519 research outputs found
A rat model of restrictive bariatric surgery with gastric banding
Obes Surg. 2006 Jan;16(1):48-51.
A rat model of restrictive bariatric surgery with gastric banding.
Monteiro MP, Monteiro JD, Aguas AP, Cardoso MH.
Department of Anatomy of ICBAS (Abel Salazar Institute for the Biomedical Sciences), and Division of Endocrinology of Santo Antonio General Hospital, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal. [email protected]
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Gastric banding is a well established weight reduction operation that is effective in the treatment of severe obesity. Its metabolic and endocrine mechanisms of action, however, remain unclear. The aim of this study was to establish a rat model of gastric banding that would replicate the procedure performed in human obese patients.
METHODS: Male Wistar rats were submitted either to gastric banding (n=5) or sham gastric banding (n=4), and were followed for 21 days. Detailed description on how to perform gastric banding in rats are herein described.
RESULTS: The Wistar rats submitted to gastric banding showed a decrease in weight gain and food intake when compared to sham-operated rats. The cumulative weight gain during the 21 days after the surgical procedure was 143+/-2.58 g for the gastric banded rats and 162+/-2.48 g for the sham-operated animals (P=0.001). The cumulative food intake was 329+/-0.53 g for the gastric banded rats and 380+/-15.22 g for the sham-operated animals, also statistically significant (P=0.025).
CONCLUSION: A rat model to study gastric banding is described. This model can now be used for experimental investigation of biochemical and molecular mechanisms of weight loss resulting from this type of surgery.
PMID: 16417758 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
Rats submitted to gastric banding are leaner and show distinctive feeding patterns
Obes Surg. 2006 May;16(5):597-602.
Rats submitted to gastric banding are leaner and show distinctive feeding patterns.
Monteiro MP, Monteiro JD, Aguas AP, Cardoso MH.
Department of Anatomy, Unit for Multidisciplinary Biomedical Research, Abel Salazar Institute for the Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, 4099-003 Porto, Portugal. [email protected]
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Bariatric surgery is expanding to meet the global epidemic of morbid obesity, because this surgery is successful in achieving sustained weight loss. After having recently established a rat model of gastric banding, our aim now was to investigate the relative fat mass content and the feeding patterns of gastric banded rats.
METHODS: Two groups of Wistar rats, submitted either to gastric banding or to sham surgery, were followed-up for 26 days regarding weight, daily food intake and feeding patterns both under resting conditions and when refed after fasting. Weight of the epididymal fat pad was used as a measure to evaluate changes in white adipose tissue in the rats.
RESULTS: 10 days after surgery and thereafter, rats submitted to gastric banding showed the same daily food intake that was observed in sham-operated rats. Nevertheless, gastric banded rats kept lower body weights and were leaner than controls. These differences were associated with distinctive feeding patterns, both under resting conditions and when refed after fasting, suggesting that gastric banded rats present a significant increase in feeding frequency when compared with controls.
CONCLUSION: This data is the first experimental evidence that an increase in feeding frequency is associated with weight loss after gastric banding, even if there is no decrease in total energy intake. Thus, medical advice on the advantages of fractionating daily caloric intake into multiple meals is further supported by the herein new information obtained in an animal model of gastric banding
Partition functions and elliptic genera from supergravity
We develop the spacetime aspects of the computation of partition functions
for string/M-theory on AdS(3) xM. Subleading corrections to the semi-classical
result are included systematically, laying the groundwork for comparison with
CFT partition functions via the AdS(3)/CFT(2) correspondence. This leads to a
better understanding of the "Farey tail" expansion of Dijkgraaf et. al. from
the point of view of bulk physics. Besides clarifying various issues, we also
extend the analysis to the N=2 setting with higher derivative effects included.Comment: 34 page
Area Spectrum of Extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"om Black Holes from Quasi-normal Modes
Using the quasi-normal modes frequency of extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"om black
holes, we obtain area spectrum for these type of black holes. We show that the
area and entropy black hole horizon are equally spaced. Our results for the
spacing of the area spectrum differ from that of schwarzschild black holes.Comment: 6 pages, no figure, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Numerical analysis of quasinormal modes in nearly extremal Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetimes
We calculate high-order quasinormal modes with large imaginary frequencies
for electromagnetic and gravitational perturbations in nearly extremal
Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetimes. Our results show that for low-order
quasinormal modes, the analytical approximation formula in the extremal limit
derived by Cardoso and Lemos is a quite good approximation for the quasinormal
frequencies as long as the model parameter is small enough, where
and are the black hole horizon radius and the surface gravity,
respectively. For high-order quasinormal modes, to which corresponds
quasinormal frequencies with large imaginary parts, on the other hand, this
formula becomes inaccurate even for small values of . We also find
that the real parts of the quasinormal frequencies have oscillating behaviors
in the limit of highly damped modes, which are similar to those observed in the
case of a Reissner-Nordstr{\" o}m black hole. The amplitude of oscillating
as a function of approaches a non-zero
constant value for gravitational perturbations and zero for electromagnetic
perturbations in the limit of highly damped modes, where denotes the
quasinormal frequency. This means that for gravitational perturbations, the
real part of quasinormal modes of the nearly extremal Schwarzschild-de Sitter
spacetime appears not to approach any constant value in the limit of highly
damped modes. On the other hand, for electromagnetic perturbations, the real
part of frequency seems to go to zero in the limit.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, to appear in Physical Review
Increase in ghrelin levels after weight loss in obese Zucker rats is prevented by gastric banding.
