Extraction of yuxtaureteral suture, with ureteroscopy. A clinical case]

Severe protein deprivation at weaning provokes an arrest of cellular proliferation and maturation, and an increase of ADA and PNP activities in the thymus of growing rats. A 20% casein diet fed during 9 days was enough to reverse the effect on ADA and PNP. The supplementation with 24 mg/d of n-3 PUFA, was able to recover thymus' cellular proliferation and maturation.     

Assessing the Validity of Implicit Egotism: A Reply to Gallucci (2003).

B. W. Pelham, M. C. Mirenberg, and J. T. Jones (see record 2002-12744-001) argued that most people prefer stimuli that are associated with the self, a preference they called implicit egotism. In support of implicit egotism, Pelham et al presented evidence from 10 archival studies showing that people gravitate toward careers and places of residence that resemble their names or birthday numbers. M. Gallucci (see record 2003-09138-001) argued that alternate analyses of the same data provide strong evidence against implicit egotism. Whereas Gallucci was correct that Pelham et al's original analyses were flawed, their results remain significant even when more conservative tests are used. The authors also present new data in support of implicit egotism, including exhaustive studies of (a) common surnames and US city names and (b) common surnames and street names. The new studies also revealed that as sample sizes grow larger, studies are more likely to produce evidence of implicit egotism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Radiofrequency ablation of type I atrial flutter: combination of electrophysiological and anatomical techniques

Atrial flutter type I (FLA) is one of the most common arrhythmias found in clinical practice. Reentry into the right atrium (AD) is the mechanism of this arrhythmia. The reentry mechanism has critical sites where radiofrequency (RF) can act blocking the circuit. Both, electrophysiological and anatomical approaches using RF to FLA have demonstrated a success rate above 80%. Our group combined both techniques treating 35 patients with FLA type I (22 men and 13 women), with mean age of 40.8 +/- 15 years old (range 9-70). In 21 patients (60%) this arrhythmia was associated with cardiopathy. All patients had failed to respond to different antiarrhythmic therapy. The success rate was 82.8% (29/35). When compared failure vs success we observed that patients who failed were older (51.8 vs 38.5 years old, p < 0.05), had structural cardiopathy (83.3% vs 55.1%, p = NS), had FLA type I with P waves with shorter cycle length (195 vs 254 ms, p = 0.052), had the arrhythmia chronically (129.6 vs 68.1 month, p = NS), had great left atrium diameter (41.2 vs 36.7 mm, p = 0.052) and frequently had been associated with atrial fibrillation (33.3% vs 3.4%, p = 0.02). There were no complications. Six (20.6%) patients reverted to FLA. We followed our patients during mean time 8.37 +/- 8.8 months (1-36). Our results support the notion that FLA type I can be treated with high percentage of success and low risk of complications when both RF techniques are combined. Our predictors of failure were: gender and associated atrial fibrillation (p < 0.05). We conclude that RF is the treatment of choice in every patient with FLA type I who had failed to antiarrhythmic therapy. We recommend RF as soon as FLA has been diagnosed because the probability of success is higher in such instances.     

Instructed smoking expectancy modulates cue-elicited neural activity: a preliminary study.

In recent years, research applying functional neuroimaging to the study of cue-elicited drug craving has emerged. This research has begun to identify a distributed system of brain activity during drug craving. A review of this literature suggested that expectations regarding the opportunity to use a drug affected the pattern of neural responses elicited by drug cues. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined the effects of smoking expectancy on the neural response to neutral (e.g., roll of tape) and smoking-related (a cigarette) stimuli in male cigarette smokers deprived of nicotine for 8 hr. As predicted, several brain regions (e.g., the anterior cingulate cortex) exhibited differential activation during cigarette versus neutral cue exposure. Moreover, we found that subregions of the prefrontal cortex (i.e., ventromedial, ventrolateral, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices) showed cue-elicited activation that was modulated by smoking expectancy. These results highlight the importance of perceived drug use opportunity in the neurobiological response to drug cues.     

Administration of corticosterone after the first downshift trial enhances consummatory successive negative contrast.

