Sensory axonopathy in hereditary distal spinal muscular atrophy

A girl of 14 year is presented with a distal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) with autosomal recessive inheritance. The technical findings are in agreement with the diagnosis. Light microscopical examination of sural nerve biopsy, including teased fiber studies and morphometry, showed no abnormalities. Electron microscopical investigation however demonstrated axonal pathology. The question arises if distal SMA is a distal axonopathy mainly of motor nerves, but to some extent also of sensory nerves.     

Antidepressant and other centrally acting drugs regulate glucocorticoid receptor messenger RNA levels in rat brain

The effect of imipramine, desipramine, ketanserin and lithium on Type II glucocorticoid receptor (GR) mRNA levels was studied in rat brain regions involved in the control of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the dysregulation of which has been implicated in the pathophysiology of major depression. Northern blot analysis of Type II GR mRNA showed that treatment of male rats with either desipramine or imipramine increased hypothalamic and hippocampal GR mRNA levels. Upregulation of GR mRNA following administration of imipramine was found in brain regions of female rats, while desipramine had no effect. Ketanserin increased levels of GR mRNA in hippocampus of male, but not female, rats. Lithium also was able to induce important increases rat brain GR mRNA; this effect was particularly marked in females.

We conclude that desipramine, imipramine, ketanserin and lithium can modulate GR mRNA in regions of rat brain involved in the control of the HPA axis and may have a common mechanism of action at the level of the GR gene. Sexual dimorphism for drug regulation of brain GR mRNA content was shown and may be related to sex differences in the prevalence of certain affective disorders.     

Coping with economic crisis: policy development in China and India

This paper explores health policy options in response to economiccrises in developing countries. The paper is based upon thepremise that policy is best pursued within a broad understandingof the determinants of health of populations. To provide anempirical base for analysis, the health status and health caresystems of China and India are compared. A conceptual frameworkon the determinants of the health status of populations is thendeveloped, incorporating both the performance of health caresystems and non-medical factors which influence health. Usingthe China and India experiences, the paper reviews the strengthsand weaknesses of traditional tools used in the analysis ofhealth policy. Significant policy change, it is argued, is bestimplemented through structural change of several health caresystem components simultaneously. Health policy analysis, itis further argued, must consider the broader political economyof the society. Moreover, there remain many imperfectly understoodsociocultural aspects of behaviour which enable some familiesto produce good health despite economic constraints. The paperconcludes that economic crisis presents an opportunity for astructural review of a society's health systems. Health policyoptions in response to economic crisis cannot be confined tothe health care sector. Rather, health policy should be viewedas only one, perhaps important, element of a package of socioeconomicpolicy options. Critical to policy choices are reliable informationon the condition of the poor and high political priority tominimize the adverse impact of economic crisis on the health,nutrition and social welfare of disadvantaged groups.     

On the quantification of prothrombin from different species using echis carinatus as activator

The generation of thrombin-like activity from rat, human, bovine and mouse prothrombin by Echis carinatus venom (ECV) treatment was compared using a partially purified system (i.e. whole ECV and isolated prothrombin). A rapid increase in coagulant activity was obtained within 0.5 to 2 min., being constant upon further incubation for 60 min. A large variation in coagulant activity of the ECV generated thrombin from the four species was found, whereas no differences were found for the amidolytic activities. The coagulant activities of the ECV generated thrombin was also low compared with the corresponding thrombin activities obtained by physiological activation. Coagulant activity of the ECV generated thrombin levelled off at increasing concentration of prothrombin in the sample as measured by the one-stage coagulation assay. By measuring amidolytic activity a linear relationship to the concentration of prothrombin was found, however. These findings indicate that ECV converts prothrombin from the four different species to a thrombin-like protein with properties distinct from -thrombin. The lack of linearity in the ECV generated clot activity with increasing concentration of prothrombin could be explained by assuming a dimerization of the thrombin like protein molecules making them less accessible to fibrinogen. The significance of these observations for the quantification of prothrombin from different species is discussed.     

Training Synergies Between Medical Informatics and Health Services Research: Successes and Challenges

Stanford''s two decades of success in linking medical informatics and health services research in both training and investigational activities reflects advantageous geography and history as well as natural synergies in the two areas. Health services research and medical informatics at Stanford have long shared a quantitative, analytic orientation, along with linked administration, curriculum, and clinical activities. Both the medical informatics and the health services research curricula draw on diverse course offerings throughout the university, and both the training and research overlap in such areas as outcomes research, large database analysis, and decision analysis/decision support. The Stanford experience suggests that successful integration of programs in medical informatics and health services research requires areas of overlapping or synergistic interest and activity among the involved faculty and, hence, in time, among the students. This is enhanced by a mixture of casual and structured contact among students from both disciplines, including social interactions. The challenges to integration are how to overcome any geographic separation that may exist in a given institution; the proper management of relationships with those sub-areas of medical informatics that have less overlap with health services research; and the need to determine how best to exploit opportunities for collaboration that naturally occur.Training in medical informatics and health services research has been closely linked at Stanford University for almost two decades. Although the close linkage was deliberate, it was facilitated by historical circumstances, in particular the common academic structures in which both programs arose. In this paper, we describe some of that rationale and history, identifying the areas of overlap that we have pursued in coordinating the training opportunities for graduate students and fellows in both areas of study. As we shall note, the synergies have been great, and in some cases trainees have collaborated closely on research while also taking some of the same courses. We believe that these interactions can be a model for the design of training programs that encourage scholarly interactions between medical informatics and health services research. Although our initial charge was to describe both the successes and failures in integrating the programs, we found that we could not identify any outright failures and that it would be better to delineate the complexities and challenges that we have faced in bringing together these two disciplines.     

Neuropeptide levels in the basal ganglia of aged common marmosets following prolonged treatment with MPTP

Summary Aged common marmosets were treated with 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP; 0.5–2.0 mg/kg/week i.p.) for 16 or 24 weeks, observed for a total of 30 weeks and then killed for measurement of biochemical pramaters in basal ganglia. The MPTP treatment induced a marked depletion in dopamine, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid and homovanillic acid levels in the caudate nucleus and putamen. In contrast, the concentrations of five neuropeptides: [Met⁵]-enkephalin, [Leu⁵]-enkephalin, cholecystokinin, substance P and neurotensin as measured by a combined HPLC/RIA method, remained unaltered in all basal ganglia regions examined. Enkephalin precursor levels, as reflected by cryptic [Met⁵]-enkephalin content, were increased in the putamen, but not in the caudate nucleus, as a consequence of MPTP administration. Cryptic [Leu⁵]-enkephalin content remained unchanged in the striatum of MPTP treated marmosets. Overall, these results suggest an increase in striatal [Met⁵]-enkephalin release following chronic MPTP treatment of aged marmosets. However, the chronic treatment of aged marmosets with MPTP does not reproduce the neuropeptide alterations characteristic of Parkinson's disease.     

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.