From fix to fit into the autoptic human brains.

Formalin-fixed, paraffinembedded (FFPE) human brain tissues are very often stored in formalin for long time. Formalin fixation reduces immunostaining, and the DNA/RNA extraction from FFPE brain tissue becomes suboptimal. At present, there are different protocols of fixation and several procedures and kits to extract DNA/RNA from paraffin embedding tissue, but a gold standard protocol remains distant. In this study, we analyzed four types of fixation systems and compared histo and immuno-staining. Based on our results, we propose a modified method of combined fixation in formalin and formic acid for the autoptic adult brain to obtain easy, fast, safe and efficient immunolabelling of long-stored FFPE tissue. In particular, we have achieved an improved preservation of cellular morphology and obtained success in postmortem immunostaining for NeuN. This nuclear antigen is an important marker for mapping neurons, for example, to evaluate the histopathology of temporal lobe epilepsy or to draw the topography of cardiorespiratory brainstem nuclei in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). However, NeuN staining is frequently faint or lost in postmortem human brain tissues. In addition, we attained Fluoro Jade C staining, a marker of neurodegeneration, and immunofluorescent staining for stem cell antigens in the postnatal human brain, utilizing custom fit fixation procedures

Deep and Proximate Determinants of the World Income Distribution

This paper studies the deep and proximate determinants of the evolution of the cross-country distribution of GDP per worker in the period 1960–2008 by a novel method based on an information criterion. We find that countries of our sample follow three distinctive growth regimes identified by two deep determinants, namely life expectancy at birth in 1960 and the share of Catholics in 1965, and that each regime is characterized by non-linearities. Growth regimes appear to be the main cause of the increased inequality and polarization, while technological catch-up, proxied by the initial level of GDP per worker, acts in the opposite direction. Finally, human capital marginally reduces polarization, while investment rates and employment growth have no distributional effect

Neuroanatomical dysmorphology of the medial superior olivary nucleus in sudden fetal and infant death

doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00322 Neuroanatomical dysmorphology of the medial superior olivary nucleus in sudden fetal and infant deat