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Biomedical subjects

M Griswold

Publications and source records attributed to M Griswold.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Trapping of cold excitons in quantum well structures with laser light.

Optical trapping and manipulation of neutral particles has led to a variety of experiments from stretching DNA-molecules to trapping and cooling of neutral atoms. An exciting recent outgrowth of the technique is an experimental implementation of atom Bose-Einstein condensation. In this Letter, we propose and demonstrate laser-induced trapping for a new system--a gas of excitons in quantum well structures. We report on the trapping of a highly degenerate Bose gas of excitons in laser-induced traps.

Biophysics↗
PubMed2003

Non-muscle cofilin is a component of tubulobulbar complexes in the testis.

Tubulobulbar complexes are finger-like structures that form at the interface between maturing spermatids and Sertoli cells prior to sperm release and at the interface between two Sertoli cells near the base of the seminiferous epithelium. They originate in areas previously occupied by actin filament-associated intercellular adhesion plaques known as ectoplasmic specializations. Actin filaments also are associated with tubulobulbar complexes where they appear to form a network, rather than the tightly packed bundles found in ectoplasmic specializations. Cofilin, a calcium-independent actin-depolymerizing protein, previously has been identified in the testis, but has not been localized to specific structures in the seminiferous epithelium. To determine if cofilin is found in Sertoli cells and is concentrated at actin-rich structures, we reacted fixed frozen sections of rat testis, fixed fragmented tissue, and blots of seminiferous epithelium with pan-specific and non-muscle cofilin antibodies. In addition, GeneChip microarrays (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA) were utilized to determine the abundance of mRNA for all cofilin isoforms in Sertoli cells. Using the monoclonal pan-specific cofilin antibody, we found specific labeling exclusively at tubulobulbar complexes and not at ectoplasmic specializations. On one-dimensional (1D) Western blots this antibody reacted monospecifically with one band, and on 2D blots reacted with two dots, which we interpret as phosphorylated and nonphosphorylated forms of a single cofilin isotype. Messenger RNA for non-muscle cofilin in Sertoli cells is about 8.5-fold higher than for muscle-type cofilin. To confirm that the non-muscle isoform of cofilin is present at tubulobulbar complexes, we used antibodies specific to non-muscle cofilin for immunofluorescent localization. As with the pan-specific antibody, we found that the non-muscle cofilin antibody exclusively labeled tubulobulbar complexes. Results presented here indicate that non-muscle cofilin is concentrated at tubulobulbar complexes. Our results also indicate that cofilin is not concentrated at ectoplasmic specializations.

Actin Cytoskeleton↗
PubMed1999

Silent functional magnetic resonance imaging demonstrates focal activation in rapid eye movement sleep.

Functional imaging of human sleep has been performed with nuclear medicine methods, but MRI has been difficult to implement, in part because of the noise associated with echo-planar imaging as well as the difficulty in reading physiologic signals in the MRI environment. We describe a silent MR sequence that can record brain activation over many hours with simultaneous acquisition of an EEG. This shows activation of occipital cortex and deactivation of frontal cortex during REM sleep, in agreement with previous studies using other techniques. MRI-Sleep-REM sleep.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Functional burst imaging.

A quiet magnetic resonance (MR) imaging technique for detecting changes in cerebral activity functions is presented. This single-shot method, functional Burst imaging (FBI), combines elements of Burst imaging with an offset technique known as asymmetric spin echo (ASE). The FBI sequence has the unique feature of being nearly silent, because of the low number of gradient switching steps involved. Furthermore, this approach has the key advantage that it can be implemented on conventional MR systems. Established auditory and visual paradigms were used to evaluate whether FBI can detect changes in cerebral activity using a 1.5 Tesla MR system. In a second set of experiments, the FBI technique was used to evaluate cerebral activity changes during different sleep stages in humans. The results obtained demonstrate that the FBI sequence provides an alternative approach for functional imaging of brain activity in primary and secondary sensory areas of the human brain. Furthermore, in using this quiet MR technique, it was possible to scan continuously during different stages of human sleep without acoustic noise perturbation.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1987

Regulation of levels of specific Sertoli cell mRNAs by vitamin A.

The regulation of Sertoli cell transferrin and sulfated glycoprotein-2 (SGP-2) mRNA levels by vitamin A was studied in vitamin A deficient rats. Vitamin A deficiency differentially affected the levels of these mRNAs. Sertoli cells from vitamin A deficient rats contained 3-fold less transferrin mRNA and 1.8-fold more SGP-2 mRNA than Sertoli cells from normal rats. Vitamin A deficiency did not result in changes in the amount of transferrin mRNA per liver cell. When vitamin A deficient rats were fed a retinol supplemented diet, Sertoli cell transferrin and SGP-2 mRNA levels returned to normal. In contrast, dietary retinoic acid did not support recovery of the levels of the two mRNAs. The regulation of transferrin and SGP-2 mRNA levels was further examined in vitamin A deficient rats that had received subcapsular testicular injections of vitamin A and in vitamin A supplemented cultures of Sertoli cells from vitamin A deficient rats. Under these conditions, retinol and retinoic acid both stimulated transferrin mRNA levels but did not affect SGP-2 mRNA levels. Retinol did not inhibit the turnover of transferrin mRNA in Sertoli cell cultures suggesting that the stimulation of transferrin mRNA levels by retinol is due to increased transcription of the transferrin gene. A mathematical correlation between the Sertoli cell transferrin mRNA levels and the weight of the testes or the number of germinal cells was observed.

Animals↗