Haptic selective attention by foot and by hand

Nonvisual perceptions of a wielded object's spatial properties are based on the quantities expressing the object's mass distribution, quantities that are invariant during the wielding. The mechanoreceptors underlying the kind of haptic perception involved in wielding – referred to as effortful, kinesthetic, or dynamic touch – are those embedded in the muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The present experiment's focus was the selectivity of this muscle-based form of haptic perception. For an occluded rod grasped by the hand at some intermediate position along its length, participants can attend to and report selectively the rod's full length, its partial lengths (fore or aft of the hand), and the position of the grip. The present experiment evaluated whether participants could similarly attend selectively when wielding by foot. For a given rod attached to and wielded by foot or attached to (i.e. grasped) and wielded by hand, participants reported (by magnitude production) the rod's whole length or fractional length leftward of the point of attachment. On measures of mean perceived length, accuracy, and reliability, the degree of differentiation of partial from full extent achieved by means of the foot matched that achieved by means of the hand. Despite their neural, anatomical, and experiential differences, the lower and upper limbs seem to abide by the same principles of selective muscle-based perception and seem to express this perceptual function with equal facility.     

Electrophysiological analysis of a sensorimotor integration task

The present experiment aimed at investigating electrophysiologic changes observed as beta band asymmetry, by Quantitative Electroencephalography (qEEG), when individuals performed a reaching motor task (catching a ball in free fall). The sample was composed of 23 healthy individuals, of both sexes, with ages varying between 25 and 40 years old. All the subjects were right handed. A two-way ANOVA was applied for the statistical analysis, to verify the interaction between task moment (i.e., 2 s before and 2 s after ball's fall) and electrode (i.e., frontal, central and temporal regions). The first analysis compared electrodes placed over the somatosensory cortex. Central sites (C3–C4) were compared with temporal regions (T3–T4). The results showed a main effect for moment and position. The second analysis was focused over the premotor cortex, which was represented by the electrodes placed on the frontal sites (F3–F4 versus F7–F8), and a main effect was observed for position. Taken together, these results show a pattern of asymmetry in the somatosensory cortex, associated with a preparatory mechanism when individuals have to catch an object during free fall. With respect to task moment, after the ball's fall, the asymmetry was reduced. Moreover, the difference in asymmetry between the observed regions were related to a supposed specialization of areas (i.e., temporal and central). The temporal region was associated with cognitive processes involved in the motor action (i.e., explicit knowledge). On the other hand, the central sites were related to the motor control mechanisms per se (i.e., implicit knowledge). The premotor cortex, represented by two frontal regions (i.e., F3–F4 versus F7–F8), showed a decrease on neural activity in the contralateral hemisphere (i.e., to the right hand). This result is in agreement with other experiments suggesting a participation of the frontal cortex in the planning of the apprehension task. This sensorimotor paradigm may contribute to the repertoire of tasks used to study clinical conditions such as depression, alzheimer and Parkinson diseases.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Taenia crassiceps</Emphasis> cysticercosis: immune response in susceptible and resistant BALB/c mouse substrains

Taenia crassiceps can naturally and experimentally infect rodents in which they reproduce by budding. Differences in the susceptibility to T. crassiceps cysticercosis were found between two BALB/c substrains: BALB/cAnN (susceptible) and BALB/cJ (resistant). In chimeric mice, resistance was transferred to susceptible mice with bone marrow cells from the resistant mice, which argues in favor of an immune mediation of the resistant phenotype. To further explore the immune response that could underlie these differences in susceptibility, the specific cellular immune response elicited by the parasite was explored in both substrains. An increased proliferative response and IL-2 levels were induced by cysticercal antigens only in splenocytes from resistant mice. A decrease in the percentage of CD4(+) (11.1%), CD8(+) (17.5%) was found in splenocytes from susceptible BALB/cAnN mice. A study of the TCRV beta repertoire revealed a significant decrease in V beta 2 in both CD4(+) and CD8(+) splenocytes only in the susceptible BALB/cAnN strain.     

