God's eyes and the schizophrenic hands: listening to a psychiatric patient

This article describes the intriguing case of a young female patient first seen in the emergency room and then followed up at the psychiatric outpatient facility of the General Hospital at UNICAMP, Brazil. The cooperation that ensued between psychiatrists and a psychoanalyst to reach a psychopathological diagnosis is also presented here. The differential diagnosis is discussed within a psychiatric framework and then contributions from listening to the patient's free associations related to the clarification of her psychopathology are described The clinical collaboration between psychiatry and psychoanalysis proved effective in this case as a clinical method for approaching the patient.13457758

Structural modelling and comparative analysis of homologous, analogous and specific proteins from Trypanosoma cruzi versus Homo sapiens: putative drug targets for chagas' disease treatment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Trypanosoma cruzi </it>is the etiological agent of Chagas' disease, an endemic infection that causes thousands of deaths every year in Latin America. Therapeutic options remain inefficient, demanding the search for new drugs and/or new molecular targets. Such efforts can focus on proteins that are specific to the parasite, but analogous enzymes and enzymes with a three-dimensional (3D) structure sufficiently different from the corresponding host proteins may represent equally interesting targets. In order to find these targets we used the workflows MHOLline and AnEnΠ obtaining 3D models from homologous, analogous and specific proteins of <it>Trypanosoma cruzi </it>versus <it>Homo sapiens</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We applied genome wide comparative modelling techniques to obtain 3D models for 3,286 predicted proteins of <it>T</it>. <it>cruzi</it>. In combination with comparative genome analysis to <it>Homo sapiens</it>, we were able to identify a subset of 397 enzyme sequences, of which 356 are homologous, 3 analogous and 38 specific to the parasite.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In this work, we present a set of 397 enzyme models of <it>T</it>. <it>cruzi </it>that can constitute potential structure-based drug targets to be investigated for the development of new strategies to fight Chagas' disease. The strategies presented here support the concept of structural analysis in conjunction with protein functional analysis as an interesting computational methodology to detect potential targets for structure-based rational drug design. For example, 2,4-dienoyl-CoA reductase (EC 1.3.1.34) and triacylglycerol lipase (EC 3.1.1.3), classified as analogous proteins in relation to <it>H. sapiens </it>enzymes, were identified as new potential molecular targets.</p

Dipolar collisions of polar molecules in the quantum regime

Ultracold polar molecules offer the possibility of exploring quantum gases with interparticle interactions that are strong, long-range, and spatially anisotropic. This is in stark contrast to the dilute gases of ultracold atoms, which have isotropic and extremely short-range, or "contact", interactions. The large electric dipole moment of polar molecules can be tuned with an external electric field; this provides unique opportunities such as control of ultracold chemical reactions, quantum information processing, and the realization of novel quantum many-body systems. In spite of intense experimental efforts aimed at observing the influence of dipoles on ultracold molecules, only recently have sufficiently high densities been achieved. Here, we report the observation of dipolar collisions in an ultracold molecular gas prepared close to quantum degeneracy. For modest values of an applied electric field, we observe a dramatic increase in the loss rate of fermionic KRb molecules due to ultrcold chemical reactions. We find that the loss rate has a steep power-law dependence on the induced electric dipole moment, and we show that this dependence can be understood with a relatively simple model based on quantum threshold laws for scattering of fermionic polar molecules. We directly observe the spatial anisotropy of the dipolar interaction as manifested in measurements of the thermodynamics of the dipolar gas. These results demonstrate how the long-range dipolar interaction can be used for electric-field control of chemical reaction rates in an ultracold polar molecule gas. The large loss rates in an applied electric field suggest that creating a long-lived ensemble of ultracold polar molecules may require confinement in a two-dimensional trap geometry to suppress the influence of the attractive dipolar interactions

Nano-volume well array chip for large-scale propagation and high-resolution analysis of individual cancer stem cells

Copyright: © 2014 Clausell-Tormos J, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Cellular heterogeneity represents an increasingly appreciated aspect for research in life science. To address this issue, we have developed a nano-volume well array chip that allows larger-scale isolation and propagation of single cells. Notably, the chip enables single-cell analysis of freshly isolated primary cells at a high-resolution. With an average height of 130 ± 10 μm and an average diameter of 80 ± 10 μm, each nano-volume well can hold up to 0.4 nL of volume, and is compatible with both adherent as well as 3D suspension cultures. Simultaneous time-lapse imaging of thousands of nano-volume wells allows to monitor cell division, as well as tracking of cell fate, and/or alterations in the microscopic cellular morphology and/or markers expression. To demonstrate its application, we employed the system for propagating and tracking of Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs). CSCs could be monitored over three consecutive days by time-lapse high-resolution imaging at the single-cell level. We could demonstrate that non-CSCs do not dedifferentiate into CSCs, while CSCs were able to give rise to both CSCs and non-CSCs by undergoing symmetric and asymmetric division, respectively. Altogether, we have developed a novel nano-volume well array chip that significantly ameliorates clonal propagation and high-resolution image analysis of rare cells

