Foliar Morphology And Anatomy Of The Gigantopterid Plant Delnortea Abbottiae, From The Lower Permian Of West Texas

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142005/1/ajb214202.pd

Long-term follow-up of breast cancer survivors with post-mastectomy pain syndrome

Post-mastectomy pain syndrome (PMPS) is a recognised complication of breast surgery although little is known about the long-term outcome of this chronic pain condition. In 1996, Smith et al identified a prevalence rate of PMPS of 43% among 408 women in the Grampian Region, Northeast Scotland. The aim of this study was to assess long-term outcome at 7–12 years postoperatively in this cohort of women, to describe the natural history of PMPS and impact of pain upon quality of life. Chronic pain and quality of life were assessed using the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) and Short Form-36 (SF-36). Of 175 women reporting PMPS in 1996, 138 were eligible for questionnaire follow-up in 2002. Mean time since surgery was 9 years (s.d. 1.8 years). A response rate of 82% (113 out of 138) was achieved; 59 out of 113 (52%) women reported continued PMPS and 54 out of 113 (48%) women reported their PMPS had resolved since the previous survey in 1996. Quality of life scores were significantly lower in women with persistent PMPS compared to those women whose pain had resolved. However, for women with persistent PMPS, SF-36 scores had improved over time. Risk factors for persistent PMPS included younger age and heavier weight. This study found that, of women reporting PMPS in 1996, half of those surveyed in 2002 continued to experience PMPS at a mean of 9 years after surgery

Assessing animal affect: an automated and self-initiated judgement bias task based on natural investigative behaviour

Scientific methods for assessing animal affect, especially affective valence (positivity or negativity), allow us to evaluate animal welfare and the effectiveness of 3Rs Refinements designed to improve wellbeing. Judgement bias tasks measure valence; however, task-training may be lengthy and/or require significant time from researchers. Here we develop an automated and self-initiated judgement bias task for rats which capitalises on their natural investigative behaviour. Rats insert their noses into a food trough to start trials. They then hear a tone and learn either to stay for 2 s to receive a food reward or to withdraw promptly to avoid an air-puff. Which contingency applies is signalled by two different tones. Judgement bias is measured by responses to intermediate ambiguous tones. In two experiments we show that rats learn the task in fewer sessions than other automated variants, generalise responses across ambiguous tones as expected, self-initiate 4-5 trials/min, and can be tested repeatedly. Affect manipulations generate main effect trends in the predicted directions, although not localised to ambiguous tones, so further construct validation is required. We also find that tone-reinforcer pairings and reinforcement or non-reinforcement of ambiguous trials can affect responses to ambiguity. This translatable task should facilitate more widespread uptake of judgement bias testing

Results from the translation and adaptation of the Iranian Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (I-SF-MPQ): preliminary evidence of its reliability, construct validity and sensitivity in an Iranian pain population

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ) is one of the most widely used instruments to assess pain. The aim of this study was to translate and culturally adapt the questionnaire for Farsi (the official language of Iran) speakers in order to test its reliability and sensitivity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We followed Guillemin's guidelines for cross-cultural adaption of health-related measures, which include forward-backward translations, expert committee meetings, and face validity testing in a pilot group. Subsequently, the questionnaire was administered to a sample of 100 diverse chronic pain patients attending a tertiary pain and rehabilitation clinic. In order to evaluate test-retest reliability, patients completed the questionnaire in the morning and early evening of their first visit. Finally, patients were asked to complete the questionnaire for the third time after completing a standardized treatment protocol three weeks later. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to evaluate reliability. We used principle component analysis to assess construct validity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ninety-two subjects completed the questionnaire both in the morning and in the evening of the first visit (test-retest reliability), and after three weeks (sensitivity to change). Eight patients who did not finish treatment protocol were excluded from the study. Internal consistency was found by Cronbach's alpha to be 0.951, 0.832 and 0.840 for sensory, affective and total scores respectively. ICC resulted in 0.906 for sensory, 0.712 for affective and 0.912 for total pain score. Item to subscale score correlations supported the convergent validity of each item to its hypothesized subscale. Correlations were observed to range from r²= 0.202 to r²= 0.739. Sensitivity or responsiveness was evaluated by pair t-test, which exhibited a significant difference between pre- and post-treatment scores (p < 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of this study indicate that the Iranian version of the SF-MPQ is a reliable questionnaire and responsive to changes in the subscale and total pain scores in Persian chronic pain patients over time.</p

