The measurement of attitudes toward and beliefs about obese persons

The purpose of this research was to develop reliable measures of attitudes toward and beliefs about obese persons, and to examine their relationship. The Attitudes Toward Obese Persons Scale (ATOP) consists of 20 Likert-type items and has an alpha reliability range of .80 to .84. The Beliefs About Obese Persons Scale (BAOP) consists of eight items and has an alpha reliability range of .65 to .82. Both scales and a questionnaire were administered to 514 members of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), 52 graduate students, and 72 undergraduate students. The multiple correlations were .41 for the NAAFA sample, .53 for the graduate students, and .41 for the undergraduate students, all significant at the .001 level. The attitude score (ATOP) was most consistently and strongly correlated with the belief score (BAOP). Factor analysis yielded a simple factor structure with three highly interpretable factors: Different Personality, Social Difficulties, and Self-Esteem, accounting for 23%, 11%, and 8% of the variance respectively.     

Chemosensory decrease in different forms of olfactory dysfunction

Journal of Neurology - The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of olfactory dysfunction (OD) on the two other chemical senses, namely gustation and the intranasal trigeminal system....     

Dissection of the sylvian artery with resulting aneurysm in a 6 years old child]

BACKGROUND. Dissection of the walls of the cervical and cerebral arteries is rare in childhood. CASE REPORT: A 6 year-old girl suddenly suffered a loss of consciousness followed by a generalized tonic-clonic seizure 90 min after a non-traumatic fall. At admission, she had a massive right hemiplegia with aphasia. The CSF was not hemorrhagic. A CT-scan performed at H3 without infusion of radiopaque contrast material was normal, but a second CT-scan on day 4 showed a low density in the low area of the middle cerebral artery. An arteriogram taken on day 6 showed that the wall of the proximal part of this artery was irregular, with a discrete additive imaging. The child was treated with IV heparin for 3 weeks, then with aspirin. All investigations for the possible cause of thrombosis (protein C and S, antithrombin III, homocystinuria, etc...) were negative. Two further arteriograms, the last after a follow-up of 16 months, showed progressive disappearance of the wall irregularities and replacement of the additive imaging by a large aneurysm, suggesting a dissection. The hemiplegia persists under prolonged aspirin therapy. CONCLUSION. This case shows that dissection may occur in childhood without any apparent cause. It can result in the development of an aneurysm, a complication which is more frequent following dissection of the cervical rather the cerebral arteries.     

Evaluation of muscarinic agonist-induced analgesia in muscarinic acetylcholine receptor knockout mice

Centrally active muscarinic agonists display pronounced analgesic effects. Identification of the specific muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (mAChR) subtype(s) mediating this activity is of considerable therapeutic interest. To examine the roles of the M(2) and M(4) receptor subtypes, the two G(i)/G(o)-coupled mAChRs, in mediating agonist-dependent antinociception, we generated a mutant mouse line deficient in both M(2) and M(4) mAChRs [M(2)/M(4) double-knockout (KO) mice]. In wild-type mice, systemic, intrathecal, or intracerebroventricular administration of centrally active muscarinic agonists resulted in robust analgesic effects, indicating that muscarinic analgesia can be mediated by both spinal and supraspinal mechanisms. Strikingly, muscarinic agonist-induced antinociception was totally abolished in M(2)/M(4) double-KO mice, independent of the route of application. The nonselective muscarinic agonist oxotremorine showed reduced analgesic potency in M(2) receptor single-KO mice, but retained full analgesic activity in M(4) receptor single-KO mice. In contrast, two novel muscarinic agonists chemically derived from epibatidine, CMI-936 and CMI-1145, displayed reduced analgesic activity in both M(2) and M(4) receptor single-KO mice, independent of the route of application. Radioligand binding studies indicated that the two CMI compounds, in contrast to oxotremorine, showed >6-fold higher affinity for M(4) than for M(2) receptors, providing a molecular basis for the observed differences in agonist activity profiles. These data provide unambiguous evidence that muscarinic analgesia is exclusively mediated by a combination of M(2) and M(4) mAChRs at both spinal and supraspinal sites. These findings should be of considerable relevance for the development of receptor subtype-selective muscarinic agonists as novel analgesic drugs.