{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.023311897106109324, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0008038585209003215, 'mean_word_length': 5.163366336633663, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Study Finds Botulinum Toxin Spreads to CNS Tissue in Mice

Italian investigators injected botulinum neurotoxin A (BoNT, Botox) into whisker muscles of rats and mice, as well as into various brain regions; they found that the toxin ended up in remote areas of the CNS. While Matteo Caleo, PhD, of Italy’s National Research Council and his colleagues said that this “novel pathway of BoNT-A trafficking in neurons” has “important implications for the clinical uses of this neurotoxin,” scientists and physicians who have worked with botulinum neurotoxins for decades say that the doses were much too high in the animals to extrapolate to humans and that the longterm clinical use of these medicines has yet to reveal similar problems. “There is no evidence from long-term clinical use that BoNT injected into peripheral muscles, skin, or other tissues causes any central clinically detectable effects,” said Joseph Jankovic, MD, professor of neurology and director of the Parkinson’s Disease Center and Movement Disorders Clinic at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. The study, reported in the April 2 Journal of Neuroscience, made national headlines because of the popularity of the toxins used to treat facial wrinkles and movement disorders.