Butea superba Roxb. (B. superba) is a herb that has been used for rejuvenation, to improve sexual performance, or to prevent erectile dysfunction function. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder that is the main cause of progressive dementia. This study aimed to investigate the amelioration for cognitive and memory dysfunction of B. superba ethanolic extract (BSE), a possible mechanism of action, and its toxicity. The results from the Y-maze test, novel object recognition test, and passive avoidance test exhibited that the administration of BSE at 50 mg/kg (BSL) and 200 mg/kg (BSH) could ameliorate scopolamine-induced cognitive impairment in all behavior testing. Moreover, BSE could prevent the cognitive deficit in a dose-dependent manner in a passive avoidance test. Furthermore, BSE inhibited acetylcholinesterase’s (AChE) ex vivo activity in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. Also, the in vitro and ex vivo antioxidative effects of BSE revealed that BSE had free radical scavenging activities in both DPPH and FRAP assay. Furthermore, male rats treated with BSE at 200 mg/kg/day for two weeks could significantly increase serum testosterone compared with control ( ). The GC-MS analysis and previous studies revealed that BSE contained propanoic acid, 3,3′-thiobis-, didodecyl ester, oleic acid, gamma-sitosterol, and stigmasterol which may play an important role in cognitive and memory impairment prevention. The toxicity test of BSE in rats at 50 and 200 mg/kg/day for two weeks showed that relative organ weight, serum creatinine, ALT, ALP, and CBC levels of both treated groups were not significantly different compared to the CON ( ). These results suggest that BSE may not be toxic to the vital organ and blood. In conclusion, BSE has the potential to be developed as a health supplement product or medicine for AD prevention and treatment.

Background: On diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease (AD), most existing imaging-based schemes have relied on analyzing the hippocampus and its peripheral structures. Recent studies have confirmed that volumetric variations are one of the primary indicators in differentiating symptomatic AD from healthy aging. In this study, we focused on deriving discriminative shape-based parameters that could effectively identify early AD from volumetric computerized tomography (VCT) delineation, which was previously almost intangible. Methods: Participants were 63 volunteers of Thai nationality, whose ages were between 40 and 90 years old. Thirty subjects (age 68.51 ± 5.5) were diagnosed with early AD, by using Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) criteria and the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and the Stroke and the Alzheimer’s disease and Related Disorders Association (NINCDS-ADRDA) criteria, while the remaining 33 were in the healthy control group (age 67.93 ± 5.5). The structural imaging study was conducted by using VCT. Three uninformed readers were asked to draw left and right hippocampal outlines on a coronal section. The resultant shapes were aligned and then analyzed with statistical shape analysis to obtain the first few dominant variational parameters, residing in hyperplanes. A supervised machine learning, i.e., support vector machine (SVM) was then employed to elucidate the proposed scheme. Results: Provided trivial delineations, relatively as low as 5 to 7 implicit model parameters could be extracted and used as discriminants. Clinical verification showed that the model could differentiate early AD from aging, with high sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and F-measure of 0.970, 0.968, 0.983 and 0.983, respectively, with no apparent effect of left-right asymmetry. Thanks to a less laborious task required, yet high discriminating capability, the proposed scheme is expected to be applicable in a typical clinical setting, equipped with only a moderate-specs VCT.

Smart Educational Media Creator (SEMC) is an intelligent teaching tool promoting high order thinking skills in science and technology fields. It is a one type of instructionalmedia emphasizing on critical thinking skill in order to support a self-learning experience. The objective of this research is to study the effectiveness of SEMC used in Nervous system III course in medical students at Suranaree University of Technology. The results demonstrated that the sample group (79 medical students in sophomore year aging 18-20 years old and representing males in majority, 54.43%) showed an average grade prior taking individual classes mostly at 2.50-3.00; and the average score of the entire class after taking individual classes from Cornell critical thinking test (level Z) showed an increased number but not at statistically significant difference of 0.05. However, a further analysis of average grade in grouping students according to their grades revealed that students in specific groups of 2.50-3.00 and 3.00-3.50 grade showed higher score with a statistically significant difference of 0.05. These two groups represent a majority (70.89 %) of sample group. The samples’ opinions on content of the media, duration per a lesson, additional knowledge acquired from class, freedom in choosing class options, promptnessof computer equipment, and convenience in using the system were at high level. This instructional media, SEMC, benefits to learners in supporting their thinking skill andresponding to student-centered learning method which, in turn, promotes learning habit and eventually a self-learning education.

Background/Objectives: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterised by motor and non-motor symptoms, including pain. Temporomandibular disorder (TMD)-like pain, defined as self-reported pain modified by jaw activities, has been suggested to be more prevalent in PD, but its association with PD severity remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the association between pain modified by jaw activities and PD severity and the temporal stability of such pain in PD. Methods: This prospective study recruited 28 individuals with PD. Motor symptom severity and disability levels were evaluated using the modified Hoehn and Yahr (mHY) staging and modified Rankin Scale (mRS), respectively. Based on the diagnostic criteria for TMD, a questionnaire assessing pain modified by jaw activities and clinical examination were utilised. Pain modified by jaw activities was reassessed at one, two, and three months. Statistical analyses included Spearman’s rank correlation test and Friedman test, with p < 0.05 considered significant. Results: The participants’ mean age was 69.2 ± 9.6 years; 53.6% were male. Eight participants reported pain modified by jaw activities. Clinical examination identified painful palpation sites in 14 participants, most commonly in the masseter muscle body. Pain modified by jaw activity count showed significant positive correlations with mHY stage (rho = 0.48, p = 0.015) and mRS score (rho = 0.41, p = 0.04). Twenty-four participants completed follow-up, with no significant changes in pain reports over three months. Conclusions: Some individuals with PD may experience persistent TMD-like pain, which is correlated with motor symptom severity and disability levels, highlighting the importance of routine TMD screening in PD.