Search results for "CTAB"
showing 10 items of 231 documents
The Role of Age and Gender in Perceived Vulnerability to Infectious Diseases
2020
Background: The study of the immune system has been approached using two separate paths, the biological immune system and the behavioral immune system. Recently, Gangestad and Grebe proposed a unique integrated compensatory immune system, where both systems work together and one of them could compensate for the other when necessary. However, few studies have confirmed the existence of this integrated compensatory immune system. Our study represents an attempt to explore the existence of this unique immune system, investigating if the behavioral immune system variables increase when the biological immune system weakens with age. Material and Methods. The cross-sectional design study was made…
Quantifying Net Synergy/Redundancy of Spontaneous Variability Regulation via Predictability and Transfer Entropy Decomposition Frameworks.
2017
Objective: Indexes assessing the balance between redundancy and synergy were hypothesized to be helpful in characterizing cardiovascular control from spontaneous beat-to-beat variations of heart period (HP), systolic arterial pressure (SAP), and respiration (R). Methods: Net redundancy/synergy indexes were derived according to predictability and transfer entropy decomposition strategies via a multivariate linear regression approach. Indexes were tested in two protocols inducing modifications of the cardiovascular regulation via baroreflex loading/unloading (i.e., head-down tilt at −25° and graded head-up tilt at 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 75°, and 90°, respectively). The net redundancy/synergy of …
Factors influencing the opioid response in advanced cancer patients with pain followed at home: The effects of age and gender
2000
The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of age and gender on pain characteristics and opioid response in advanced cancer patients followed at home. A perspective study was carried out in a sample of 181 consecutive advanced cancer patients who required opioids in the last 4 weeks before death. Pain intensity and symptoms associated with opioid therapy at weekly intervals for 4 weeks were recorded, as were the previous oncological treatments. Opioid doses increased over time, but remained stable in the last 2 weeks of life, while pain intensity decreased over time despite unchanged use of NSAIDs. A considerable increase in symptom intensity was observed in the last weeks of life,…
Antibodies to cytoskeletal proteins in patients with Crohn's disease
1990
. The immunologic basis of inflammatory bowel disease has been the focus of interest of a series of studies on Crohn's disease and the process of immune sensitization at the gastrointestinal mucosal level is functionally poorly understood. To date only few contradictory reports concerning the incidence of autoantibodies in patients with this disease exist. The aim of this study was to investigate the sera drawn from 60 patients suffering from biopsy-proven Crohn's disease to evaluate the prevalence of autoantibodies against nuclear antigens and cytoskeletal proteins. Using standard methods, no anti-nuclear antibodies or antibodies to extractable nuclear antigens could be detected. All sera …
Quantifying changes in EEG complexity induced by photic stimulation.
2009
Summary Objectives: This study aims to characterize EEG complexity, measured as the prediction error resulting from nonlinear prediction, in healthy humans during photic stimulation. Methods: EEGs were recorded from 15 subjects with eyes closed (EC) and eyes open (EO), during the baseline condition and during stroboscopic photic stimulation (PS) at 5, 10, and 15 Hz. The mean squared prediction error (MSPE) resulting from nearest neighbor local linear prediction was taken as complexity index. Complexity maps were generated interpolating the MSPE index over a schematic scalp representation. Results: Statistical analysis revealed that: i) EEG shows good predictability in all conditions and see…
Categorizing the Role of Respiration in Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Variability Interactions
2022
Objective: Respiration disturbs cardiovascular and cerebrovascular controls but its role is not fully elucidated. Methods: Respiration can be classified as a confounder if its observation reduces the strength of the causal relationship from source to target. Respiration is a suppressor if the opposite situation holds. We prove that a confounding/suppression (C/S) test can be accomplished by evaluating the sign of net redundancy/synergy balance in the predictability framework based on multivariate autoregressive modelling. In addition, we suggest that, under the hypothesis of Gaussian processes, the C/S test can be given in the transfer entropy decomposition framework as well. Experimental p…
Opioid Plasma Concentrations during a Switch from Transdermal Fentanyl to Methadone
2007
Opioid switching is often used to improve the opioid response in patients with cancer experiencing poor analgesia or adverse effects. When switching between drugs with delayed effect because of pharmacokinetics or type of delivery, concerns exist about the correct timing of introducing the second drug after stopping the previous one. The aim of this study was to assess plasmatic changes of fentanyl and methadone underlying the clinical events occurring during opioid switching. Eighteen patients with cancer receiving transdermal fentanyl with uncontrolled pain and/or moderate to severe opioid adverse effects, were switched to oral methadone using an initial fixed ratio of 1:20. Fentanyl patc…
Parafoveal versus foveal N400s dissociate spreading activation from contextual fit.
2009
Using concurrent electroencephalogram and eye movement measures to track natural reading, this study shows that N400 effects reflecting predictability are dissociable from those owing to spreading activation. In comparing predicted sentence endings with related and unrelated unpredicted endings in antonym constructions ('the opposite of black is white/yellow/nice'), fixation-related potentials at the critical word revealed a predictability-based N400 effect (unpredicted vs. predicted words). By contrast, event-related potentials time locked to the last fixation before the critical word showed an N400 only for the nonrelated unpredicted condition (nice). This effect is attributed to a parafo…
A Prospective Randomized Study of Corticosteroids as Adjuvant Drugs to Opioids in Advanced Cancer Patients
2007
This randomized controlled study evaluated the role of corticosteroids as adjuvants to opioid therapy in 76 advanced cancer patients with pain who requiring strong opioids. Patients were divided in 2 groups. Group O received conventional opioid treatment. Group OS received dexamethasone (8 mg orally) along with conventional treatment. Pain and symptom intensity, sense of well-being, and opioid escalation index and distress score were recorded at weekly intervals until death. No differences in pain intensity, opioid consumption, and opioid escalation index were found in 66 patients who survived 33 to 37 days. Corticosteroids did not provide significant additional analgesia to opioids, but p…
Glycosaminoglycan Antibodies in Endocrine Ophthalmopathy
1993
An increased accumulation of glycosaminoglycans (GAG) in the orbita has been reported in endocrine ophthalmopathy (EO). In this study we investigated whether antibodies directed against GAG are present in the sera of 52 EO patients and 47 healthy controls. Three out of 52 patients exhibited low titers of antinuclear antibodies and all patients were negative for antibodies against extractable nuclear antigens. Isotype IgG antibodies were detected by means of an ELISA using hyaluronic acid and dermatan sulfate as antigens. Values were expressed as optical density at 405 nm. In comparison to the control group (0.445, 0.364, 0.588; median, 25th, 75th percentile) significantly (p < 0.001) higher…