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The article discusses the study regarding the inhibition of methylprednisolone on oligodendrocyte-produced Nogo-A protein expression in spinal cord injury. The study involves rats with acute spinal cord injury which undergoes weight-drop method. Result shows that the rats' motor behavior ability was reduced and the spinal cord tissues presented with necrotic injury and shows a reduction in Nogo-A expression.

The article discusses a study which examined the genotype and gene mutations of human seizure-related gene 6 in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy. The patients from China were divided into six subgroups based on the age of onset and seizure type. The study revealed frequent mutations c.1249dupC (p.Gly418Argfx31) and c.1636A > G (p.Thr546Ala) by conducting polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and DNA direct sequencing analysis.

Spinocerebellar ataxia 7 (SCA7) is a rare disease, and only few SCA7 families have been reported, especially from East Asia. Clinical features of a genetically confirmed SCA7 Chinese family were evaluated. The onset of the disease varied from 4 years to 48 years, and the initial presenting feature was cerebellar ataxia or visual impairment, or both. There were abnormal findings on fundus photography, electroretinogram, flash visual evoked potential and oscillatory potentials. Abnormal mitochondria were also found in skeletal muscle or liver biopsies. The number of cytosine adenine guanine (CAG) repeats ranged from 50 to 97, and the length of CAG repeat was inversely correlated with the age of onset (r=-0.867, P=0.025). Conclusion: The clinical manifestations and SCA7 gene of SCA7 patients were homogeneous in this study. Larger CAG repeats had not only resulted in earlier onset, but also related to the rapid progression and severity of the disease. Abnormal mitochondria may be a common finding in biopsy studies of various organs in SCA7 patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study which examined the role of mouse seizure-related (mSEZ)-6 gene in the pathogenesis of some human epilepsies. At the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a probe using the mSEZ-6a complementary DNA (cDNA) was employed to search the human expressed sequence tag database. The study has detected four primer pairs that amplify this gene in the human brain cDNA library. Results of the study showed that human seizure-related (hSEZ)-6B cDNA demonstrated an alternative splicing site at exon 17.