Obes Surg. 2007 Dec;17(12):1599-607. Epub 2007 Nov 30.
Increase in ghrelin levels after weight loss in obese Zucker rats is prevented by gastric banding.
Monteiro MP, Ribeiro AH, Nunes AF, Sousa MM, Monteiro JD, Aguas AP, Cardoso MH.
Department of Anatomy and UMIB (Unit for Multidisciplinary Biomedical Research) of ICBAS (Abel Salazar Institute for the Biomedical Sciences), University of Porto, 4099-003 Porto, Portugal. [email protected]
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Gastric banding is thought to decrease appetite in addition to the mechanical effects of food restriction, although this has been difficult to demonstrate in human studies. Our aim was to investigate the changes in orexigenic signals in the obese Zucker rat after gastric banding.
METHODS: Obese Zucker rats (fa/fa) were submitted to gastric banding (GBP), sham gastric banding fed ad libitum (sham), or sham operation with food restriction, pair-fed to the gastric banding group (sham-PF). Lean Zucker rats (fa/+) were used as additional controls. Body weight and food intake were daily recorded for 21 days after surgery when epididymal fat was weighed and fasting ghrelin and hypothalamic NPY mRNA expression were measured.
RESULTS: Gastric banding in obese Zucker rats resulted in a significant decrease of cumulative body weight gain and food intake. Furthermore, gastric banded rats were leaner than Sham-PF, as expressed by a significantly lower epididymal fat weight. Ghrelin levels of gastric banded rats were not increased when compared to sham-operated animals fed ad libitum and were significantly lower than the levels of weight matched sham-PF rats (1116.9 +/- 103.3 g GBP vs 963.2 +/- 54.3 g sham, 3,079.5 +/- 221.6 sham-PF and 2,969.9 +/- 150.9 g lean rats, p < 0.001); hypothalamic NPY mRNA expression was not increased in GBP when compared to sham-operated rats.
CONCLUSION: In obese Zucker rats, GBP prevents the increase in orexigenic signals that occur during caloric deprivation. Our data support the hypothesis that sustained weight loss observed after gastric banding does not depend solely on food restriction
One loop renormalization of the four-dimensional theory for quantum dilaton gravity.
We study the one loop renormalization in the most general metric-dilaton
theory with the second derivative terms only. The general theory can be divided
into two classes, models of one are equivalent to conformally coupled with
gravity scalar field and also to general relativity with cosmological term. The
models of second class have one extra degree of freedom which corresponds to
dilaton. We calculate the one loop divergences for the models of second class
and find that the arbitrary functions of dilaton in the starting action can be
fine-tuned in such a manner that all the higher derivative counterterms
disappear on shell. The only structures in both classical action and
counterterms, which survive on shell, are the potential (cosmological) ones.
They can be removed by renormalization of the dilaton field which acquire the
nontrivial anomalous dimension, that leads to the effective running of the
cosmological constant. For some of the renormalizable solutions of the theory
the observable low energy value of the cosmological constant is small as
compared with the Newtonian constant. We also discuss another application of
our result.Comment: 21 pages, latex, no figures
Membrane paradigm realized?
Are there any degrees of freedom on the black hole horizon? Using the
`membrane paradigm' we can reproduce coarse-grained physics outside the hole by
assuming a fictitious membrane just outside the horizon. But to solve the
information puzzle we need `real' degrees of freedom at the horizon, which can
modify Hawking's evolution of quantum modes. We argue that recent results on
gravitational microstates imply a set of real degrees of freedom just outside
the horizon; the state of the hole is a linear combination of rapidly
oscillating gravitational solutions with support concentrated just outside the
horizon radius. The collective behavior of these microstate solutions may give
a realization of the membrane paradigm, with the fictitious membrane now
replaced by real, explicit degrees of freedom.Comment: 8 pages, Latex, 3 figures (Essay given second place in Gravity
Research Foundation essay competition 2010
Growth And Characterization Of Gaalas/gaas And Gainas/inp Structures: The Effect Of A Pulse Metalorganic Flow
GaAlAs/GaAs and GaInAs/InP thick layers, single and multiple quantum wells were grown by atmospheric pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. Auger electron spectroscopy, wedge transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, low-temperature photoluminescence, and scanning electron microscopy were used to analyze the crystal quality. These analysis techniques show that layers grown using high vapor pressure metalorganic sources present fluctuations in the ternary alloy composition. We propose that these fluctuations are due to the pulse character of the high vapor pressure metalorganic flow. Bubbling experiments were performed to show the relationship between ternary layer composition fluctuation and the pulse character of the metalorganic flow. High vapor pressure metalorganic source like trimethylgallium presents tens of Angströms growth rate per pulse or bubble whereas a low vapor pressure source like triethylgallium presents few Angströms growth rate per bubble.71117918
A note on quasinormal modes: A tale of two treatments
There is an apparent discrepancy in the literature with regard to the
quasinormal mode frequencies of Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes in the
degenerate-horizon limit. On the one hand, a Poschl-Teller-inspired method
predicts that the real part of the frequencies will depend strongly on the
orbital angular momentum of the perturbation field whereas, on the other hand,
the degenerate limit of a monodromy-based calculation suggests there should be
no such dependence (at least, for the highly damped modes). In the current
paper, we provide a possible resolution by critically re-assessing the limiting
procedure used in the monodromy analysis.Comment: 11 pages, Revtex format; (v2) new addendum in response to reader
comments, also references, footnote and acknowledgments adde
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