Psychiatric diagnoses of patients with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures

Objective: Our purpose was to present and discuss the psychiatric diagnoses of patients who presented psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) during video-electroencephalographic monitoring (VEEG). Methods: Out of 98 patients, a total of 28 patients presented PNES during the diagnostic procedure. In those cases in which the PNES that occurred during VEEG were validated by clinical history (clinical validation), and by showing the recorded event on video to an observer close to the patient (observer validation), was defined psychogenic non-epileptic seizure disorder (PNESD). Psychiatric diagnoses were made according to DSM-IV. Results: In 27, psychogenic non-epileptic seizures disorder was diagnosed. Fourteen patients presented only with psychogenic non-epileptic seizure disorder, 13 with both psychogenic non-epileptic seizures disorder and epilepsy, and one patient with epilepsy only. Psychiatric diagnoses were: 17 (63%) patients with conversion disorder, five (19%) with somatization disorder, two (7%) with dissociative disorder NOS, two (7%) with post-traumatic stress disorder and one (4%) with undifferentiated somato-form disorder. Conclusions: Dissociative-conversion non-epileptic seizures are the most frequent finding, representing the pseudoneurological manifestation of mental disorders that have these symptoms as a common feature. Provisionally, they may be defined as dissociative-conversion non-epileptic seizure disorders. (C) 2007 British Epilepsy Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Representational Difference Analysis (RDA) reveals differential expression of conserved as well as novel genes during caste-specific development of the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) ovary

In highly eusocial insects, such as the honey bee, Apis mellifera, the reproductive bias has become embedded in morphological caste differences. These are most expressively denoted in ovary size, with adult queens having large ovaries consisting of 150-200 ovarioles each, while workers typically have only 1-20 ovarioles per ovary. This morphological differentiation is a result of hormonal signals triggered by the diet change in the third larval instar, which eventually generate caste-specific gene expression patterns. To reveal these we produced differential gene expression libraries by Representational Difference Analysis (RDA) for queen and worker ovaries in a developmental stage when cell death is a prominent feature in the ovarioles of workers, whereas all ovarioles are maintained and extend in length in queens. In the queen library, 48% of the gene set represented homologs of known Drosophila genes, whereas in the worker ovary, the largest set (59%) were ESTs evidencing novel genes, not even computationally predicted in the honey bee genome. Differential expression was confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR for a selected gene set, denoting major differences for two queen and two worker library genes. These included two unpredicted genes located in chromosome 11 (Group11.35 and Group11.31, respectively) possibly representing long non-coding RNAs. Being candidates as modulators of ovary development, their expression and functional analysis should be a focal point for future studies. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Supporting content-based image retrieval and computer-aided diagnosis systems with association rule-based techniques

In this work, we take advantage of association rule mining to support two types of medical systems: the Content-based Image Retrieval (CBIR) systems and the Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems. For content-based retrieval, association rules are employed to reduce the dimensionality of the feature vectors that represent the images and to improve the precision of the similarity queries. We refer to the association rule-based method to improve CBIR systems proposed here as Feature selection through Association Rules (FAR). To improve CAD systems, we propose the Image Diagnosis Enhancement through Association rules (IDEA) method. Association rules are employed to suggest a second opinion to the radiologist or a preliminary diagnosis of a new image. A second opinion automatically obtained can either accelerate the process of diagnosing or to strengthen a hypothesis, increasing the probability of a prescribed treatment be successful. Two new algorithms are proposed to support the IDEA method: to pre-process low-level features and to propose a preliminary diagnosis based on association rules. We performed several experiments to validate the proposed methods. The results indicate that association rules can be successfully applied to improve CBIR and CAD systems, empowering the arsenal of techniques to support medical image analysis in medical systems. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Etiopathogenesis of Hepatic Osteodystrophy in Wistar Rats with Cholestatic Liver Disease

