Reference values of oxidative stress parameters (MDA, SOD, CAT) in dogs and cats

The present study was performed on 56 clinically healthy dogs and 52 clinically healthy cats, age and sex matched. The reference values of principal parameters of oxidative stress—malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase (CAT)—were determined in blood samples of dogs and cats. It was found that MDA plasma concentrations in male dogs were higher than those in females. The same difference was found in cats but the sex difference was much higher. SOD activity did not show any sex differences in dogs or cats. The CAT values were lower in males compared to females in only cats .     

Prevalence of urinary incontinence among women at a Swedish primary health care centre

Information on urinary incontinence was obtained by means of a questionnaire from women visiting a Swedish health centre. Among women aged 18 and above, 44% stated that they had urinary incontinence. About one-third of these women reported stress incontinence, one-third urge incontinence, and one-third both. Urinary incontinence was more prevalent with increasing age and was more common among women who had given birth to children, in overweight women, in women taking diuretics, and in women with some defined diseases. Of those with incontinence, 13% stated that it impaired their work and 28% that it impaired leisure activities. Many of them had not asked for medical help for the symptom. It is important to emphasize the high prevalence of the symptom, and even more important to increase our knowledge of how best to take care of these women.     

Asbestos toxicity: an immunologic perspective.

Asbestos has long been associated with a number of life threatening pulmonary diseases, including asbestosis and mesothelioma. While the lung is the primary target organ for asbestos toxicity, a number of clinical and experimental studies over the past 30 years have shown that the immune system may also be altered by exposure to asbestos at occupationally relevant concentrations. Whereas early clinical studies generally focused on systemic observations of immune alteration, more recent studies have assessed the immunological changes occurring in the lung, the primary target organ of asbestos. This review will focus on the investigations that examine the influence of asbestos on systemic and local immunity, as well as the role that the immune system may play in asbestos-related disease.     

A neuromagnetic study of movement-related somatosensory gating in the human brain

Neuromagnetic fields from the left cerebral hemisphere of five healthy, right-handed subjects were investigated under three different experimental conditions: (1) electrical stimulation of the right index finger (task S); (2) voluntary movement of the same finger (M); (3) M+S condition, consisting of voluntary movements of the right index finger triggering the electrical stimulus at the very beginning of the electromyogram. The three conditions were administered in random order every 5–8 s. In addition, the task somatosensory evoked fields (task SEFs) gathered during condition (1) were compared with control SEFs recorded at the beginning of the experiment during rest. In all subjects the overlay of somatosensory stimulation on movement provoked a decrement in brain responsiveness (gating) as determined by the amplitude of gated SEFs. The latter was found as the difference between the neuromagnetic fields during M+S condition (overlaying of movement and sensory stimulation) minus neuromagnetic fields under M condition (M only). The gating effect was found to begin approximately 30 ms after movement onset, and to last for the whole period of the ongoing movement. The theoretical locus of gating was estimated by dipole localisation of the difference between task SEFs and gated SEFS using a moving dipole model. The site of the early gating effect (<40 ms) was found to be more anteriorly located than the later (>40 ms) gating effect. The task SEFs were found to be larger (significant after 30 ms) than the control SEFs elicited under the basal condition. The results are discussed with respect to timing, mechanism (centrifugal and centripetal), locus and selectivity of gating. In addition, the results are discussed with regard to clinical application (measuring attentional deficits in patients with impairments of higher mental functions and measuring gating deficits in patients with disturbed sensorimotor integration).     

Development of Emotion Regulation in Children of Bipolar Parents: Putative Contributions of Socioemotional and Familial Risk Factors

[Clin Psychol Sci Prac 17: 169–186, 2010] Children of bipolar parents (CBP) are at increased risk to develop psychopathology, especially a mood disorder. Several factors may contribute to the increased risk for psychopathology in CBP, including family environmental variables (e.g., high levels of family conflict and dysfunctional parenting) and socioemotional cue processing deficits (e.g., inaccurate detection of facial social cues). A proposed model posits that family risk factors and socioemotional cue processing deficits may interact in conferring risk for psychopathology for CBP via their effects on the development of emotion regulation and the neural circuitry that governs this development. A developmental, transactional perspective on the impact of these risk factors provides a framework within which to examine their dynamic interaction.     

