Legal aspects of the provision of information — part II. The right to inform the patient

Artykuł podejmuje problem udzielania informacji na temat stanu zdrowia, działań leczniczychi pielęgnacyjnych w świetle aktualnie obowiązującego prawa polskiego. Podsumowano, ktoi komu, w jakim zakresie i pod jakimi warunkami powinien udzielać informacji na tematstanu zdrowia pacjenta, planowanego leczenia i rokowań. Opracowanie uwzględnia sytuacjęprawną osób poniżej 16. roku życia, a także chorych nieprzytomnych. Odnosi Kodeks Etykilekarskiej do powszechnie obowiązujących aktów prawnych, m.in. do Ustawy o prawachpacjenta oraz Ustawą o Zawodach Lekarza i Lekarza Dentysty. Analizuje również ewolucjęzasad etycznych zawodu lekarza w zakresie rozmowy z chorym nieuleczalnie z niepomyślnymrokowaniem.W pracy poruszono też kwestię świadomej zgody na leczenie (która jest możliwa wyłączniew sytuacji uzyskania przez chorego obiektywnej i pełnej informacji zarówno co do rokowania,jak i spodziewanych korzyści i ryzyka danego postępowania oraz jego zaniechania). Przedstawionoregulacje prawne w pr zypadkach, kiedy uzyskanie zgody lub niezgody choregoani osób uprawnionych jest niemożliwe, łącznie z określeniem ob owiązkowych adnotacjiw dokumentacji.Informacje zawarte w artykule pozwalają pracownikom służby zdrowia na poznanie zasad, którychnaruszenie może stanowić podstawę odpowiedzialności karnej, cywilnej lub zawodowej.The article examines the problem of providing information on health s tatus, health andnursing activities in the light of Polish law currently in force. Summarizes, to whom andwhich information on health status must, or has to be delivered, and to whom the informationmay not be given. Takes into account the legal situation of persons under 16 or unconscious.Compares the Polish Medical Code of Ethics, with which generally applicable lawsand shows some incompatibility. It also analyzes the evolution of ethical rules of medicinepractitioners in the matter of discussions with terminally ill patients whose prognosis is bad.This publication raises the issue of conscious consent to treatment (which is possible onlywhen patient gets objective and full information on both the outcome and the expectedbenefits and risks of the procedure as well as about omission o f proposed treatment).Provides legal regulations in cases where the consent or disagr eement of the patient orperson authorized is not possible, including what annotations i n the medical documentsshould be done in such a case.The current analysis can give clarity of who, to what extent an d under what conditionsshould give the information to the patient or others about the health of the patient, plannedtreatment and prognosis

Can the Hole–Board Test Predict a Rat’s Exploratory Behavior in a Free-Exploration Test?

This study focuses on the rat activity in a hole–board setting that we considered a type of exploratory behavior. The general hypothesis is based on the claim that a motivational mechanism is central to both the response to novelty in a highly familiarized environment and the activity in the hole–board apparatus. Our sample consisted of 80 experimentally naive Lister Hooded rats. All rats were tested in the hole–board apparatus. Twenty individuals with the highest hole-board scores and twenty subjects with the lowest hole–board scores subsequently underwent an established free-exploration test. In our study, the scores obtained in the hole–board test had little predictive value for the rats’ activity in the free-exploration test. Based on our previous experience in studying exploratory behavior in the free-exploration test and the data presented in this paper, we suggest that the hole–board test is not an appropriate tool for measuring exploratory behavior in laboratory rodents

Rat's response to a novelty and increased complexity of the environment resulting from the introduction of movable vs. stationary objects in the free exploration test.