Rats given access to a 32% sucrose solution and then downshifted to a 4% solution exhibit less contact with the sipper tube than unshifted controls always given access to 4% solution. This phenomenon, called consummatory successive negative contrast, was facilitated in Experiment 1 by a posttrial injection of corticosterone (3 mg/kg) administered immediately after the first downshift trial. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this facilitatory effect of posttrial corticosterone does not occur when administered 3 hr after the first downshift trial. These results support the hypothesis that corticosterone strengthens an aversive emotional component elicited by the surprising downshift in reward magnitude during the initial downshift trial. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Brazilian government external individual monitoring service: experience since 1972

Instituto de Radioprote??o e Dosimetria, a Brazilian government research institute, provides individual monitoring services since 1972. Its dosemeters are: film-based thorax for whole body photons, thermoluminescence dosimetry (TLD) albedo for whole body neutrons and TLD ring for extremity photons. About 6000 radiation workers are currently being monitored with film dosemeters in 256 different facilities in Brazil, most of them working in health-related activities. Around 400 Brazilian radiation workers are monitored with TLD albedo neutron monitor and about 500 workers use TLD rings. This paper describes the monitoring systems used, presents the results obtained in internal quality programs and in intercomparison exercises and analyses the measured dose values from 1985 to 2009.     

Excessive ovarian production of nerve growth factor elicits granulosa cell apoptosis by setting in motion a tumor necrosis factor α/stathmin-mediated death signaling pathway

Excessive nerve growth factor (NGF) production by the ovary, achieved via a transgenic approach, results in arrested antral follicle growth, reduced ovulatory capacity, and a predisposition to cyst formation in response to mildly elevated LH levels. Two salient features in these mutant mice (termed 17NF) are an elevated production of 17α-hydroxyprogesterone (17-OHP(4)), testosterone, and estradiol (E(2)) in response to gonadotropins, and an increased frequency of granulosa cell (GC) apoptosis. In this study, we show that the increase in steroidal response is associated with enhanced expression of Cyp17a1, Hsd17b, and Cyp19a1, which encode the enzymes catalyzing the synthesis of 17-OHP(4), testosterone, and E(2) respectively. Using a proteomic approach, we identified stathmin (STMN1), as a protein that is overproduced in 17NF ovaries. In its phosphorylated state, STMN1 mediates a cell death signal initiated by tumor necrosis factor α (TNF). STMN1 is expressed in GCs and excessive NGF increases its abundance as well as that of its forms phosphorylated at serine (Ser) 16, 25, and 38. TNF synthesis is also increased in 17NF ovaries, and this change is abolished by blocking neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptors. Inhibiting TNF actions in vivo by administering a soluble TNF receptor prevented the increase in total and phosphorylated STMN1 production, as well as GC apoptosis in NGF-overproducing ovaries. These results indicate that an excess of NGF in the ovary promotes steroidogenesis by enhancing the expression of enzyme genes involved in 17-OHP(4), testosterone, and E(2) synthesis, and causes GC apoptosis by activating a TNF/ STMN1-mediated cell death pathway.     

Identifying hospitalized older patients at varying risk for physical performance decline: a new approach

It is not known how immaturity and disease influence postnatal thyroid function in infants <30 wk of gestational age. We performed serial measurements of plasma thyroxine (T4), free T4 (FT4), triiodothyronine (T3), reverse T3 (rT3), TSH, and T4-binding globulin (TBG) in 100 infants of <30 wk of gestation, during the first 8 postnatal weeks, to investigate the influences of disease and gestational age on the time course of thyroid hormones. One hundred infants were divided twice into two groups: 1) in a group of 25-28 and of 28-30 wk of gestation; and 2) in a sick and a healthy group, with similar gestational ages. The time course of T4, FT4, T3, TSH, and TBG, but not rT3 differed significantly (p < 0.005) between the gestational age groups. T4 and FT4 decreased to levels below the cord blood value with a deeper FT4 nadir on d 7 in the youngest group. Disease decreased T4, FT4, T3, TSH, and TBG concentrations especially during the 1st wk after birth (p < 0.005). However, the FT4 nadir on d 7 was similar in sick and healthy infants. After 3 wk, T4, FT4, T3, and TBG were higher in the sick group compared with the healthy group. rT3 levels were not increased in sick infants. We conclude that the extent of the FT4 decrease after birth in infants of <30 wk gestation is mainly influenced by gestational age and probably reflects a transient depletion of thyroidal hormone reserves. rT3 cannot be used as a marker of nonthyroidal illness in very preterm infants.