Veterinary neurology

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Rather Humerus Sorry that I have been kinda “latent” (ha!) for a year. But it’s Rather Humerus’s 2nd year of existence and… oh, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy National Dog Day, y’all! We thought we’d throw around some pup-appreciation with the following dog olfactory facts for you to fetch. 

1. Besides being much more powerful than ours, a dog’s sense of smell can pick up things that can’t even be seen at all. The olfactory bulb, the area dedicated to processing smells, takes up many times more relative brain area in dogs than humans. This allows dogs to distinguish and remember a staggering variety of specific scents.

2. Everything in the street, every passing person or car, any contents of the neighbor’s trash, each type of tree, and all the birds and insects in it has a distinct odor profile telling your dog what it is, where it is, and which direction it’s moving in.

3. Dogs smell in stereo. The ability to smell separately - with each nostril - helps them determine from what direction smells come. A whole separate olfactory system, called the vomeronasal organ, above the roof of the mouth, detects the hormones all animals, including humans, naturally release.

For more on how dogs smell, check out the TED-Ed Lesson How do dogs “see” with their noses? - Alexandra Horowitz 

“My great love is playing the violin, but for many years, I have had to make do with only teaching. The tremor didn’t allow me to play professionally, and this was very hard for a woman who was used to performing all her life. It’s a shame that I didn’t know about this operation before. Now I’m going to live again”

Basilar Artery Thrombosis

Acute occlusion of the basilar artery may cause brainstem or thalamic ischaemia or infarction. It is a true neuro-interventional emergency and, if not treated early, brainstem infarction results in rapid deterioration in level of consciousness and ultimately death.

Derby was born with deformed front legs. His humans bought him a cart, like a wheelchair for his front, but it limited his mobility.  The owner decided on something kind of like the “running man,” which look like blades, but those might get caught in soft ground. 

Whenever a phrase like “an evolutionary innovation that led to gigantism” is thrown around a science research paper, I’m all ears. This delightful study shows that large whales like fin whales have absurdly stretchy nerves in their mouths, enabling them to “lunge feed” on huge amounts of krill in one gulp. 

The bad news: We’ve mentioned before that a strain of the Escherichia coli bacteria, called E.coli K1, is able to infect the brain and is one of the leading causes of neonatal meningitis. While antibiotics can help fight off this infection, their side effects in newborns and the rise of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria demand other treatment options.

The good news: Prasadarao Nemani, PhD, principal investigator in the Molecular Pathogenesis Research Lab at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and colleagues found that the naturally occurring protein interleukin-10 (IL-10) can remove E.coli K1 from the blood of infected mice. And it reverses the damage to the brain.  

The image above shows the healthy brain of an uninfected mouse at 7 days old.

In an infected mouse, the amount of healthy brain tissue rapidly decreases just four days after E. coli K1 bacteria enter the bloodstream.

Brain morphology returns to normal just two days after an E.coli K1-infected mouse received a small dose of recombinant IL-10. By clearing the infection and restoring brain damage quickly, researchers are hopeful that any long-term effects to the developing brain can be avoided. 

This result provides the basis for studying IL-10 in newborns. Read more about Dr. Nemani’s work with E. coli and other bacterial infections here.

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20498022