The pathophysiology of hepatic osteodystrophy (HO) remains poorly understood. Our aim was to evaluate bone histomorphometry, biomechanical properties, and the role of the growth hormone (GH)/insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) system in the onset of this disorder. Forty-six male Wistar rats were divided into two groups: sham-operated (SO, n = 23) and bile duct-ligated (BDL, n = 23). Rats were killed on day 30 postoperatively. Immunohistochemical expression of IGF-I and GH receptor was determined in liver tissue and in the proximal growth plate cartilage of the left tibia. Histomorphometric analysis was performed in the right tibia, and the right femur was used for biomechanical analysis. The maximal force at fracture and the stiffness of the mid-shaft femur were, respectively, 53% and 24% lower in BDL compared to SO. Histomorphometric measurements showed low cancellous bone volume and decreased cancellous bone connectivity in BDL, compatible with osteoporosis. This group also showed increased mineralization lag time, indicating disturbance in bone mineralization. Serum levels of IGF-I were lower in BDL (basal 1,816 +/- A 336 vs. 30 days 1,062 +/- A 191 ng/ml, P < 0.0001). BDL also showed higher IGF-I expression in the liver tissue but lower IGF-I and GH receptor expression in growth plate cartilage than SO. Osteoporosis is the most important feature of HO; BDL rats show striking signs of reduced bone volume and decreased bone strength, as early as after 1 month of cholestasis. The endocrine and autocrine-paracrine IGF-I systems are deeply affected by cholestasis. Further studies will be necessary to establish their role in the pathogenesis of HO.

An association rule-based method to support medical image diagnosis with efficiency

In this paper, we propose a method based on association rule-mining to enhance the diagnosis of medical images (mammograms). It combines low-level features automatically extracted from images and high-level knowledge from specialists to search for patterns. Our method analyzes medical images and automatically generates suggestions of diagnoses employing mining of association rules. The suggestions of diagnosis are used to accelerate the image analysis performed by specialists as well as to provide them an alternative to work on. The proposed method uses two new algorithms, PreSAGe and HiCARe. The PreSAGe algorithm combines, in a single step, feature selection and discretization, and reduces the mining complexity. Experiments performed on PreSAGe show that this algorithm is highly suitable to perform feature selection and discretization in medical images. HiCARe is a new associative classifier. The HiCARe algorithm has an important property that makes it unique: it assigns multiple keywords per image to suggest a diagnosis with high values of accuracy. Our method was applied to real datasets, and the results show high sensitivity (up to 95%) and accuracy (up to 92%), allowing us to claim that the use of association rules is a powerful means to assist in the diagnosing task.

Noncoding RNA's in mammals

Transcripts that lack any protein-coding potential represent at least half of the identified elements transcriptome. We review the evidence for the existence of such transcripts in the mammalian transcriptome, and argue that there may be many more noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) still to be discovered. Relatively few ncRNA “genes” have been ascribed a function based upon mutation analysis. The review discusses possible roles of ncRNAs as cis-acting and trans-acting elements in epigenetic transcriptional control, including monoallelic gene silencing and imprinting. We also consider the evidence that the production of ncRNAs is a common feature of transcriptional enhancers.

Neutrophil activation induced by ArtinM: Release of inflammatory mediators and enhancement of effector functions

The D-mannose binding lectin ArtinM from Artocarpus integrifolia, previously known as KM+ and artocarpin. is considered a stimulant of Th1-type immunity, which is able to confer resistance to some intracellular pathogens. In addition, ArtinM induces neutrophil migration by haptotaxis through simultaneous interactions of its carbohydrate recognition domains (CRDs) with glycans expressed on the extracellular matrix and the neutrophil surface. In the present study, we have expanded the characterization of ArtinM as a neutrophil activator. Exposure of neutrophils to ArtinM for 15 min resulted in tyrosine phosphorylation of intracellular proteins, a process that was selectively inhibited by D-mannose or mannotriose. Shortly after stimulation, neutrophils secreted high levels of LTB(4) and underwent shedding of L-selectin from their surface. Exposure to ArtinM enhanced neutrophil functions, such as respiratory burst and zymozan and Listeria monocytogenes phagocytosis. In addition, ArtinM-stimulated neutrophils displayed increased CXCL-8 secretion and TLR2 gene transcription. These results demonstrate that ArtinM is able to induce potent neutrophil activation, a feature that should be strongly considered in the assessment of the lectin capacity to confer resistance against infections. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Economic constraints on public policy

Economics is commonly described as "the science of allocating scarce resources." By contrast, a popular description of politics is "the art of the possible." Both of these descriptions refer to the same central feature of human existence: our wants generally exceed our capacity to satisfy them. However, economic and political approaches to the problem of scarcity are quite different. [Extract from Introduction]

Serial conditional discrimination and temporal bisection in rats selectively lesioned in the dentate gyrus

