Desenvolvimento do olho e diferenciação da retina em peixes Betta splendens Regan, 1909

Descreve-se  o desenvolvimento ocular, com ênfase na retina  de  peixe  ornamental da espécie  Betta  splendens,  que apresenta um desenvolvimento  extra-embrionário, favorecendo  pesquisas que envolvam um melhor entendimento desua embriologia e estudos  sobre  degenerações e regenerações, ontogenia e diferenciação  ocorridas no olho,  estapesquisa foi realizada do período embrionário até dez dias pós eclosão.  O desenvolvimento do olho  esta completo quando  há a  eclosão do  animal.  Para o estudo  das etapas de desenvolvimento os animais foram anestesiados  emEugenol 50ppm em água, perfundidos com Paraformaldeido a 4% em Tampão Fosfato, desidratados e embebidos em Paraplast Plus. Em seguida, confeccionados cortes histológicos com 5 e 1µm de espessura e corados com HE, PAS e método TUNEL. Como resultado  foi possível  observar que  os olhos surgiram  de evaginações do  diencéfalo, formando o cálice óptico. O neuroectoderma, o mesoderma e o ectoderma da superfície estão envolvidos na formação do olho. O método TUNEL identificou processo de apoptose na retina e cristalino, comprovando que há uma redução de células durante o desenvolvimento  do animal. No peixe adulto, através da histoquímica foi  possível observar  a morfologia e o arranjo celular dos fotorreceptores.

A topographic study on the evaluation of speech and language in the acute phase of a first stroke

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Evaluation of speech and language may help in localization of site and extension of brain lesions, particularly in the absence of other neurological signs or radiologically defined injuries. Objective: To verify what language tasks are best correlated to which brain regions, in order to develop a test for neurologists in emergency settings. Method: Thirty-seven adult first-stroke patients were submitted to cognitive and language tests, and then paired with thirty-seven healthy controls. Patients underwent CT and/or MRI for topographic correlation with test results (p<0.05). Results: All tests were able to distinguish patients from controls, but only word/sentence repetition, naming, ideomotor praxis and, non-significantly, comprehension and counting 1-20 predicted left hemisphere lesions. Repetition was related to perisylvian structures, comprehension to the posterior portion of the middle cerebral artery territory, and fluency to frontal lesions, while naming was accurate only for lesion side. Conclusion: Language and cognitive tasks can help in the localization of acute stroke lesions.695790798Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES

Combining Animal Welfare With Experimental Rigor to Improve Reproducibility in Behavioral Neuroscience

Grants of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany) to CLi. CML was recipient of Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) research fellowship through the Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia Translacional em Medicina (INCT-TM), Brazil. FM was supported by Post-doctoral fellowship grant #2018/25857-5, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), Brazil. KD was supported by Fellow BIPD/FCT Proj2020/i3S/26040705/2021, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal. This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001

Strict protected areas are essential for the conservation of larger and threatened mammals in a priority region of the Brazilian Cerrado

ssessing protected area (PA) effectiveness is key to ensure the objectives of habitat protection are being achieved. There is strong evidence that legal protection reduces loss of natural vegetation, but biodiversity loss can still happen without significant changes in vegetation cover. Here we use data from a specifically designed camera trap survey to conduct a counterfactual assessment of PA effectiveness at safeguarding local biodiversity in the Brazilian Cerrado. We surveyed the mammal community in 517 locations at the Sertão Veredas-Peruaçu mosaic, distributed across five strict PAs (264 survey sites in five arrays) and two multiple-use PAs with low management levels (253 survey sites in four arrays). We adopted a multi-species occupancy framework to analyse our dataset while also controlling for confounding factors not directly related to protection. Of the 21 species assessed, nine had higher occupancy in strict PAs, one had higher occupancy in multiple-use PAs, and ten did not respond to protection level. Site species richness was nearly twice as large in areas under stricter protection, with even greater differences for species richness of globally threatened and larger mammals (>15 kg). Overall we demonstrated that the strict PAs surveyed support higher mammal diversity than similar areas under less restrictive management, with a particular strong effect on larger and threatened species. Given that strict PAs cover only 3% of the Cerrado, our results suggest that expanding the area under strict protection is likely to benefit iconic species of the Brazilian savanna, such as the maned wolf and giant anteater

Contribution of Different Patient Information Sources to Create the Best Possible Medication History

Introduction: Obtaining the best possible medication history is the crucial step in medication reconciliation. Our aim was to evaluate the potential contributions of the main data sources available - patient/caregiver, hospital medical records, and shared electronic health records - to obtain an accurate 'best possible medication history'. Material and Methods: An observational cross-sectional study was conducted. Adult patients taking at least one medicine were included. Patient interview was performed upon admission and this information was reconciled with hospital medical records and shared electronic health records, assessed retrospectively. Concordance between sources was assessed. In the shared electronic health records, information was collected for four time-periods: the preceding three, six, nine and 12-months. The proportion of omitted data between time-periods was analysed. Results: A total of 148 patients were admitted, with a mean age of 54.6 +/- 16.3 years. A total of 1639 medicines were retrieved. Only 29% were collected simultaneously in the three sources of information, 40% were only obtained in shared electronic health records and only 5% were obtained exclusively from patients. The total number of medicines gathered in shared electronic health records considering the different time frames were 778 (three-months), 1397 (six-months), 1748 (nine-months), and 1933 (12-months). Discussion: The use of shared electronic health records provides data that were omitted in the other data sources available and retrieving the information at six months is the most efficient procedure to establish the basis of the best possible medication history. Conclusion: Shared electronic health records should be the preferred source of information to supplement the patient or caregiver interview in order to increase the accuracy of best possible medication history of the patient, particularly if collected within the prior six months

