Microstructural Correlates of Resilience against Major Depressive Disorder: Epigenetic Mechanisms?

Mental disorders are a major cause of long-term disability and are a direct cause of mortality, with approximately 800.000 individuals dying from suicide every year worldwide - a high proportion of them related to major depressive disorder (MDD)^1^. Healthy relatives of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) are at risk to develop the disease. This higher vulnerability is associated with structural^2-4^ and functional brain changes^5^. However, we found using high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) with 61 diffusion directions that neuron tracts between frontal cortices and limbic as well as temporal and parietal brain regions are characterized by better diffusion coefficients in unaffected relatives (UHR), who managed to stay healthy, compared to healthy volunteers without any family history for a psychiatric disease (HC). Moreover, those UHR with stronger fibre connections better managed incidences of adversity in early life without later developing depression, while in HC axonal connections were found to be decreased when they had early-life adversity. Altogether these findings indicate the presence of stronger neural fibre connections in UHR, which seem to be associated with resilience against environmental stressors, which we suggest occur through epigenetic mechanisms

Neurochemical substrates and neuroanatomical generators of the event-related P300

The present review focuses on the current knowledge of the neurochemical processes and neuronal structures involved in the generation of P300. The increasing knowledge in this area facilitates the physiological interpretation of P300 findings as well as the link between P300 research and other research findings in biological psychiatry. Concerning the question of neurochemical substrates, the glutamatergic, GABAergic, cholinergic, noradrenergic, dopaminergic and serotonergic influences on P300 are reviewed. The knowledge of the generating structures of P300 is summarized from intracranial studies, magnetoencephalographic investigations, lesion and animal studies

Phase transitions and ordering of confined dipolar fluids

We apply a modified mean-field density functional theory to determine the phase behavior of Stockmayer fluids in slitlike pores formed by two walls with identical substrate potentials. Based on the Carnahan-Starling equation of state, a fundamental-measure theory is employed to incorporate the effects of short-ranged hard sphere - like correlations while the long-ranged contributions to the fluid interaction potential are treated perturbatively. The liquid-vapor, ferromagnetic liquid - vapor, and ferromagnetic liquid - isotropic liquid first-order phase separations are investigated. The local orientational structure of the anisotropic and inhomogeneous ferromagnetic liquid phase is also studied. We discuss how the phase diagrams are shifted and distorted upon varying the pore width.Comment: 15 pages including 8 figure

Cerebral differences in explicit and implicit emotional processing - An fMRI study

The processing of emotional facial expression is a major part of social communication and understanding. In addition to explicit processing, facial expressions are also processed rapidly and automatically in the absence of explicit awareness. We investigated 12 healthy subjects by presenting them with an implicit and explicit emotional paradigm. The subjects reacted significantly faster in implicit than in explicit trials but did not differ in their error ratio. For the implicit condition increased signals were observed in particular in the thalami, the hippocampi, the frontal inferior gyri and the right middle temporal region. The analysis of the explicit condition showed increased blood-oxygen-level-dependent signals especially in the caudate nucleus, the cingulum and the right prefrontal cortex. The direct comparison of these 2 different processes revealed increased activity for explicit trials in the inferior, superior and middle frontal gyri, the middle cingulum and left parietal regions. Additional signal increases were detected in occipital regions, the cerebellum, and the right angular and lingual gyrus. Our data partially confirm the hypothesis of different neural substrates for the processing of implicit and explicit emotional stimuli. Copyright (c) 2007 S. Karger AG, Basel

Overlap between Autism Spectrum Disorder and Bipolar Affective Disorder

Background: At present there is a substantial uncertainty regarding the extent and nature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and bipolar affective disorder (BPAD) co-occurrence due to disparate findings in previous studies. This paper aimed to find and review original studies on co-occurrence rates of ASD with BPAD, assess them, synthesize the findings in a systematic way, present an overview and make recommendations for future research. Methods: Systematic literature searches were performed using several databases. Selected articles had to describe an original study that provided prevalence and/or incidence analysis on ASD co-occurring together with BPAD. Results and Conclusion: A significant minority of patients (7%) with ASD suffers from BPAD. An accurate detection of co-occurring ASD and BPAD can lead to a more targeted treatment and improve the patients' functioning and quality of life

Laudo Antropológico Forense

Laudo técnico antropológico para estimativa de perfil biológico e fatores individualizantes para fins de identificação humana. Caso analisado: Indivíduo nº 020 - Coleção Cemiterial do IEPCF - Guarulhos/LEA UNIFES

A importância da antropologia forense no caso John Wayne Gacy

Esse caso é um claro exemplo sobre como a sociedade trata a homossexualidade nos dias de hoje. Os números do relatório anual divulgado em 2012 apontam para uma situação muito delicada: a homossexualidade é ilegal em 78 países, condições inaceitáveis que persistem no século XXI ². Segundo relatório do Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB) divulgado nesse ano de 2022, no Brasil apresenta a média de uma morte por homofobia a cada 23 hora