INTERVENTIONAI DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF VASCULOGENEIC PULSATILE TINNITUS

Objective To retrospectively study clinical features and diagnostic imaging of vasculogeneic pulsatile tin-nitus, and the feasibility and efficacy of transvascular interventional treatment for this condition. Methods Data from 82 cases of arterial or venous pulsatile tinnitus were reviewed. DSA characteristics and possible pathophysiological mechanisms of pulsatile tinnitus in these cases were studied. Diagnoses in this group in-cluded intracranial arterovenous fistula (AVF) (n=3), spontaneous skull base dural AVF (n=16), traumatic ca-rotid-cavernous sinus fistula (n=5), subclavian artery stenosis (n=2), internal carotid artery stenosis (n=3), in-tracranial arterial stenosis (n=1), kinked and/or elongated vertebrobasilar artery (n=2), venous sinus divertic-ulum (n=2), venous sinus stenosis on the dominant drainage side (n=46) and occipital sinus stenosis (n=2). Treatments included embolization and stenting using coils, NBCA glue, Balt balloons, self-expansion stents and intracranial micro-stents via either the femoral artery or femoral vein. Results Procedures were suc-cessful in all cases with no surgery-related complications. Tinnitus disappeared within 2 days after the pro-cedure in all cases. Follow up duration was 5-36 months. Recurrence occurred in 4 cases of arterial tinnitus within 3 months following the initial procedure, which improved after revision embolization or symptom management. There was no recurrence in venous tinnitus cases following stent plastic or stent-coiling embo-lization treatments. Conclusions Endovascular intervention provides a new approach to the diagnosis and treatment of intractable pulsatile tinnitus. It is also effective in differentiating and studying other types of tinnitus.

Constraint-induced movement therapy promotes motor function recovery and downregulates phosphorylated extracellular regulated protein kinase expression in ischemic brain tissue of rats

Motor function impairment is a common outcome of stroke.Constraint-induced movement therapy（CIMT）involving intensive use of the impaired limb while restraining the unaffected limb is widely used to overcome the effects of＇learned non-use＇and improve limb function after stroke.However,the underlying mechanism of CIMT remains unclear.In the present study,rats were randomly divided into a middle cerebral artery occlusion（model）group,a CIMT＋model（CIMT）group,or a sham group.Restriction of the affected limb by plaster cast was performed in the CIMT and sham groups.Compared with the model group,CIMT significantly improved the forelimb functional performance in rats.By western blot assay,the expression of phosphorylated extracellular regulated protein kinase in the bilateral cortex and hippocampi of cerebral ischemic rats in the CIMT group was significantly lower than that in the model group,and was similar to sham group levels.These data suggest that functional recovery after CIMT may be related to decreased expression of phosphorylated extracellular regulated protein kinase in the bilateral cortex and hippocampi.

Neuroprotective effect of the traditional Chinese herbal formula Tongxinluo: a PET imaging study in rats

Tongxinluo has been widely used in China for the treatment of acute stroke and for neuroprotection. However, there are few positron emission tomography （PET） studies on the neuroprotective effect of Tongxinluo on cerebral ischemia/reperfusion in small animals. In the present study, Tongxinluo superfine powder suspension or its vehicle was administered intragastrically to rats for 5 successive days before middle cerebral artery occlusion, ^18Ffluorodeoxyglucose （FDG） small animal PET imaging showed that at 1 and 2 weeks after cerebral ischemia/reperfusion, glucose metabolism in the ischemic area was greater in rats that had received Tongxinluo than in those that had received the vehicle. Nissl staining showed that 2 weeks after cerebral ischemia/reperfusion, there was less neuronal loss in the prefrontal cortex in Tongxinluo-treated rats than in controls. In addition, Tongxinluo-treated animals showed better neurologic function and lower cerebral infarct volume than rats that received the vehicle. These findings suggest that Tongxinluo exhibits neuroprotective effects in cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury and demonstrates that ^18F-FDG small animal PET imaging is a useful tool with which to study the molecular pharmacology of traditional Chinese medicine.