Introduction: Neuropsychiatric disorders, including Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), impose substantial personal and financial burdens, and despite being one of the leading causes of death globally, treatment strategies are generally ineffective. The MEMORI Study (NCT05077826), a randomized double-blind clinical trial of older adults with and without Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), investigated the efficacy of transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) to improve learning and potentially mitigate the effects of dementia. This study investigated whether variation in treatment efficacy can be predicted by cognitive assessments given prior to treatment.

Methods: Cognitive assessments were used to evaluate cognitive function and impairment among participants who received either a sham (0.1 mA) or verum (2.0 mA) dose of tES. This analysis involved computing correlation coefficients to investigate the relationship between these cognitive measures and the scores from the PRETXT discovery learning task after training (Gibson et al., 2020).

Results: In the verum tES group, Trail Making Tests A and B showed significant positive correlations between learning task improvement and training (r=0.4415, p=0.0030 and r=0.3270, p=0.0324, respectively). In contrast, the sham tES group showed nonsignificant correlations (r=0.1453, p=0.3468 for Test A and r=0.0446, p=0.7740 for Test B).

Conclusion: Trail Making Test scores were found to have a significant correlation with learning task performance in participants receiving verum tES, but not sham. Further research will be needed in order for us to understand this relationship. In the meantime, these results suggest a simple and cost-effective strategy for predicting the beneficial effects of this neuromodulation technique on individual patients.

Introduction: Insufficient physical activity is a common risk factor for recurrent stroke in individuals post-stroke. The HEARTS Technical Package, developed by organizations like the World Health Organization, is a potential resource for promoting physical activity post-stroke. It aligns with secondary stroke prevention recommendations, addresses barriers/facilitators for physical activity post-stroke, and can be implemented remotely. However, evidence about its use to promote physical activity post-stroke by telehealth is absent. Furthermore, while activity monitors are used in physical activity interventions, their effectiveness post-stroke is primarily studied in-person. Therefore, this study aims to investigate whether the telehealth intervention involving the HEARTS Technical Package and the use of an activity monitor to increase physical activity level post-stroke is feasible, and to estimate parameters for conducting a fully powered randomized controlled trial (RCT).

Methods: A feasibility RCT study, with blinded assessment, assigned 24 individuals post-stroke (diagnosed ≥6 months), who were aged ≥18 years, inactive, able to walk 10 meters independently, and with medical approval to participate in physical activity, to an experimental (n=12) or a control group (n=12). Both groups carried out a theoretically-informed telehealth intervention, for 12 weeks, based on the HEARTS Technical Package. The experimental group had additional use of an activity monitor.

Results: The outcomes include the feasibility of recruitment, intervention, and measurement, as well as clinical outcomes.

Conclusions: The proposed intervention meets secondary stroke prevention recommendations and will be implemented via telehealth, aiming to overcome barriers to in-person interventions. This study will inform future phases of conducting an RCT.

Introduction: AME's Memoriavers maze presents the spirit of different memory-related behavioural tests in the same environment. Memoriavers originate from the Latin memoria, which is a function that allows us to integrate, retain, and retrieve information in order to interact with our environment, while others come from the multiverse, which is a set of infinite metaverses operating side by side. Alterations in memory and neurological development caused by valproic acid have been documented, as has neurotoxicity in rodents.

General objective: To evaluate a prototype behavioural memory test in Wistar rats treated with valproic acid.

Materials and methods: A total of 48 male and female Wistar rats were divided into three groups: (1) the distilled water group, (2) the VPA 200 mg/kg group, and (3) the VPA 400 m/kg group. The products were administered daily by gavage for sixty days. After treatment, the rodents were subjected to behavioural tests in AME's home-made Memoriavers maze. Rats were selected from each batch to be mated with untreated rats. The young mated rats were subjected to the same maze.

Results: Various variables, such as the number of errors, exploration time, distance travelled, and others, were recorded. The results of the rats exposed to VPA and their offspring showed a significant drop in success rate and performance. Anxiety and stress were revealed during testing in VPA-treated rodents.

