News

The Second Urology and Nephrology Research Festival

(Avicenna)

227

Urology Journal

UNRC/IUA

Vol. 2, No. 4, 227-229 Autumn 2005

Printed in IRAN

The Urology and Nephrology Research Center

(UNRC) began its activity in 1999. The UNRC

works toward its mission by conducting studies at

national level and by supporting and coordinating

with researchers, research institutions,

universities and academic centers, and other

related settings. In accordance with the

responsibilities of this center, a research festival

is designated to be held yearly, and the first

Urology and Nephrology Research Festival was

held in 2004 by the UNRC. The Second Urology

and Nephrology Research Festival was held in

December 9, 2005 and the best research projects

in the field of urology and nephrology were

selected and appraised. The underlying objectives

of this festival are firstly to encourage the

research in urology and nephrology fields;

secondly to appreciate the researchers' efforts,

and thirdly, to introduce the them and their

findings to the scientific societies.

Juries evaluating in methodology, subject,

creativity and problem solving first carefully

assessed the research projects. Scores were

gathered and after standardization and sorting

the projects, the final decision was made. The

winners were invited to take part in the award

ceremony at Imam Ali conference hall in Shaheed

Beheshti University, Tehran. 

This year, Dr Seyed Hossein Riazimand from

Heidelberg University, was the first prize winner

of this festival for his work "A Rat Model for

Studying the Effects of Sacral Neuromodulation

and Interaction between Neurotransmitter

Antagonists and Sacral Neuromodulation in Rats

with Chronic Hyperactive Bladder." More details

of this study are described later on in this report.

The second winner was Dr Mousarreza

Hadjzadeh. He is associate professor of

physiology in Mashhad University of Medical

Sciences. The ethanolic extract of Nigella Sativa

was the subject of his research. Concerning its

anti-analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects, and

the increasing effect on glutathione in kidney, he

studied a rat model to investigate the effect of

Nigella Sativa on kidney stones in rats. He has

found that the number of calcium oxalate

deposits in the kidneys are reduced when Nigella

Sativa is added to the drinking water of rats.

Also, the best dissertation in the field of

urology was selected by the jury and Dr Amir

Haji Mohammad Mehdi Arbab, resident of

urology in Shohada-e-Tajrish Hospital, won the

prize.  He investigated the presence of human

papillomavirus infection in patients with bladder

tumor of different local stages and grades and in

a control group. He has conducted this study

under the supervision of Dr Mohammadreza

Barghi, assistant professor of urology in Shohada-

e-Tajrish Hospital.

The First Prize Winner

Seyed Hossein Riazimand was born in 1963 in

Zunuz, Iran.  He graduated from the University

of Mainz in Germany in 2001, with a PhD degree

in natural sciences. Now he continues his

scientific activity in the Institut für Anatomie und

Zellbiologie III at the University of Heidelberg. It

is indeed a great honor to recognize Dr

Riazimand for all his great effort as an Iranian

scientist and to bestow upon him the 2005 first

rank Urology and Nephrology Research Award.

Dr Riazimand and his colleague, Dr Siegfried

Mense, have carried out an animal study to

evaluate the electrical stimulation of the sacral

nerves with electrodes in the sacral foramina,

namely sacral neuromodulation. They developed

an animal model in which the effect of sacral

neuromodulation on a chronic hyperactive

urinary bladder can be studied. Their results

were published in 2004 in BJU International.(1) In

the next step, they introduced a modified rat

model to investigate the interactions between

antagonists of spinal neurotransmitters and the

effect of sacral neuromodulation (Figure 1).



The Second Urology and Nephrology Research Festival (Avicenna)

Riazimand and Mense's experiments were

based on the hypothesis that sacral

neuromodulation releases neurotransmitters in

the spinal neurons, and consequently reduce the

bladder contractions. If one of these

neurotransmitters is involved in the

neuromodulatory effects, intrathecal

administration of an antagonist should reduce

the effects of neuromodulation. They used 39

female rats and induced cystitis in 24 by

instillation of turpentine oil into the bladder

(Figure 2). The other 15 rats served as controls.

All rats survived for 10 days and thereafter, the

induced cystitis was considered chronic. Then,

they anesthetized the rats and introduced a

catheter into their bladders. To record bladder

contractions, they connected a pressure

transducer to the catheter. The rats were

mounted in a spinal frame and the sacral

foramina from S1 to S3 were surgically exposed.

Two stimulating cathodes were placed in the

foramina of S1 bilaterally (Figure 3). For topical

spinal (intrathecal) administration of the

antagonist or blocker, respectively, a laminectomy

from vertebrae L6 to T12 was performed with a

plastic ring. They termed this technique of

intrathecal administration spinal superfusion. In

rats with both inflamed and intact bladder, they

first filled the pool with cerebrospinal fluid and

applied sacral neuromodulation. Then, they

exchanged the pool contents with memantine, an

antagonist of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)

receptors; 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione

disodium salt (CNQX), an antagonist of α-amino-

3 - hy d r ox y - 5 - m e t hy l - 4 - i s ox a z o l e p r o p a n o i c

acid/kainite receptors; and L-N-nitroarginine 

p-nitroanilide (L-NAPNA), a blocker of neuronal

NO syntase. They tested only one antagonist in

each rat and sacral neuromodulation was

repeated for 2 minutes. 

The results of this study were as follows:

memantine and L-NAPNA paused the cystitis-

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FIG. 1. The modified model: the right side shows the pool

for spinal superfusion of the test substances on the dorsal

surface of the spinal segment S1; on the left side the

arrangement of the electrodes for sacral neuromodulation

is depicted.

FIG. 2. Cystitis induced by instillation of bladder with

2.5% turpentine oil: calcitonin gene-related peptide-ir nerve

endings exhibited an inflammation-induced increase in

innervation density (immunofluorescence).

FIG. 3. Two cuff electrodes are attached to S1 sacral

spinal nerves, intraoperatively.

FIG. 4. Effect of memantine superfusion on cystitis-

induced contractions



The Second Urology and Nephrology Research Festival (Avicenna)

induced bladder contractions for 4 minutes and

37 minutes, respectively (Figure 4). The

cerebrospinal fluid and CNQX caused a

insignificant pause in contractions. Electrical

sacral modulation with no antagonists also

transiently abolished the bladder contractions; at

the highest intensity used, the pause was 2 to 3

minutes. Superfusion of the spinal cord with

CNQX reduced this effect of neuromodulation

significantly, whereas memantine had no

influence, and L-NAPNA increased the

neuromodulation-induced pause. 

Dr Riazimand and his colleague have suggested

that non-NMDA receptors are involved in the

effects of sacral neuromodulation, whereas

NMDA receptors appear to have no role. Nitric

oxide is essential for maintaining the chronic

hyperactive state of the urinary bladder. The

report of this study is published in BJU

international.(2)

References

1. Riazimand SH, Mense S. A rat model for studying effects

of sacral neuromodulation on the contractile activity of

a chronically inflamed bladder. BJU Int. 2004;94:158-63.

2. Riazimand SH, Mense S. Interaction between

neurotransmitter antagonists and effects of sacral

neuromodulation in rats with chronically hyperactive

bladder. BJU Int. 2005;96:900-8.

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