Carvacrol, (-)-borneol and citral reduce convulsant activity in rodents

Carvacrol, a monoterpenic phenol present in essential oils of the Labiatae family, has been used through the ages as a source of flavor in food and for medicinal purposes. Borneol is a monoterpene found in several species of Artemisia and Dipterocarpaceae, used for anxiety, pain and anesthesia in traditional Chinese. Citral, a mixture of two geometrical isomers (neral and geranial), is one of the most important compounds in some citrus oils and has central nervous system (CNS) properties. The anticonvulsant effect of carvacrol (CARV), (-)-borneol (BOR) and citral (CIT) was investigated in two animal models of epilepsy. Mice were pretreated with CARV, BOR or CIT (50, 100, and 200 mg/kg, i.p.) 30 min before pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) or maximal electroshock (MES) tests, the two most important animal epilepsy tests. The latency for development of convulsions and protection percentage was recorded. In order to investigate the involvement of GABAergic system, flumazenil was utilized. These monoterpenes, CARV in a higher, but not in a lower dose (p &lt; 0.001), BOR and CIT in all doses (p &lt; 0.05 or p &lt; 0.001), were capable of promoting an increase of latency for the development of convulsions induced by PTZ. Additionally, these compounds were efficient in preventing the tonic convulsions (p &lt; 0.05) induced by MES. However, the GABAergic neurotransmitter system might be involved, at least in BOR effects. Henceforth, our results suggest that CARV, BOR and CIT possess anticonvulsant activity effect against PTZ-induced convulsions and MES.Key words: Carvacrol, (-)-borneol, citral, anticonvulsant activit

Could petroleum biodegradation be a joint achievement of aerobic and anaerobic microrganisms in deep sea reservoirs?

Several studies suggest that petroleum biodegradation can be achieved by either aerobic or anaerobic microorganisms, depending on oxygen input or other electron acceptors and appropriate nutrients. Evidence from in vitro experiments with samples of petroleum formation water and oils from Pampo Field indicate that petroleum biodegradation is more likely to be a joint achievement of both aerobic and anaerobic bacterial consortium, refining our previous observations of aerobic degradation. The aerobic consortium depleted, in decreasing order, hydrocarbons > hopanes > steranes > tricyclic terpanes while the anaerobic consortium depleted hydrocarbons > steranes > hopanes > tricyclic terpanes. The oxygen content of the mixed consortia was measured from time to time revealing alternating periods of microaerobicity (O2 ~0.8 mg.L-1) and of aerobicity (O2~6.0 mg.L-1). In this experiment, the petroleum biodegradation changed from time to time, alternating periods of biodegradation similar to the aerobic process and periods of biodegradation similar to the anaerobic process. The consortia showed preferences for metabolizing hydrocarbons > hopanes > steranes > tricyclic terpanes during a 90-day period, after which this trend changed and steranes were more biodegraded than hopanes. The analysis of aerobic oil degrading microbiota by the 16S rRNA gene clone library detected the presence of Bacillus, Brevibacterium, Mesorhizobium and Achromobacter, and the analysis of the anaerobic oil degrading microbiota using the same technique detected the presence of Bacillus and Acinetobacter (facultative strains). In the mixed consortia Stenotrophomonas, Brevibacterium, Bacillus, Rhizobium, Achromobacter and 5% uncultured bacteria were detected. This is certainly a new contribution to the study of reservoir biodegradation processes, combining two of the more important accepted hypotheses

Assessing the conservation value of secondary savanna for large mammals in the Brazilian Cerrado

Debate about the conservation value of secondary habitats has tended to focus on tropical forests, increasingly recognizing the role of secondary forests for biodiversity conservation. However, there remains a lack of information about the conservation value of secondary savannas. Here, we conducted a camera trap survey to assess the effect of secondary vegetation on large mammals in a Brazilian Cerrado protected area, using a single-season occupancy framework to investigate the response of individual species (species-level models) and of all species combined (community-level models). In addition, we investigated the cost effectiveness of different sampling designs to monitor globally threatened species in the study area. At the community level, savanna that regenerated from eucalyptus plantation had similar occupancy estimate as old growth areas. At the species level, none of the ten species individually assessed seemed to respond to succession stage, with greater support for the effect of other covariates on occupancy, such as distance from water and vegetation physiognomy. These results demonstrate that secondary vegetation does not appear to negatively impact large mammals in the study area and suggest that, given a favorable context, Cerrado mammals can recolonize and use secondary savannas that regenerated from clearcut. However, our study area should be considered a best-case scenario, as it retained key ecological attributes of high-value secondary habitats. Our simulations showed that a sampling design with 60 camera trap sites surveyed during nine occasions is appropriate to monitor most globally threatened species in the study area, and could be a useful starting point for new monitoring initiatives in other Cerrado areas