Robust automated detection of microstructural white matter degeneration in Alzheimer’s disease using machine learning classification of multicenter DTI data

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) based assessment of white matter fiber tract integrity can support the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The use of DTI as a biomarker, however, depends on its applicability in a multicenter setting accounting for effects of different MRI scanners. We applied multivariate machine learning (ML) to a large multicenter sample from the recently created framework of the European DTI study on Dementia (EDSD). We hypothesized that ML approaches may amend effects of multicenter acquisition. We included a sample of 137 patients with clinically probable AD (MMSE 20.6±5.3) and 143 healthy elderly controls, scanned in nine different scanners. For diagnostic classification we used the DTI indices fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) and, for comparison, gray matter and white matter density maps from anatomical MRI. Data were classified using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) and a Naïve Bayes (NB) classifier. We used two cross-validation approaches, (i) test and training samples randomly drawn from the entire data set (pooled cross-validation) and (ii) data from each scanner as test set, and the data from the remaining scanners as training set (scanner-specific cross-validation). In the pooled cross-validation, SVM achieved an accuracy of 80% for FA and 83% for MD. Accuracies for NB were significantly lower, ranging between 68% and 75%. Removing variance components arising from scanners using principal component analysis did not significantly change the classification results for both classifiers. For the scanner-specific cross-validation, the classification accuracy was reduced for both SVM and NB. After mean correction, classification accuracy reached a level comparable to the results obtained from the pooled cross-validation. Our findings support the notion that machine learning classification allows robust classification of DTI data sets arising from multiple scanners, even if a new data set comes from a scanner that was not part of the training sample

Health risks encountered by Dutch medical students during an elective in the tropics and the quality and comprehensiveness of pre-and post-travel care

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Clinical and research electives abroad offer medical students many unique experiences. However, participating in an unfamiliar health-care setting combined with limited medical experience may place students at risk of illness. To improve pre-and post-travel care, we assessed the health risks and the quality and comprehensiveness of pre-and post-travel care in a cohort of Dutch medical students returning form an elective abroad.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>All medical students who had performed an elective in the tropics between July 2006 and December 2008 were sent an informative email asking them to complete a web-based questionnaire.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>180 of 242 (74%) students completed the questionnaire. Regarding the risk of bloodborne viral infection: 67% of all students and 32% of junior students engaged in procedures that constitute a risk of exposure to bloodborne viral infection, often in countries with high HIV prevalence rates. None of nine students who experienced possible or certain mucosal or percutaneous exposure to potentially infectious body fluids reported the exposure at the time it occurred and none used PEP. Regarding other health risks: 8 of 40 (20%) students stopped using mefloquine due to adverse effects. This left a sizeable proportion unprotected in countries that are hyperendemic for malaria. Post-travel screening for schistosomiasis, tuberculosis (tuberculin skin test) and carriage of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) encompassed approximately half of all students who should have been screened.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Based on the results of this study we have adopted an integral set of measures to reduce the health risks associated with an elective abroad. The pre and post-travel consult has been centralized and standardized as well as the distribution of PEP. In addition we have developed a mandatory module on Global Health for all medical students planning an elective abroad.</p

Distress, anxiety, and depression in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy

BACKGROUND: Chemotherapy for cancer is an intense and cyclic treatment associated with number of side-effects. The present study evaluated the effect of chemotherapy on distress, anxiety and depression. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 117 patients were evaluated by using distress inventory for cancer (DIC2) and hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS). Majority of the patients were taking chemotherapy for solid tumors (52; 44.4%). RESULTS: The mean distress score was 24, 18 (15.38%) were found to have anxiety while 19 (16.23%) had depression. High social status was the only factor found to influence distress while female gender was the only factor found to influence depression in the present study. CONCLUSION: The study highlights high psychological morbidity of cancer patients and influence of gender on depression. Construct of distress as evaluated by DIC 2 may have a possible overlap with anxiety