The personal experience of parenting a child with Juvenile Huntington’s Disease: perceptions across Europe

The study reported here presents a detailed description of what it is like to parent a child with juvenile Huntington’s disease in families across four European countries. Its primary aim was to develop and extend findings from a previous UK study. The study recruited parents from four European countries: Holland, Italy, Poland and Sweden,. A secondary aim was to see the extent to which the findings from the UK study were repeated across Europe and the degree of commonality or divergence across the different countries. Fourteen parents who were the primary caregiver took part in a semistructured interview. These were analyzed using an established qualitative methodology, interpretative phenomenological analysis. Five analytic themes were derived from the analysis: the early signs of something wrong; parental understanding of juvenile Huntington’s disease; living with the disease; other people’s knowledge and understanding; and need for support. These are discussed in light of the considerable convergence between the experiences of families in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe

Polymyxin B has multiple blocking actions on the ATP-sensitive potassium channel in insulin-secreting cells

The action of polymyxin B (0.1 μM) on ATP-sensitive K+ (K+ ATP) channels in RINm5F insulin-secreting cells was investigated by patch-clamp techniques. Using inside-out patches, open-cells and outside-out patches, polymyxin B was found to block K+ ATP channels by, on average, approximately 90-95 of the initial control level of channel activity. The effects were rapid in onset, sustained and readily reversible. Similar effects were found in patches excised from cells pretreated overnight with 1 μM of the phorbol ester phorbol myristate acetate (PMA). External block of channels was associated with a marked decrease in single-channel current amplitude, whereas these effects were not seen when polymyxin B was added to the inside face of the membrane. In patches bathed with internally applied ATP (0.5 mM) and ADP (0.5 mM), polymyxin B inhibited channels but its actions were not reversible upon removal of the compound. However, when the same protocol was undertaken upon cells pre-treated with PMA, the effects of polymyxin B were readily reversed. Our data suggests that polymyxin B is a novel modulator of K+ ATP channels, exhibiting multiple blocking actions that may possibly involve a direct effect upon the channel and indirect effects mediated through the inhibition of endogenous protein kinase(s). © 1994 Springer-Verlag