Non-invasive Assessment of Coronary Flow Velocity Reserve: A New Method Using Transthoracic Doppler Echocardiography

Coronary flow reserve (CFR) has been used toassess coronary microcirculation and epicardial coro-nary stenoses[1— 3 ] . CFR is defined as the ratio ofcoronary flow under maximal coronary vasodilatationto coronary flow under resting conditions[4 ] .Whenthe cross- sectional area of epicardial coronary arteriesis constant,coronary flow velocity (CFV) ratios areequal to volume flow ratios.The most common method used clinically formeasuring CFVR is intracoronary Doppler flow(ICD) analysis re…     

Monolayer cultures of normal human bone cells contain multiple subpopulations of alkaline phosphatase positive cells

Summary Cytochemical staining of normal human bone cells in monolayer cultures for alkaline phosphatase (ALP) indicated that the cultures contained mixed-cell populations. Time course evaluations of the cytochemical staining revealed, in addition to the ALP-negative cell population, at least two subpopulations of ALP-positive human bone cells with different levels of ALP. A cytochemical method has been developed which separates the ALP-positive cells into high and intermediate ALP subpopulations. In this method, human bone cells were stained for ALP using an azo-dye method and incubating at 4°C for 10 and 30 minutes, respectively. We defined the cell population that stained positively for ALP at 10 minutes as strong ALP-positive cells, and both strong and intermediate cells were stained at 30 minutes. The intermediate cells were determined from the difference between the values at the two time points. The intra- and interassay variations of the assay, with the same investigator in blinded investigations, were both less than 10% and the interobserver variation was approximately 25%. Analysis of the distribution of ALP levels in cells with a laser densitometer confirmed the presence of at least three cell subpopulations. 1,25(OH)₂D₃ treatment increased the proportions of both ALP-positive cell populations, whereas TGF-beta treatment increased only the intermediate ALP-positive cell population. On the contrary, fluoride increased the proportion of the strong ALP cells, and IGF-1 had no effect on the proportions of either ALP-positive subpopulation. When the ALP-specific activity was compared with the percentage of each ALP-positive subpopulations for the cells treated with effectors, the ALP-specific activity correlated with the total ALP-positive and with the strong ALP-positive populations but not with the intermediate ALP-positive subpopulation. In summary, this study represents the first evidence that normal human bone cells in monolayer cultures contained at least two subpopulations of ALP-positive cells, and that bone cell effectors could have differential effects on each cell population.     

Sex effects in defensive behavior: Baseline differences and drug interactions

Female rats consistently show a pattern of differences in defensive behaviors compared to males which parallel the effects of exposure to a nonpainful threat stimulus (cat or cat odor) in the same tests and measures. These indications of greater defensiveness for females are particularly common in situations involving potential, as opposed to actual and present, threat, a factor which probably also reflects ceiling or floor effects in situations involving very intense defensiveness. In addition, pharmacological studies indicate sex differences in the effects of selective serotonin (5-HT) receptor agonists and antagonists on defensive responding. These findings indicate that sex effects must be considered in studies of the pharmacological control of defensive behaviors, and suggest that responsivity to sex effects may be an additional criterion for the suitability of animal models of anxiety.     

Klinische Erfahrungen mit der Knorpel-Knochen-Transplantation

The treatment of deep cartilage defects in load-bearing joints is a problem that still has no satisfactory solution. Full-thickness defects of the articular cartilage rarely heal spontaneously, usually leaving damage that can lead to early arthrosis. Techniques currently available for the treatment of chondral defects include abrasion, drilling, micro-fracturing, transplantation of tissue autografts and allografts, and cell transplantation. Osteochondral autograft transplantation is currently the only surgical cartilage repair technique known to lead to the formation of genuine hyaline articular cartilage and its retention at least in the medium term. The Draenert method, in which a water-cooled diamond bone-cutting system is used, is an effective procedure for resurfacing the joints affected by localised cartilaginous defects, even when there is also severe bone loss. Donor-side morbidity can be kept to a minimum by filling the defect caused by harvesting with a press-fit cylinder of cancellous bone covered with periosteum for protection.     

The concept of culture: A core issue in health disparities

Contemporary discourse contains numerous examples of use of the concept of culture by social and behavioral scientists. Simple reification, where the speaker makes culture into a thing capable of action exemplifies one usage in public discourse. Some quantitative social scientists attempt to characterize people’s cultural identities by means of a single categorical variable, which often “lumps” people into categories such as “Hispanic” or “Black” that in fact have numerous culturally bounded subcategories. Approaches that emphasize cultural process are preferable to those who attempt to categorize; more complex measures of acculturation help investigators to make convincing analyses of circumstances in which health disparities occur. Examples in which investigators make appropriate use of cultural characterizations demonstrate their utility in investigating health disparities in Haitian American women, injecting and noninjecting drug users, Hispanic youth, and adult Hispanics at risk of HIV infection. Focus on culture in the study of health disparities can identify entanglements between structural factors such as poverty and lack of education and cultural factors such as beliefs about health. Qualitative methods coupled with quantitative methods have great potential to improve investigators’ grasp of cultural nuance while capturing the distribution of qualitatively derived behaviors.