Conclusion: The AME Memoriavers maze showed a decrease in memory-related performance and behavioural abnormalities in Wistar rats treated with valproic acid at the doses studied.

Contextual fear conditioning (CFC) is a stress behavioural paradigm that resembles many characteristics of post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD). It is well documented that PTSD is associated with inflammation; however, there is limited information on how inflammation contributes to the progresison and development of PTSD. Because PTSD is difficult to treat, the understanding of the inflammatory mediators involved in this pathology could favour better interventions against its resilience. In fact, higher IL-6 levels in CFC of susceptible rats prior to trauma can increase the PTSD susceptibility in rats. In this study, we have evaluated whether PSTD fear learning may increase CCR5/RANTES levels by chronic stress restraint (21 days of restraint, 6 h/day) and/or fear learning; these chemokines (CCR5/RANTES) were quantified by ELISA in synaptosomes from the hippocampus and rat prefrontal cortex. This PSTD model increases CCR5/RANTES at 24 h post-training, but chronic stress did not affect these chemokine levels. We also evaluted whether the CCR5 blockade by maraviros (a CCR5 chemokine blocker) before CFC training is able to prevent fear behavior and also normalize RANTES, IL-6, or cortisol release as compared to CFC-trained rats. Maraviroc (a CCR5 chemokine blocker) enhanced corticosterone release in this PSTD paradigm. The CCR5 blockade by mararviroc enhanced corticosterone release, which suggests a neurohormonal regulation of the CCR5 chemokine receptor in the rat hippocampus.

Peripheral nerve damage is recorded as the most common traumatic consequence of accidental injuries; this leads to a low quality of life. The poor efficacy of treatments makes treating cases of peripheral nerve injury a challenge. Several studies have been conducted in order to elevate the situation. Tissue engineering techniques, biomaterial scaffolds, suturing, cell-based therapies, growth factors and exosomes are already being used. In this study, a nerve conduit was developed using a 1.25 mm silicone tube that was dipped 6 times in 10% gelatin solution of Na2HPO4 and 3 times in raw beeswax, prepared using double broiler method at a constant rate of 30 seconds cross-alternatively. It was dried for 24 hours and then characterized using scanning electron microscopy, high-performance liquid chromatography, FTIR-IR, electrical conductivity, cytotoxic assay and cell viability and tensile strength tests. Male wistar rats were used as animal models of peripheral neve injury, and the nerve conduit of gelatin/beeswax was applied and placenta cells were injected into it. The animals were analyzed for behavioral , physiological, managemental and activity changes at a gap of 3 weeks regularly. Histological changes were also observed that showed remarkable regeneration, axonal growth and activity restoration. This study aims at providing an efficient biomaterial treatment for peripheral nerve injury to enhance quality of life in patients.

The unique metabolic profile of Sub-Saharan Africans and African Americans predispose them to a higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes (DM-2) and a 2-to-8fold increased risk of developing dementia compared to Caucasians. This increased risk places a significant strain on health systems. The development and progression of DM-2 are influenced by intrinsic factors such as sex, epigenetics, ethnicity, diet, and lifestyle, as well as extrinsic factors like socioeconomics, cultural nuances, and the environment. However, the complex relationship between diabetes and dementia is not fully understood; thus, further research efforts are needed. Our research group has identified educational level as a key risk factor for dementia, with Nigerian women being particularly affected. In this work, we studied both healthy individuals and those with DM-2 to search for a continuum between educational levels and cognitive function, and to establish education as a trigger factor for dementia prevalence. Our findings demonstrate that lower educational levels correspond to poorer cognitive function test results. Moreover, since women disproportionately have lower educational levels, their cognitive test results deviated more significantly from typical values. This study highlights the critical connection between education and dementia risk, emphasizing the urgent need to address gender education inequalities, particularly in sub-Saharan populations like Nigeria. By improving educational opportunities for women, we can potentially reduce the prevalence of dementia and enhance the overall quality of life in these communities. Addressing this issue is not only a matter of public health, but also a step toward achieving social equity and improving the resilience of health systems.