Most animals, including rats, show a preference for more complex environments. This is demonstrated particularly well when complexity increases due to the addition of new elements to the environment. The aim of the study was to investigate the reaction to novelty, understood as a change in environmental properties that involve both changes in complexity and controllability. Controllability may allow for dealing with challenges of an environment of low predictability in a way that the animal's own activity reduces the uncertainty of environmental events. In our study, the animals underwent a spontaneous exploration test in low-stress conditions. After a period of habituation to the experimental arena, additional stationary (increased complexity) and/or movable (increased complexity and controllability) tunnels were introduced, and the reaction of the rats to the novel objects was measured. The results of the study confirmed that an increase in the complexity of the environment through the addition of objects triggers a more intensive exploratory activity in rats. However, an increased spatial complexity combined with the movability of the novel objects seems to result in increased caution towards the novelty after an initial inspection of the changed objects. It suggests that the complexity of the novelty may trigger both neophilia and neophobia depending on the level of the predictability of the novel environment and that the movability of newly introduced objects is not independent of other parameters of the environment

S1 Data -

(CSV)</p

Mean time spent on the contact with tunnels in the changed zone of the chamber.

Group Add: addition of novel stationary objects in the experimental box, group Mov: movement of familiar objects in the experimental box, group MovAdd: addition of a novel movable object in the experimental box. Error bars represent standard error (SE).</p

Mean time spent by rats in the changed zone of the chamber.

Group Add: addition of novel stationary objects in the experimental box, group Mov: movement of familiar objects in the experimental box, group MovAdd: addition of a novel movable object in the experimental box. Error bars represent standard error (SE).</p

Descriptive statistics of all behavioral measurements analyzed in this study.

Group Add—addition of novel tunnels; group MovAdd—addition of movable tunnel; group Move—replacement of familiar tunnel for movable one. H—habituation phase; T1-T2—consecutive trials.</p

Two Paralogous Gb3/CD77 Synthases in Birds Show Different Preferences for Their Glycoprotein and Glycosphingolipid Substrates

Most glycosyltransferases show remarkable gross and fine substrate specificity, which is reflected in the old one enzyme-one linkage paradigm. While human Gb3/CD77 synthase is a glycosyltransferase that synthesizes the Galα1→4Gal moiety mainly on glycosphingolipids, its pigeon homolog prefers glycoproteins as acceptors. In this study, we characterized two Gb3/CD77 synthase paralogs found in pigeons (Columba livia). We evaluated their specificities in transfected human teratocarcinoma 2102Ep cells by flow cytofluorometry, Western blotting, high-performance thin-layer chromatography, mass spectrometry and metabolic labelling with 14C-galactose. We found that the previously described pigeon Gb3/CD77 synthase (called P) can use predominately glycoproteins as acceptors, while its paralog (called M), which we serendipitously discovered while conducting this study, efficiently synthesizes Galα1→4Gal caps on both glycoproteins and glycosphingolipids. These two paralogs may underlie the difference in expression profiles of Galα1→4Gal-terminated glycoconjugates between neoavians and mammals

Volumes of brain structures in captive wild-type and laboratory rats: 7T magnetic resonance in vivo automatic atlas-based study.

Selective breeding of laboratory rats resulted in changes of their behavior. Concomitantly, the albino strains developed vision related pathologies. These alterations certainly occurred on the background of modifications in brain morphology. The aim of the study was to assess and compare volumes of major structures in brains of wild-captive, laboratory albino and laboratory pigmented rats. High resolution T2-weighted images of brains of adult male Warsaw Wild Captive Pisula-Stryjek rats (WWCPS, a model of wild type), laboratory pigmented (Brown Norway strain, BN) and albino rats (Wistar strain, WI) were obtained with a 7T small animal-dedicated magnetic resonance tomograph. Volume quantification of whole brains and 50 brain structures within each brain were performed with the digital Schwarz rat brain atlas and a custom-made MATLAB/SPM8 scripts. Brain volumes were scaled to body mass, whereas volumes of brain structures were normalized to individual brain volumes. Normalized brain volume was similar in WWCPS and BN, but lower in WI. Normalized neocortex volume was smaller in both laboratory strains than in WWCPS and the visual cortex was smaller in albino WI rats than in WWCPS and BN. Relative volumes of phylogenetically older structures, such as hippocampus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens and olfactory nuclei, also displayed certain strain-related differences. The present data shows that selective breeding of laboratory rats markedly affected brain morphology, the neocortex being most significantly altered. In particular, albino rats display reduced volume of the visual cortex, possibly related to retinal degeneration and the development of blindness