in mice with features of Parkinsons Disease.

We use a technology to target specific group of cells in the PPN in order to close in on what areas are the best to stimulate, if we want to alleviate these particular symptoms. The result shows that the motor improvement is optimal, if we stimulate what we call excitatory neurons in the caudal area of the PPN, explains Ole Kiehn.

We believe that clinical trials with brainstem DBS are the right strategy to facilitate patients to walk properly again. But the variable clinical results occur, because DBS would require higher precision to target the particular group of neurons in the caudal PPN. It is a very delicate area, because if we were to stimulate excitatory neurons in other areas than the caudal PPN, it would cause complete immobilization instead.

In Parkinsons Disease, nerve cells that produce dopamine progressively die. Since the 1960s, doctors have relied on medication to replace the missing dopamine, but it is notoriously difficult to fully control symptoms as the disease progresses.

In many people the movement symptoms do not respond well to medical treatment in the later stages of this disease, so there has been done a lot of research into alternative treatments, including a search for optimal targets for deep brain stimulation, explains Postdoc Debora Masini, first author of the new study, which included several different strategies to substantiate their findings.

When we stimulated these specific neurons in the caudal area of the PPN, the animals were able to walk normally, across longer distances and with normal walking speed, as opposed to before the stimulation, where they would display symptoms of Parkinsons Disease, says Debora Masini.

We systematically compared stimulation of different locations and cell types in a series of complementary experiments. And they allpointed towards the same conclusion.It strongly indicates these excitatory neurons in the caudal PPN are an ideal target for recovery of movement loss, she says.

The researchers hope that the new study could aid clinicians when they pick the exact location for DBS in the brainstem.

The mice in our study only partially represents the complexity of this disease, but the results have been very telling. Nearly everything we have learned in the beginning on how to treat Parkinsons Disease comes from animal models, including the medication we use nowadays for patients. In this sense, it is a valid approach, and we hope our study can help provide better treatment for human patients, says Debora Masini.

Reference:Masini D, Kiehn O. Targeted activation of midbrain neurons restores locomotor function in mouse models of parkinsonism. Nat Commun. 2022;13(1):504. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-28075-4

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New Brain Target Could Improve Treatment for Parkinson's - Technology Networks

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