Good Safety Profile and Efficacy of Leucocyte Interferon-α in Combination with Oral Ribavirin in Treatment-Naive Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C

Background: The differential tolerability profile of various interferon (IFN)-α preparations used in combination with ribavirin for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C needs to be elucidated. Approximately 8% of patients receiving recombinant IFNα-2b plus ribavirin discontinue treatment because of adverse events. Human leucocyte IFNα is deemed to have a better safety profile than recombinant IFNα. We therefore compared the safety profile and efficacy of ribavirin combined with leucocyte IFNα or with recombinant IFNα-2b in treatment-naive patients with chronic hepatitis C. Study design: We randomised 423 patients to either leucocyte IFNα 3MU three times weekly plus ribavirin (210 patients) or the same dose of recombinant IFNα-2b plus ribavirin (213 patients). Patients were treated for 24 weeks and followed-up for a further 48 weeks. The primary endpoint was the safety profile of the two therapies; the secondary endpoint was the rate of sustained response. Results: In patients receiving leucocyte IFNα, the total number of adverse events was lower than in the group receiving recombinant IFNα (259 vs 441 patients), and the percentage of patients discontinuing treatment because of adverse events or laboratory abnormalities was significantly reduced (4% vs 11%; p = 0.013). Sustained response was observed in 47% of patients receiving leucocyte IFNα plus ribavirin and in 44% of patients receiving IFNα-2b plus ribavirin. Conclusions: Both therapeutic regimens were effective in inducing a sustained response in naive patients. However, the safety profile of leucocyte IFNα plus ribavirin was more favourable than that observed with the administration of recombinant IFNα-2b plus ribavirin, suggesting that leucocyte IFNα may be an alternative option in patients with reduced tolerability to other IFNs.     

A rapid and easy method for multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 mutation detection using conformation-sensitive gel electrophoresis

Until now, the study of the multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) gene in patients suspected of having the disease was expensive and laborious due to the large size of the gene. We have optimized the conformation-sensitive gel electrophoresis (CSGE) technique to analyze by four rather simple multiplex PCR reactions, and a single electrophoresis run, the entire coding region of the MEN1 gene, plus the exon–intron boundaries. This improvement of the CSGE technique was confirmed as an effective procedure for screening for the MEN1 gene by detecting ten previously known MEN1 gene mutations and four polymorphisms. The MEN1 gene of 12 patients with unknown mutations was then screened, and an abnormal CSGE profile was identified in 10/12 cases. Subsequent DNA sequencing demonstrated 3 of them to be novel mutations (E45K, 4479delACAG, 6073insC) and 7 to have been previously reported; in the remaining 2 patients, we confirmed the absence of any alteration of the coding sequence of MEN1. Mutation screening of the MEN1 gene using CSGE was demonstrated to be a fast, simple, and inexpensive method to study patients suspected of having MEN1 disease. Received: November 29, 2001 / Accepted: January 28, 2002     

Paradoxical sleep deprivation facilitates subsequent corticosterone response to a mild stressor in rats

The pituitary-adrenal responsiveness to a mild stressor was assessed in rats that were deprived of paradoxical sleep (PS) and in controls that were not deprived. Animals were either individually- or group-deprived for 96 h and hormone levels were assessed at 0, 5, 20 or 60 min after a saline injection+novelty and compared with rats which were not deprived. Both types of PS deprivation resulted in elevated adrenocorticotropin levels at 0 min, which peaked at 5 min in all animals. Individually-deprived rats exhibited the highest corticosterone (CORT) levels at 0 min. Peak levels were higher and occurred earlier in PS-deprived than in control rats (5 vs. 20 min, respectively). At 20 min, CORT levels had already returned to unstressed levels in PS-deprived rats, but not in control rats. These data indicate that PS deprivation induces facilitation of the adrenocortical response to a mild stressor, but do not suggest that PS deprivation changes the negative feedback sensitivity to CORT.     

