Bases psicobiológicas de la adicción a cocaína

El principal mecanismo de acción de la cocaína es la inhibición de la recaptación de dopamina y noradrenalina, produciendo un aumento de estos neurotransmisores en la sinapsis. El consumo agudo de cocaína produce una serie de cambios bastante conocidos en el sistema cerebral de recompensa. Sin embargo, el consumo crónico, produce, además, otra serie de cambios a nivel molecular que llevan al sujeto desde una situación de consumo puntual, a una situación de dependencia. Se han propuesto diferentes teorías explicativas de este fenómeno como la sensibilización del incentivo, o la homeostasis y alostasis neuroquímica, planteamientos basados en el condicionamiento clásico y operante. Por otra parte, se ha señalado la intervención de diferentes moléculas y vías de segundos mensajeros, que producen, en última instancia, una serie de cambios neuronales mantenidos a muy largo plazo, probablemente permanentes, que se podrían relacionar con la vulnerabilidad a las recaídas, propia de la adicción a cocaína, incluso años después de abandonar el consumo

Validación del método de cuantificación del área corporal afectada por la psoriasis mediante lápiz óptico

Introducción: La determinación de la superficie corporal afectada, Body Surface Area (BSA), es una de las escalas de medida más empleadas en la evaluación de la gravedad de la psoriasis, pero no está exenta de inconvenientes. Objetivo: Validación de un nuevo sistema de medida del BSA. Material y método: Estudio multicéntrico, prospectivo, que incluyó 56 pacientes con psoriasis. Cada paciente fue evaluado en 2 visitas por 2 dermatólogos del mismo Centro que valoraron BSA mediante 2 procedimientos: método visual «tradicional» (MT), palma mano = 1%; y el método «lápiz óptico» (LO), lápiz capacitivo puntero sobre pantalla táctil con medición de la superficie mediante software específico. Resultados: Se observó una concordancia aceptable entre ambos métodos, con coeficiente de correlación intraclase (CCI) de 0,87, pero con unos límites de acuerdo excesivamente grandes y un sesgo sistemático consistente en mayores medidas de BSA con MT que con LO. La concordancia entre métodos fue superior en el tronco y las extremidades inferiores (CCI > 0,8). La fiabilidad intraobservador fue excelente con ambos métodos (CCI: MT, 0,97; LO, 0,98). La fiabilidad interobservador fue elevada (CCI: MT, 0,91; LO, 0,94), pero el BSA medio difirió significativamente entre observadores. Además, el CCI se redujo drásticamente cuando se consideró la cabeza exclusivamente. Conclusiones: El presente estudio valida el método LO para la medición de la superficie corporal afectada en pacientes con psoriasis. Muestra una buena concordancia con el MT, presentando menos variabilidad y mayor fiabilidad interobservador

Incidence, risk factors, clinical characteristics and outcomes of deep venous thrombosis in patients with COVID-19 attending the Emergency Department: results of the UMC-19-S8

Background and importance: A higher incidence of venous thromboembolism [both pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis (DVT)] in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been described. But little is known about the true frequency of DVT in patients who attend emergency department (ED) and are diagnosed with COVID-19. Objective: We investigated the incidence, risk factors, clinical characteristics and outcomes of DVT in patients with COVID-19 attending the ED before hospitalization. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed all COVID patients diagnosed with DVT in 62 Spanish EDs (20% of Spanish EDs, case group) during the first 2 months of the COVID-19 outbreak. We compared DVT-COVID-19 patients with COVID-19 without DVT patients (control group). Relative frequencies of DVT were estimated in COVID and non-COVID patients visiting the ED and annual standardized incidences were estimated for both populations. Sixty-three patient characteristics and four outcomes were compared between cases and controls. Results: We identified 112 DVT in 74 814 patients with COVID-19 attending the ED [1.50‰; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.23-1.80‰]. This relative frequency was similar than that observed in non-COVID patients [2109/1 388 879; 1.52‰; 95% CI, 1.45-1.69‰; odds ratio (OR) = 0.98 [0.82-1.19]. Standardized incidence of DVT was higher in COVID patients (98,38 versus 42,93/100,000/year; OR, 2.20; 95% CI, 2.03-2.38). In COVID patients, the clinical characteristics associated with a higher risk of presenting DVT were older age and having a history of venous thromboembolism, recent surgery/immobilization and hypertension; chest pain and desaturation at ED arrival and some analytical disturbances were also more frequently seen, d-dimer >5000 ng/mL being the strongest. After adjustment for age and sex, hospitalization, ICU admission and prolonged hospitalization were more frequent in cases than controls, whereas mortality was similar (OR, 1.37; 95% CI, 0.77-2.45). Conclusions: DVT was an unusual form of COVID presentation in COVID patients but was associated with a worse prognosis

