Isolation-induced fighting in mice and regional brain monoamine utilization

The utilization of norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin was measured in ten brain regions of isolated fighting mice and resting control animals. Fighting produced a markedly significant change in the utilization of dopamine (P greater than 0.006), but not in norepinephrine or serotonin. However, important trends were identified in the latter systems which warrant further testing. This study highlights the importance of dopaminergic participation in fighting behavior.     

Making healthy public policy; developing the science by learning the art: an ecological framework for policy studies.

During the 1980s increasing attention has been given to the view that a vast array of public policies have great potential for health promotion and that this potential ought to be developed. After briefly discussing the basis for this concept and its policy implications, this article turns to a major corequisite for making healthy public policy a political reality: learning how to do it. Where healthy public policy exists, how did it happen? This is a question that calls for a new generation of policy studies, one that is relevant to advocates of healthy public policy within and outside governments. An ecological framework of policy-making is proposed for such studies, delineating the social climate, key players, and strategic action. From it, operational indicators and study methods are suggested, in order to learn some general principles, within a real-world context, of how to develop public policies that are healthful.     

Chains of Impact from Reaganomics on Primary Care Policies

This article analyzes the effects of federal fiscal policy in the Reagan administration on primary care programs. Within the context of the national economy and federal policy priorities, states responded to budget cuts and block grants with fiscal and administrative restrictions that fell disproportionately on disadvantaged groups. A wide array of primary care services became less available and accessible, thereby limiting their cost-savings potential and their effectiveness in supporting people's health. These program deficits, together with lowered living standards among large segments of the population, resulted in rising rates of infant mortality in many states. A perspective that can interrelate federal and state policy actions, and broad public policies with traditional health policies, will improve public health nurses' understanding of policy-making and policy impacts, and thereby can guide renewed efforts toward health improvement.     

The realities of policymaking. Can nurses have an impact?

Nurse executives have the access and organizational support to effectively influence national health policymakers. The author shows how nurses who wish to formulate and change policy should be prepared to forge alliances, do their homework, and bring their case before the public. By analyzing real-life situations in Australia and Michigan, she shows how policymaking actually works, and offers step-by-step guidelines for nurses who wish to assume a leadership role.     

Effects of physical exercise on inflammatory markers of atherosclerosis

It is well established that physically fit individuals have a reduced risk of developing CVD (cardiovascular disease) and other age-related chronic disorders. Regular exercise is an established therapeutic intervention with an enormous range of benefits. Chronic low-grade systemic inflammation may be involved in atherosclerosis, diabetes and in pathogenesis of several chronic pathological conditions; recent findings confirm that physical activity induces an increase in the systemic levels of a number of cytokines and chemokines with anti-inflammatory properties. The possibility that regular physical exercise exerts anti-inflammation activity, being the interaction between contracting muscle and the other tissues and the circulating cells mediated through signals transmitted by "myokines" produced with muscle contractions. To date the list of myokines includes IL-6, IL-8, and IL-15. During muscle contractions are also released IL- 1receptor antagonis and sTNF-R, molecules that contribute to provide anti-inflammatory actions. Nevertheless discrepancies, analysis of available researches seem to confirm the efficacy of regular physical training as a nonpharmacological therapy having target chronic low-grade inflammation. Given this, physical exercise could be considerate a useful weapon against local vascular and systemic inflammation in atherosclerosis. Several mechanisms explain the positive effect of chronic exercise, nevertheless, these mechanisms do not fully enlighten all pathways by which exercise can decrease inflammation and endothelial dysfunction, and hence modulate the progression of the underlying disease progress.     

Iloprost treatment in patients with Raynaud's phenomenon secondary to systemic sclerosis and the quality of life: a new therapeutic protocol

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the clinical efficacy and the effects on the quality of life of iloprost, a prostacyclin analogue, used according to a new protocol in patients with Raynaud's phenomenon secondary to systemic sclerosis. METHODS: In this randomized study, we treated 30 patients with iloprost, given by intravenous infusion, at progressively increasing doses (from 0.5 to 2 ng/kg/min) over a period of 6 h each day for 10 days in two consecutive weeks, with repeated cycles at regular intervals of 3 months for 18 months. The results were compared with those obtained in 30 other patients who received the same drug but with different dosing schemes. RESULTS: The total average daily duration of the attacks, the average duration of a single attack and the average daily frequency of the attacks were reduced significantly in all treatment groups, but the comparison between the groups demonstrated significant differences between patients treated with the new protocol and the others at later times (12 and 18 months). The effects on the quality of life in the group treated with the new protocol, evaluated with the Short Form-36, demonstrated a marked improvement regarding both the scale relating to the physical aspect of the illness and, especially, the scale relating to the mental aspect. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with systemic sclerosis, cyclic intravenous iloprost infusion is efficacious in the treatment of Raynaud's phenomenon. The protocol that we used, compared with others, not only has favourable clinical effects but also leads to a marked improvement in the quality of life.     

Myosin light chain and caldesmon phosphorylation in arterial muscle stimulated with endothelin-1

Endothelin-1 contracts porcine carotid arterial smooth muscle with an ED50 of 10 nM. Contraction is associated with phosphorylation of the 20,000 dalton-regulatory light chain subunits of vascular myosin. Phosphopeptide mapping of light chains isolated from 32PO4-loaded muscle strips stimulated by endothelin-1 (5 x 10(-8) M) and comparison with maps generated from light chains phosphorylated in vitro or muscles stimulated with KCl (110 mM) or angiotensin-II (5 x 10(-8) M) indicates that Ca2(+)-calmodulin activation of myosin light chain kinase is a biochemical pathway stimulated by all three agonists. However, a small amount of phosphate (17%) was detected in a light chain peptide phosphorylated by protein kinase C. Endothelin-1 also stimulated phosphorylation of the thin filament protein, caldesmon, (from 0.35 mol PO4/mol caldesmon to 0.52 mol PO4/mol). Collectively, these results provide evidence that the effects of endothelin-1 on force generation and maintenance in vascular muscle may be dependent upon myosin light chain phosphorylation by Ca2+ calmodulin--requiring myosin light chain kinase and upon a thin filament mechanism that is modulated by phosphorylation of caldesmon.     

Origin of stable flies (Diptera: Muscidae) on west Florida beaches: electrophoretic analysis of dispersal.

Stable fly adults were collected from 16 locations within the state of Florida and from locations in six other states in an attempt to determine the source of stable fly populations along Florida beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. Electrophoretic analyses were made of a minimum of 10 enzymes in each of 37 separate populations. Extremely low heterozygosity resulted in an inability to use standard genetic identity and distance procedures for determining the divergence of allopatric populations to establish the source of flies captured from beach areas where reproduction was unlikely. Comparisons of rare alleles in populations grouped geographically, computations of number of possible migrants, and analysis of conditional average frequency of alleles led to the conclusion that flies captured on Florida beaches come from a variety of sites, with locations northwest of the beaches contributing the majority of flies in outbreaks.