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The reproducibility crisis (or replication crisis) in biomedical research is a particularly existential and under-addressed issue in the field of behavioral neuroscience, where, in spite of efforts to standardize testing and assay protocols, several known and unknown sources of confounding environmental factors add to variance. Human interference is a major contributor to variability both within and across laboratories, as well as novelty-induced anxiety. Attempts to reduce human interference and to measure more \"natural\" behaviors in subjects has led to the development of automated home-cage monitoring systems. These systems enable prolonged and longitudinal recordings, and provide large continuous measures of spontaneous behavior that can be analyzed across multiple time scales. In this review, a diverse team of neuroscientists and product developers share their experiences using such an automated monitoring system that combines Noldus PhenoTyper ® home-cages and the video-based tracking software, EthoVision ® XT, to extract digital biomarkers of motor, emotional, social and cognitive behavior. After presenting our working definition of a “home-cage”, we compare home-cage testing with more conventional out-of-cage tests (e.g., the open field) and outline the various advantages of the former, including opportunities for within-subject analyses and assessments of circadian and ultradian activity. Next, we address technical issues pertaining to the acquisition of behavioral data, such as the fine-tuning of the tracking software and the potential for integration with biotelemetry and optogenetics. Finally, we provide guidance on which behavioral measures to emphasize, how to filter, segment, and analyze behavior, and how to use analysis scripts. We summarize how the PhenoTyper has applications to study neuropharmacology as well as animal models of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric illness. Looking forward, we examine current challenges and the impact of new developments. Examples include the automated recognition of specific behaviors, unambiguous tracking of individuals in a social context, the development of more animal-centered measures of behavior and ways of dealing with large datasets. Together, we advocate that by embracing standardized home-cage monitoring platforms like the PhenoTyper, we are poised to directly assess issues pertaining to reproducibility, and more importantly, measure features of rodent behavior under more ethologically relevant scenarios.

[...]some nanomaterials may affect the deposition site and distant responses throughout the body.9 In general, the cytotoxicity of CNTs depends on their structure, dose, concentration, manufacturing method, functional group, etc.10 Several in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrated that CNTs might induce oxidative stress and cytotoxic effects.10 These nanomaterials may cause pulmonary inflammation.10 The investigation of cardiovascular adverse effects of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) on respiratory exposure shows that they lead to formation of pulmonary granulomatous and production of cardiovascular toxicity.11 A toxicity investigation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in human shows that not only they induce inflammatory and fibrotic reactions but also they lead to protein exudation and granulomas on the peritoneal side of the diaphragm.12 One of the in vitro studies about CNTs cardiovascular effects showed that exposure to CNTs increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases by affecting normal cardiac electrophysiology.13 Another study shows that oropharyngeal aspiration of MWCNT causes increased susceptibility of cardiac tissue to ischemia/reperfusion injury without a significant pulmonary inflammatory response; therefore MWCNTs can be the cardiovascular system risk.14 Generally, there is concern that nanomaterials could have a major impact on the cardiovascular system, although the effects of exposure to newly developed nanomaterials on the cardiovascular system remain elusive and no definitive data are available about these nanomaterials' effect on the cardiovascular autonomic control.8,15 Inhaled nanoparticles in the lungs may cause systematic inflammation through oxidative stress, which mediates endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis. Since the injection of saline as control group had no significant effect on EEG and ECG recording in pervious papers of our college,17-19 we used our prior data about the effect of saline injection. [...]we had no additional group for saline injection as control; the group before injection of CNT was considered as control group.\\n This study demonstrated that pulmonary exposure to MWCNT can be manifested as a reduced epithelial barrier and activator of vascular gpl30-associated transsignaling; however the mechanism of CNT's effects are unclear.36 In vitro tests investigation showed that MWCNTs were biocompatible, and no damage at the cellular structural level was observed.37 According to one of previous works, injection of MWCNTs led to a transient and self-limiting local inflammatory response.38 Generally, MWCNTs were reported to be more biocompatible than SWCNTs; therefore, they had more utility than SWCNTs for medical applications.39 As we know, potassium has the most important intracellular action, and it has a major role in determining the resting membrane potential of cells.

Introduction: Seizures are symptoms associated with abnormal electrical activity in electroencephalogram (EEG). The present study was designed to determine the effect of absence seizure on heart rate (HR) changes in electrocardiogram (ECG).Methods: HR alterations were recorded simultaneous with spike and wave discharges (SWD) by EEG in 6 WAG/Rij rats as a well characterized and validated genetic animal epilepsy model. Moreover, 6 control rats were used to distinguish the differences of HR changes between various groups. Electrodes were placed on the skull and under the chest skin, minimizing time delay and signal attenuation. HR was calculated by an adaptable algorithm based on continues wavelet transform (CWT) particular for this study. Three main features of HR minimum, maximum, and mean values were estimated for pre-ictal and ictal intervals for all seizures.Results:ECG beats detected with sensitivity of 99.9% and positive predictability of 99.8% based on CWT. HR deceleration was found in 86% of the seizures. There were statistically significant (P<0.001) reductions of these values from pre-ictal to ictal intervals. Interictal HR acceleration and ictal deceleration were the major feature of alterations and in 23% of seizures, this decrease had priority to the onsets.Discussion: These findings may lead to design a seizure alarm system based on HR and to obtain new insights about sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) phenomenon and side-effects of antiepileptic drugs (AED).

Purpose: The interaction between somatosensory cortex and thalamus via a thalamocortical loop is a theory behind induction of absence epilepsy. Inside peri-oral somatosensory (S1po) and primary somatosensory forelimb (S1fl) regions, excitatory and inhibitory systems are not balanced and GABAergic inhibitory synapses seem to play a fundamental role in short-term plasticity alterations. Methods: We investigated the effects of Ethosuximide on presynaptic changes by utilizing paired-pulse stimulation that was recorded from somatosensory cortex in 18 WAG rats during epileptic activity. A twisted tripolar electrode including two stimulating electrodes and one recording electrode was implanted into the S1po and S1FL according to stereotaxic landmarks. Paired-pulses (200 µs, 100-1000 µA, 0.1 Hz) were applied to somatosensory cortex at 50, 100, 400, 500 ms inter-pulse intervals for 50 min period. Results: The results showed that paired-pulse facilitation was significantly reduced at all intervals in all times, but compared to the control group of epileptic WAG/Rij rats (p<0.05), it was exceptional about the first 10 minutes after the injection. At the intervals of 50 and 100 ms, a remarkable PPD was found in second, third, fourth and fifth 10-min post injection. Conclusion: These experiments indicate that Ethosuximide has effects on presynaptic facilitation in somatosensory cortex inhibitory loops by alteration in GABA levels that leads to a markedly diminished PPF in paired-pulse stimulation.