Lattice Parsing for Speech Recognition

A lot of work remains to be done in the domain of a better integration of speech recognition and language processing systems. This paper gives an overview of several strategies for integrating linguistic models into speech understanding systems and investigates several ways of producing sets of hypotheses that include more “semantic” variability than usual language models. The main goal is to present and demonstrate by actual experiments that sequential coupling may be efficiently achieved by word-lattice syntactic analyzers, efficiently parsing the huge number of hypothesis (i.e. possible sentences) contained in the lattice produced by the speech recognizer

Myoblast morphology and organization on biochemically micro-patterned hydrogel coatings under cyclic mechanical strain

Mechanical forces and geometric constraints play critical roles in determining cell functionality and tissue development. Novel experimental methods are essential to explore the underlying biological mechanisms of cell response. We present a versatile method to culture cells on adhesive micro-patterned substrates while applying long-term cyclic tensile strain (CTS). A polydimethysiloxane (PDMS) mold is coated with a cell repulsive NCO-sP(EO-stat-PO) hydrogel which in turn is covalently patterned by fibronectin using micro-contact printing. This results in two-dimensional, highly selective cell-adhesive micro-patterns. The substrates allow application of CTS to adherent cells for more than 4 days under cell culture conditions without unspecific adhesion. The applicability of our system is demonstrated by studying the adaptive response of C2C12 skeletal myoblasts seeded on fibronectin lines with different orientations relative to the strain direction. After application of CTS (amplitude of 7%, frequency of 0.5 Hz) we find that actin fiber organization is dominantly controlled by CTS. Nuclei shape is predominantly affected by the constraint of the adhesive lines, resulting in significant elongation. Morphologically, myotube formation was incomplete after 4 days of culture, but actin striations were observed exclusively on the 45 degrees line patterns subjected to CTS, the direction of maximum shear strain

Validación del método de cuantificación del área corporal afectada por la psoriasis mediante lápiz óptico.

Body surface area (BSA) affected by psoriasis is one of the most often used measures for assessing severity, but this method has shortcomings. To validate a new way to estimate BSA. Prospective, multicenter study in 56 patients with psoriasis. Each patient was evaluated by 2 dermatologists in 2 visits to the same hospital. Each dermatologist used 2 methods for estimating BSA: the traditional visual estimation in which the area of the palm equals 1% of the total body surface and an optical pencil (OP) method in which the affected area is drawn on a touch screen. Software in the application then calculates the BSA. Overall concordance between the 2 methods was acceptable according to an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.87. However, the limits of agreement were unacceptably large and there was systematic bias: traditional estimates were consistently greater than OP calculations. Concordance between the methods was better (ICC>0.8) on the trunk and lower extremities. Intraobserver reliability was excellent with both methods (ICCs, 0.97 and 0.98 for the traditional and OP estimates, respectively). Interobserver reliability was also high (ICCs, 0.91 and 0.94 for the traditional and OP methods), although the mean BSA differed significantly between observers. The ICCs were much lower for BSA estimates on the head. This study to validate the OP method for estimating the affected BSA in patients with psoriasis shows good agreement between the OP and traditional approaches. The OP calculations also showed less variance and better interobserver reliability

Memoria del Mapa Geológico de España, Escala 1:50.000, 2ª serie, 1ª edición, Hoja Nº 487, Ledanca.

Se introducen dos enlaces a los archivos originales que están en la página web del IGME: el primero a la "Memoria" y el segundo al “Informe prospección de micromamíferos” realizado por C. Sesé que está en la "Documentación Complementaria" de la Memori