Impact of opioid rescue medication for breakthrough pain on the efficacy and tolerability of long-acting opioids in patients with chronic non-malignant pain

There is little evidence that short-acting opioids as rescue medication for breakthrough pain is an optimal long-term treatment strategy in chronic non-malignant pain. We compared clinical studies of long-acting opioids that allowed short-acting opioid rescue medication with those that did not, to determine the impact of opioid rescue medication use on the analgesic efficacy and tolerability of chronic opioid therapy in patients with chronic non-malignant pain. We searched MEDLINE (1950 to July 2006) and EMBASE (1974 to July 2006) using terms for chronic non-malignant pain and long-acting opioids. Independent review of the search results identified 48 studies that met the study selection criteria. The effect of opioid rescue medication on analgesic efficacy and the incidence of common opioid-related side-effects were analysed using meta-regression. After adjusting for potentially confounding variables (study design and type of opioid), the difference in analgesic efficacy between the 'rescue' and the 'no rescue' studies was not significant, with regression coefficients close to 0 and 95% confidence intervals that excluded an effect of more than 18 points on a 0-100 scale in each case. There was also no significant difference between the 'rescue' and the 'no rescue' studies for the incidence of nausea, constipation, or somnolence in both the unadjusted and the adjusted analyses. We found no evidence that rescue medication with short-acting opioids for breakthrough pain affects analgesic efficacy of long-acting opioids or the incidence of common opioid-related side-effects among chronic non-malignant pain patients

Deletions in the Repertoire of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 Type III Secretion Effector Genes Reveal Functional Overlap among Effectors

The γ-proteobacterial plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 uses the type III secretion system to inject ca. 28 Avr/Hop effector proteins into plants, which enables the bacterium to grow from low inoculum levels to produce bacterial speck symptoms in tomato, Arabidopsis thaliana, and (when lacking hopQ1-1) Nicotiana benthamiana. The effectors are collectively essential but individually dispensable for the ability of the bacteria to defeat defenses, grow, and produce symptoms in plants. Eighteen of the effector genes are clustered in six genomic islands/islets. Combinatorial deletions involving these clusters and two of the remaining effector genes revealed a redundancy-based structure in the effector repertoire, such that some deletions diminished growth in N. benthamiana only in combination with other deletions. Much of the ability of DC3000 to grow in N. benthamiana was found to be due to five effectors in two redundant-effector groups (REGs), which appear to separately target two high-level processes in plant defense: perception of external pathogen signals (AvrPto and AvrPtoB) and deployment of antimicrobial factors (AvrE, HopM1, HopR1). Further support for the membership of HopR1 in the same REG as AvrE was gained through bioinformatic analysis, revealing the existence of an AvrE/DspA/E/HopR effector superfamily, which has representatives in virtually all groups of proteobacterial plant pathogens that deploy type III effectors

The effects of acute tryptophan depletion on costly information sampling: impulsivity or aversive processing?

RATIONALE: The neurotransmitter serotonin (5-HT) has been implicated in both aversive processing and impulsivity. Reconciling these accounts, recent studies have demonstrated that 5-HT is important for punishment-induced behavioural inhibition. These studies focused on situations where actions lead directly to punishments. However, decision-making often involves making tradeoffs between small 'local' costs and larger 'global' losses. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to distinguish whether 5-HT promotes avoidance of local losses, global losses, or both, in contrast to an overall effect on reflection impulsivity. We further examined the influence of individual differences in sub-clinical depression, anxiety and impulsivity on global and local loss avoidance. METHODS: Healthy volunteers (N = 21) underwent an acute tryptophan depletion procedure in a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design. We measured global and local loss avoidance in a decision-making task where subjects could sample information at a small cost to avoid making incorrect decisions, which resulted in large losses. RESULTS: Tryptophan depletion removed the suppressive effects of small local costs on information sampling behaviour. Sub-clinical depressive symptoms produced effects on information sampling similar to (but independent from) those of tryptophan depletion. Dispositional anxiety was related to global loss avoidance. However, trait impulsivity was unrelated to information sampling. CONCLUSIONS: The current findings are consistent with recent theoretical work that characterises 5-HT as pruning a tree of potential decisions, eliminating options expected to lead to aversive outcomes. Our results extend this account by proposing that 5-HT promotes reflexive avoidance of relatively immediate aversive outcomes, potentially at the expense of more globally construed future losses