In positive serial conditional discrimination, animals respond during a target stimulus when it is preceded by a feature stimulus, but they do not respond when the same target stimulus is presented alone. Moreover, the feature and target stimuli are separated from each other by an empty interval. The present work aimed to investigate if two durations (4 or 16s) of the same feature stimulus (light) could modulate the operant responses of rats to different levers (A and B) during a 5-s target stimulus (tone). In the present study, lever A was associated with the 4-s light, and lever B was associated with the 16-s light. A 5-s empty interval was included between the light and the tone. In the same training procedure, the rats were also presented with the 5-s tone without the preceding light stimuli. In these trials, the responses were not reinforced. We evaluated the hippocampal involvement of these behavioral processes by selectively lesioning the dentate gyrus with colchicine. Once trained, the rats were submitted to a test using probe trials without reinforcement. They were presented with intermediate durations of the feature stimulus (light) to obtain a temporal bisection curve recorded during the exposure to the target stimuli. The rats from both groups learned to respond with high rates during tones preceded by light and with low rates during tones presented alone, which indicated acquisition of the serial conditional discrimination. The rats were able to discriminate between the 4- and 16-s lights by correctly choosing lever A or B. In the test, the temporal bisection curves from both experimental groups showed a bisection point at the arithmetic mean between 4 and 16s. Such processes were not impaired by the dentate gyrus lesion. Thus, our results showed that different durations of a feature stimulus could result in conditional properties. However, this processing did not appear to depend on the dentate gyrus alone. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Production of atypical category exemplars in patients with schizophrenia

Previous studies have revealed semantic memory impairments in patients with schizophrenia, and suggested that certain of these impairments were related to thought disorganization. One explanation offered for this is a broadening of the boundaries of semantic categories in schizophrenia. We selected 16 semantic categories, and required a sample of 41 schizophrenia patients and 43 healthy control subjects to produce one exemplar from each category. The typicality of the subjects` responses was rated. The exemplars produced by the patients were on average less typical than those produced by the healthy controls. No significant association between typicality of the response and thought disorganization was revealed in the patient sample. Affective flattening, alogia, and anhedonia were significantly and inversely associated with the typicality score, that is, higher ratings of these symptoms were associated with more typical responses. Our results suggest that a broadening of semantic category boundaries is observed in patients with schizophrenia, but is unrelated to thought disorganization. This semantic abnormality is not a feature of the patients with high ratings of certain negative symptoms. (JINS, 2010, 16, 822-828.)

Differential expression of HDAC3, HDAC7 and HDAC9 is associated with prognosis and survival in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

Altered expression of histone deacetylases (HDACs) is a common feature in several human malignancies and may represent an interesting target for cancer treatment, including haematological malignancies. We evaluated the mRNA gene expression profile of 12 HDAC genes by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction in 94 consecutive childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) samples and its association with clinical/biological features and survival. ALL samples showed higher expression levels of HDAC2, HDAC3, HDAC8, HDAC6 and HDAC7 when compared to normal bone marrow samples. HDAC1 and HDAC4 showed high expression in T-ALL and HDAC5 was highly expressed in B-lineage ALL. Higher than median expression levels of HDAC3 were associated with a significantly lower 5-year event-free survival (EFS) in the overall group of patients (P = 0.03) and in T-ALL patients (P = 0.01). HDAC7 and HADC9 expression levels higher than median were associated with a lower 5-year EFS in the overall group (P = 0.04 and P = 0.003, respectively) and in B-lineage CD10-positive patients (P = 0.009 and P = 0.005, respectively). Our data suggest that higher expression of HDAC7 and HDAC9 is associated with poor prognosis in childhood ALL and could be promising therapeutic targets for the treatment of refractory childhood ALL.

