Search results for "nap"
showing 10 items of 2226 documents
The use of proton pump inhibitors in an Italian hospital: focus on oncologic and critical non-ICU patients
2015
Background Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are among the most misused drugs both at the community and hospital level. Recently, possible risks have been underscored, suggesting the importance of limiting PPI use to proven indications. Objective To survey the appropriateness of PPI use in a University hospital in Italy. Setting Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Policlinico ‘P. Giaccone’, in Palermo, Italy. Method A one day-observational study, reviewing patients’ medical records to identify treatments with PPIs and the indications for their use. After discharge, a subgroup of the cohort was followed up to assess the continuation of therapy at home. Appropriateness was evaluated according to th…
'Prefrontal' cognitive performance of healthy subjects positively correlates with cerebral FDOPA influx: an exploratory [18F]-fluoro-L-DOPA-PET inves…
2006
Dopamine neurotransmission influences those cognitive processes, which are generally regarded as prefrontal cortical functions. In previous positron‐emission‐tomography (PET) studies, net blood‐brain clearance of [(18)F]‐fluoro‐l‐DOPA (FDOPA) correlated with impaired cognitive performance in patients with Parkinson's disease or schizophrenia. We hypothesized that FDOPA influx also correlates with performance of cognitive tasks associated with prefrontal functioning in healthy volunteers. The net blood‐brain clearance of FDOPA (K [Formula: see text]) was mapped in a group of 11 healthy volunteers and calculated in striatal volumes‐of‐interest. The Wisconsin‐Card‐Sorting‐Test (WCST), Stroop‐T…
Habituation of the orienting response as reflected by the skin conductance response and by endogenous event-related brain potentials
2004
The paper is concerned with the question of whether endogenous components of the auditory event-related brain potential (ERP) qualify for showing habituation of the orienting response (OR). Although response decrements have been found in nearly every ERP component, this question is still of current concern because a true selective response inhibition proving habituation of the OR is still lacking. The question has been tackled using single-trial ERP measurements in classical variants of the repetition/change paradigm commonly used in the traditional OR research on autonomous responses such as the skin conductance response (SCR). Results on 120 adults indicate that at least two endogenous co…
Changes of electrically elicited reflexes in hand and forearm muscles in man.
1987
Cutaneo-muscular reflexes with short and long latency excitatory phases following digital nerve stimulation were observed in the first dorsal interosseus muscle of the hand in healthy subjects. The short latency reflex was obtained also with the H-reflex method in the flexor carpi radialis muscle, stimulating the median nerve, with a mean latency (+/- SE) of 15.4 +/- 0.5 ms. The height of the subject correlated with the H-reflex latency. The amplitudes of maximal M-response and maximal H-reflex were higher in athletes than in normals. During weak voluntary contraction of the muscle studied the 50% H-reflex amplitude increased and during passive stretching of wrist flexors the resting amplit…
No evidence for attenuated stress-induced extrastriatal dopamine signaling in psychotic disorder
2015
AbstractStress is an important risk factor in the etiology of psychotic disorder. Preclinical work has shown that stress primarily increases dopamine (DA) transmission in the frontal cortex. Given that DA-mediated hypofrontality is hypothesized to be a cardinal feature of psychotic disorder, stress-related extrastriatal DA release may be altered in psychotic disorder. Here we quantified for the first time stress-induced extrastriatal DA release and the spatial extent of extrastriatal DA release in individuals with non-affective psychotic disorder (NAPD). Twelve healthy volunteers (HV) and 12 matched drug-free NAPD patients underwent a single infusion [18F]fallypride positron emission tomogr…
Net influx of plasma 6-[18F]fluoro-L-DOPA (FDOPA) to the ventral striatum correlates with prefrontal processing of affective stimuli.
2006
Dopaminergic neurotransmission in the ventral and dorsal striatum interact with central processing of rewarding and reward-indicating stimuli, and may affect frontocortical-striatal-thalamic circuits regulating goal-directed behaviour. Thirteen healthy male volunteers were investigated with multimodal imaging, using the radioligand 6-[ 18 F]fluoro-L-DOPA (FDOPA) for positron emission tomography (PET) measurements of dopamine synthesis capacity, and also functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a cognitive activation paradigm. We calculated the correlation between FDOPA net blood-brain influx (K app in ; ml/g/min) in the ventral and associative dorsal striatum and BOLD signal changes …
Alternative lengthening of telomeres--an enhanced chromosomal instability in aggressive non-MYCN amplified and telomere elongated neuroblastomas
2010
Telomere length alterations are known to cause genomic instability and influence clinical course in several tumor types, but have been little investigated in neuroblastoma (NB), one of the most common childhood tumors. In the present study, telomere-dependent chromosomal instability and telomere length were determined in six NB cell lines and fifty tumor biopsies. The alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) pathway was assayed by scoring ALT-associated promyelocytic leukemia (PML) bodies (APBs). We found a reduced probability of overall survival for tumors with increased telomere length compared to cases with reduced or unchanged telomere length. In non-MYCN amplified tumors, a reduced o…
Characterization of blink reflex interneurons by activation of diffuse noxious inhibitory controls in man.
1998
The blink reflex consists of an early, pontine R1-component and a late, medullary R2-component. R1 and R2 can be evoked by innocuous stimuli, but only the R2 also by painful heat, suggesting that the R2 is mediated by wide dynamic range neurons (WDR) of the spinal trigeminal nucleus. Remote noxious stimuli suppress the activity in WDR neurons via activation of diffuse noxious inhibitory controls (DNIC), whereas low-threshold mechanoreceptive neurons (LTM) are unaffected. In order to characterize the trigeminal interneurons of R1 and R2 we investigated the modulation of the blink reflex by remote painful heat. The blink reflex was elicited in 11 healthy subjects by innocuous electrical pulse…
Spinal Endocannabinoids and CB 1 Receptors Mediate C-Fiber–Induced Heterosynaptic Pain Sensitization
2009
Plastic Pain Perception Drugs and endocannabinoids acting on cannabinoid (CB) receptors have potential in the treatment of certain types of pain. In the spinal cord they are believed to suppress nociception, the perception of pain and noxious stimuli. Pernia-Andrade et al. (p. 760 ) now find that endocannabinoids, which are released in spinal cord by noxious stimulation, may promote rather than inhibit nociception by acting on CB1 receptors. Endocannabinoids not only depress transmission at excitatory synapses in the spinal cord, but also block the release of inhibitory neurotransmitters, thereby facilitating nociception.
Isolated hevein-like domains, but not 31-kd endochitinases, are responsible for IgE-mediated in vitro and in vivo reactions in latex-fruit syndrome.
2005
Background Individuals with natural rubber latex allergy often have immediate reactions to plant-derived foods and fresh fruits, such as avocado and banana. IgE of these patients has been shown to bind endochitinases containing an N-terminal hevein-like domain (HLD). However, evidence on 31-kd endochitinase-induced reactions in vivo is lacking. Objective We sought to assess the clinical significance of 31-kd endochitinases and isolated HLDs in latex-fruit syndrome. Methods The 31-kd endochitinases and corresponding HLDs were purified or produced from avocado, banana, latex, and wheat germ. Skin prick test reactivities against purified proteins were examined in 15 patients with natural rubbe…