Prognostic value of nuclear morphometry in spontaneous canine sebaceous carcinomas: a preliminary report

Stained cytological specimens from eight canine sebaceous carcinomas (CSCs) were analyzed by computer-assisted nuclear morphometry in order to evaluate the prognostic value of this technique. Four tumors had metastases in regional lymph nodes at the time of the diagnosis. The morphometric parameters evaluated in this study were mean nuclear area (MNA, μm²), mean nuclear perimeter (MNP, μm), mean nuclear diameter (D mean, μm), minimum nuclear diameter (D min, μm), and maximum nuclear diameter (D max, μm). Associations between MNA, MNP, D mean, D min, and D max in non-metastatic and metastatic tumors were assessed using the analysis of variance/least significant difference test (Statistica 6.0, StatSoft, USA) at a level of significance P < 0.05. The correlation between nuclear morphometric parameters and metastases to the regional lymph nodes was evaluated using Pearson’s correlation test (P < 0.05). The mean values of these parameters were significantly greater in dogs with lymph node metastases compared to parameters of tumor cells from dogs which were lymph node-negative. Significant differences in MNA, MNP, D min and D mean were seen between metastasizing and non-metastasizing neoplastic formations. The results from our investigation showed that nuclear morphometry is an objective and reproducible procedure that could be used as additional tool for evaluating the metastatic potential of CSCs.     

Cytogenetic investigations of human subjects occupationally exposed to chemicals from the petroleum-processing industry

A cytogenetic investigation was carried out of 55 workers from the petroleum-processing industry and of 30 control subjects. The frequencies of both structural and numerical chromosome aberrations and of sister chromatid exchanges were determined simultaneously and the relationship among these cytogenic indices were analyzed. The incidence of chromosome aberrations and sister chromatid exchanges among the petroleum workers was higher than that among the controls. The cytogenic indices demonstrated a clear dependence on the working environment of the subjects and a correlation with the existence of some reproductive failures in the families of the exposed workers. Our results indicate the presence of some mutagenic risk in the working environment of some of the divisions in the petroleum-processing industry due to the genotoxic influence on the somatic cells of the exposed workers at a cytogenetic level. This potential risk is mainly associated with the presence of some heavy oil-fractions and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the working environment.     

Relationship between pulmonary and systemic markers of exposure to multiple types of welding particulate matter

Welding results in a unique and complex occupational exposure. Recent epidemiological studies have shown an increased risk of cardiovascular disease following welding fume exposure. In this study, we compared the induction of pulmonary and systemic inflammation following exposure to multiple types of welding fumes. Mice were exposed to 340μg of manual metal arc stainless steel (MMA-SS), gas metal arc-SS (GMA-SS) or GMA-mild steel (GMA-MS) by pharyngeal aspiration. Mice were sacrificed at 4 and 24h post-exposure to evaluate various parameters of pulmonary and systemic inflammation. Alterations in pulmonary gene expression by a custom designed TaqMan array showed minimal differences between the fumes at 4h. Conversely at 24h, gene expression changes were further increased by SS but not GMA-MS exposure. These findings were associated with the surrogate marker of systemic inflammation, liver acute phase gene induction. Interestingly, stress response genes in cardiovascular tissues were only increased following MMA-SS exposure. These effects were related to the initial level of pulmonary cytotoxicity, as measured by lactate dehydrogenase activity, which was greatest following MMA-SS exposure. In conclusion, varying types of welding fumes elicit quantitatively different systemic inflammatory and/or stress responses.     

Statistical interpretation of medical data of patients with alcohol abuse

An attempt is made to assess a set of biochemical, kinetic and anthropometric data for patients suffering from alcohol abuse (alcoholics) and healthy patients (non-alcoholics). The main goal is to identify the data set structure, finding groups of similarity among the clinical parameters or among the patients. Multivariate statistical methods (cluster analysis and principal components analysis) were used to assess the data collection. Several significant patterns of related parameters were found to be representative of the role of the liver function, kinetic and anthropometric indicators (conditionally named “liver function factor”, “ethanol metabolism factor”, “body weight factor”, and “acetaldehyde metabolic factor”). An effort is made to connect the role of kinetic parameters for acetaldehyde metabolism with biochemical, ethanol kinetic and anthropometric data in parallel.