Mental health tribunals: a significant medico-legal change

After lengthy delays and protracted debates, the Mental Health Act 2001 was finally enacted and commencement of its substantive sections appears to be imminent. One crucial cornerstone of the new regime introduced by the Act will be automatic periodic reviews of patients' detentions by Mental Health Tribunals. This article will focus on the background to the new tribunal system, the statutory rules for its operation, and case law of relevance from Strasbourg and England.

The impact of maternal inflammation and maternal stress in the regulation of neurodevelopment and physiological function

The mechanisms governing fetal development follow a tightly regulated pattern of progression such that interference at any one particular stage is likely to have consequences for all other stages of development in the physiological system that has been affected thereafter. These disturbances can take the form of many different events but two of the most common and widely implicated in causing detrimental effects to the developing fetus are maternal immune activation (MIA) and maternal stress. MIA has been shown to cause an increase in circulating proinflammatory cytokines in both the maternal and fetal circulation. This increase in proinflammatory mediators in the fetus is thought to occur by fetal production rather than through exchange between the maternal-fetal interface. In the case of maternal stress it is increased levels of stress related hormones such as cortisol/corticosterone which is thought to elicit the detrimental effects on fetal development. In the case of both maternal infection and stress the timing and nature of the insult generally dictates the severity and type of effects seen in affected offspring. We investigated the effect of a proinflammatory environment on neural precursor cells of which exposure resulted in a significant decrease in the normal rate of proliferation of NPCs in culture but did not have any effect on cell survival. These effects were seen to be age dependent. Using a restraint stress model we investigated the effects of prenatal stress on the development of a number of different physiological systems in the same cohort of animals. PNS animals exhibited a number of aberrant changes in cardiovascular function with altered responses to stress and hypertension, modifications in respiratory responses to hypercapnic and hypoxic challenges and discrepancies in gastrointestinal innervation. Taken together these findings suggest that both maternal infection and maternal stress are detrimental to the normal development of the fetus.

Molecular analysis of evolutionary relationships of Phaseolus dumosus with the gene pool of common bean

Valuable genetic variation for bean breeding programs is held within the common bean secondary gene pool which consists of Phaseolus albescens, P. coccineus, P. costaricensis, and P. dumosus. However, the use of close relatives for bean improvement is limited due to the lack of knowledge about genetic variation and genetic plasticity of many of these species. Characterisation and analysis of the genetic diversity is necessary among beans' wild relatives; in addition, conflicting phylogenies and relationships need to be understood and a hypothesis of a hybrid origin of P. dumosus needs to be tested. This thesis research was orientated to generate information about the patterns of relationships among the common bean secondary gene pool, with particular focus on the species Phaseolus dumosus. This species displays a set of characteristics of agronomic interest, not only for the direct improvement of common bean but also as a source of valuable genes for adaptation to climate change. Here I undertake the first comprehensive study of the genetic diversity of P. dumosus as ascertained from both nuclear and chloroplast genome markers. A germplasm collection of the ancestral forms of P. dumosus together with wild, landrace and cultivar representatives of all other species of the common bean secondary gene pool, were used to analyse genetic diversity, phylogenetic relationships and structure of P. dumosus. Data on molecular variation was generated from sequences of cpDNA loci accD-psaI spacer, trnT-trnL spacer, trnL intron and rps14-psaB spacer and from the nrDNA the ITS region. A whole genome DArT array was developed and used for the genotyping of P. dumosus and its closes relatives. 4208 polymorphic markers were generated in the DArT array and from those, 742 markers presented a call rate >95% and zero discordance. DArT markers revealed a moderate genetic polymorphism among P. dumosus samples (13% of polymorphic loci), while P. coccineus presented the highest level of polymorphism (88% of polymorphic loci). At the cpDNA one ancestral haplotype was detected among all samples of all species in the secondary genepool. The ITS region of P. dumosus revealed high homogeneity and polymorphism bias to P. coccineus genome. Phylogenetic reconstructions made with Maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods confirmed previously reported discrepancies among the nuclear and chloroplast genomes of P. dumosus. The outline of relationships by hybridization networks displayed a considerable number of interactions within and between species. This research provides compelling evidence that P. dumosus arose from hybridisation between P. vulgaris and P. coccineus and confirms that P. costaricensis has likely been involved in the genesis or backcrossing events (or both) in the history of P. dumosus. The classification of the specie P. persistentus was analysed based on cpDNA and ITS sequences, the results found this species to be highly related to P. vulgaris but not too similar to P. leptostachyus as previously proposed. This research demonstrates that wild types of the secondary genepool carry a significant genetic variation which makes this a valuable genetic resource for common bean improvement. The DArT array generated in this research is a valuable resource for breeding programs since it has the potential to be used in several approaches including genotyping, discovery of novel traits, mapping and marker-trait associations. Efforts should be made to search for potential populations of P. persistentus and to increase the collection of new populations of P. dumosus, P. albescens and P. costaricensis that may provide valuable traits for introgression into common bean and other Phaseolus crops.