Stability improvement of the fatty acid binding protein Sm14 from S. mansoni by Cys replacement: Structural and functional characterization of a vaccine candidate

The Schistosoma mansoni fatty acid binding protein (FABP), SmA, is a vaccine candidate against, S. mansoni and F hepatica. Previously, we demonstrated the importance of a correct fold to achieve protection in immunized animals after cercariae challenge [[10]. C.R.R. Ramos, R.C.R. Figueredo, T.A. Pertinhez, M.M. Vilar, A.L.T.O. Nascimento, M. Tendler, I. Raw, A. Spisni, P.L. Ho, Gene structure and M20T polymorphism of the Schistosoma mansoni Sm14 fatty acid-binding protein: structural, functional and immunoprotection analysis. J. Biol. Chem. 278 (2003) 12745-12751]. Here we show that the reduction of vaccine efficacy over time is due to protein dimerization and subsequent aggregation. We produced the mutants Sm14-M20(C62S) and Sm14M20(C62V) that, as expected, did not dimerize in SDS-PAGE. Molecular dynamics calculations and unfolding experiments highlighted a higher structural stability of these mutants with respect to the wild-type. In addition, we found that the mutated proteins, after thermal denaturation, refolded to their active native molecular architecture as proved by the recovery of the fatty acid binding ability. Sm14-M20(C62V) turned out to be the more stable form over time, providing the basis to determine the first 3D solution structure of a Sm14 protein in its apo-form. Overall, Sm14-M20(C62V) possesses an improved structural stability over time, an essential feature to preserve its immunization capability and, in experimentally immunized animals, it exhibits a protection effect against S. mansoni cercariae infections comparable to the one obtained with the wild-type protein. These facts indicate this protein as a good lead molecule for large-scale production and for developing an effective Sm14 based anti-helminthes vaccine. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Temporal evolution of epithelial, vascular and interstitial lung injury in an experimental model of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis induced by butyl-hydroxytoluene

This study was undertaken to test whether the structural remodelling of pulmonary parenchyma can be sequentially altered in a model and method that demonstrate the progression of the disease and result in remodelling within the lungs that is typical of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Three groups of mice were studied: (i) animals that received 3-5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxytoluene (BHT) and were killed after 2 weeks (early BHT = 9); (ii) animals that received BHT and were killed after 4 weeks (late BHT = 11); (iii) animals that received corn oil solution (control = 10). The mice were placed in a ventilated Plexiglas chamber with a mixture of pure humidified oxygen and compressed air. Lung histological sections underwent haematoxylin-eosin, immunohistochemistry (epithelial, endothelial and immune cells) and specific staining (collagen/elastic fibres) methods for morphometric analysis. When compared with the control group, early BHT and late BHT groups showed significant decrease of type II pneumocytes, lower vascular density in both and higher endothelial activity. CD4 was increased in late BHT compared with early and control groups, while CD8, macrophage and neutrophil cells were more prominent only in early BHT. The collagenous fibre density were significantly higher only in late BHT, whereas elastic fibre content in late BHT was lower than that in control group. We conclude that the BHT experimental model is pathologically very similar to human usual interstitial pneumonia. This feature is important in the identification of animal models of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis that can accurately reflect the pathogenesis and progression of the human disease.

Isolation and partial characterization of Brazilian samples of feline immunodeficiency virus

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) causes a slow progressive degeneration of the immune system which eventually leads to a disease comparable to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in humans. FIV has extensive sequence variation, a typical feature of lentiviruses. Sequence analysis showed that diversity was not evenly distributed throughout the genome, but was greatest in the envelope gene, env. The virus enters host cells via a sequential interaction, initiated by the envelope glycoprotein (env) binding the primary receptor molecule CD134 and followed by a subsequent interaction with chemokine co-receptor CXCR4. The purpose of this study was to isolate and characterize isolates of FIV from an open shelter in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The separated PBMC from 11 positive cats were co-cultured with MYA-1 cells. Full-length viral env glycoprotein genes were amplified and determined. Chimeric feline x human CD134 receptors were used to investigate the receptor utilization of 17 clones from Brazilian isolates of Fly. Analyses of the sequence present of molecular clones showed that all clones grouped within subtype B. In contrast to the virulent primary isolate FIV-GL8, expression of the first cysteine-rich domain (CRD1) of feline CD134 in the context of human CD134 was sufficient for optimal receptor function for all Brazilian FIV isolates tested. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Rare case of unifocal Langerhans cell histiocytosis in four-month-old child

Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) comprises a group of disorders, the common feature of which is Langerhans cell proliferation. The clinical presentation is highly varied. The severity and prognosis of the disease are dependent on the type and extent of organ involvement. This paper reports a rare case of a four-month-old white male with unifocal LCH limited exclusively to the mandible, discussing the diagnosis, radiographic and immunohistochemical aspects, treatment and monitoring multidisciplinary of the case. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.