Microvascular structural entropy: A novel approach to assess angiogenesis in pituitary tumors

Entropy, a measure of the degree of disorder in a system, has recently been used in different morphologic studies to quantify regularity. Our aims were (a) to study the structural organization of the microvascular bed in prolactin (PRL)-producing adenomas and carcinomas, the most vascularized of pituitary tumors, by assessing microvascular structural entropy (MSE), and (b) to determine whether the degree of disorder of the capillary bed correlates with tumor cell proliferation as estimated by MIB-1 labeling, microvessel density (MVD), the most widely used method of quantifying blood vessel formation, and various clinicopathologic parameters (gender, age, tumor size and invasiveness). The morphometric study demonstrated statistically significant differences in MIB-1 labeling, MVD, and MSE between PRL-producing adenomas and carcinomas. Unlike MIB-1 labeling index (PRL-producing adenomas 1.5±0.27; carcinomas 15.0±4.04) and MVD (PRL-producing adenomas 2.7±0.34; carcinomas 4.2±0.72), the MSE values were significantly higher in adenomas (171.5±25.37) than in carcinomas (67.9±17.45). These results indicate that PRL-producing carcinomas have a less chaotic distribution of vessels than benign adenomas. In contrast to a lack of correlation between, microvessel density and other morphometric parameters, a strong negative correlation was found between MSE and MIB-1 labeling index (r=0.511, p=0.003). It thus appears that regular, less chaotic microvascular geometry contributes to increased proliferative activity in PRL cell tumors. Analysis of MSE may provide an independent parameter of tumor behavior, and contributes to a better understanding of the role of microvasculature in pituitary tumor progression.     

Down-regulation of nitric oxide synthase-2 and cyclooxygenase-2 pathways by p53 in squamous cell carcinoma

The goal of this study was to analyze the correlation between inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and COX-2 activities and p53 gene status in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) in vivo and in vitro. In a series of 43 HNSCCs we observed an up-regulation of both iNOS and COX-2 pathways in tumor tissues and both activities were correlated each other (rs = 0.612 and P = 0.0002). We also found that p53-mutated HNSCCs (25 cases, 58.1%) showed higher levels of iNOS activity and cGMP in comparison with wild-type p53 tumors (18 cases, 41.9%) (P = 0.0005 and P = 0.01), as well as higher iNOS immunohistochemical expression (P = 0.03). Analogously, higher PgE2 levels were documented in p53-mutated HNSCCs when compared with wild-type p53 tumors (P = 0.015) and COX-2 protein expression was higher in p53-mutated HNSCCs (P = 0.007). A431 cancer cells expressing a p53 temperature-sensitive mutant showed an approximately 1.9- and 2.6-fold decrease in spontaneous NO(2-)/NO(3-) and PgE2 synthesis at permissive temperature, respectively, when compared with the same cells at nonpermissive temperature (P 相似文献   

Drug resistance mutations and newly recognized treatment-related substitutions in the HIV-1 protease gene: prevalence and associations with drug exposure and real or virtual phenotypic resistance to protease inhibitors in two clinical cohorts of antiretroviral experienced patients

This study aimed at identifying HIV-1 protease amino acid changes associated with protease inhibitor (PI) exposure and susceptibility. New amino acid substitutions were correlated with the number of experienced PIs, reaching statistical significance only for those at positions 3, 44, and 74. The correspondence multivariate model demonstrated that > or =3 experienced PIs and substitutions or mutations at positions 3, 46, 54, 73, 74, and 84 were correlated with PI cross-resistance, including resistance for lopinavir and amprenavir in this cohort of patients who were naive for these drugs.     

Structural investigations of cross-linked hyaluronan.

Structural properties of several cross-linked hyaluronan derivatives, obtained by scanning electron microscopy, monodimensional NMR microscopy and small angle X-ray scattering of synchrotron radiation, are presented and compared with those observed for non-modified hyaluronic acid, used as a reference material. The experimental results, obtained in different media, showed a consistent picture of the synthesized matrices. In particular, the presence of zones of denser polymeric material observed by electron microscopy resulted in a higher transversal relaxation rate of the bulk water protons as well as in a decrease of the diffusion coefficient obtained by NMR microscopy. Moreover, the presence of polymer junction zones gave rise to the appearance of a well-defined correlation peak in the pattern of intensity of the scattered X-radiation.