Role of traditional healers in the management of severe malaria among children below five years of age: the case of Kilosa and Handeni Districts, Tanzania

BACKGROUND: The current malaria control strategy of WHO centres on early diagnosis and prompt treatment using effective drugs. Children with severe malaria are often brought late to health facilities and traditional health practitioners are said to be the main cause of treatment delay. In the context of the Rectal Artesunate Project in Tanzania, the role of traditional healers in the management of severe malaria in children was studied. METHODOLOGY: A community cross-sectional study was conducted in Kilosa and Handeni Districts, involving four villages selected on the basis of existing statistics on the number of traditional health practitioners involved in the management of severe malaria. A total of 41 traditional health practitioners were selected using the snowballing technique, whereby in-depth interviews were used to collect information. Eight Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) involving traditional health practitioners, caregivers and community leaders were carried out in each district. RESULTS: Home management of fever involving sponging or washing with warm water at the household level, was widely practiced by caregivers. One important finding was that traditional health practitioners and mothers were not linking the local illness termed degedege, a prominent feature in severe malaria, to biomedically-defined malaria. The majority of mothers (75%) considered degedege to be caused by evil spirits. The healing process was therefore organized in stages and failure to abide to the procedure could lead to relapse of degedege, which was believed to be caused by evil spirits. Treatment seeking was, therefore, a complex process and mothers would consult traditional health practitioners and modern health care providers, back and forth. Referrals to health facilities increased during the Rectal Artesunate Project, whereby project staff facilitated the process after traditional medical care with the provision of suppositories. This finding is challenging the common view that traditional healers are an important factor of delay for malaria treatment, they actually play a pivotal role by giving "bio-medically accepted first aid" which leads to reduction in body temperature hence increasing chances of survival for the child. Increasing the collaboration between traditional healers and modern health care providers was shown to improve the management of severe malaria in the studied areas. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSION: Traditional health care is not necessarily a significant impediment or a delaying factor in the treatment of severe malaria. There is a need to foster training on the management of severe cases, periodically involving both traditional health practitioners and health workers to identify modalities of better collaboration

Phylogenetic Analysis Suggests That Habitat Filtering Is Structuring Marine Bacterial Communities Across the Globe

The phylogenetic structure and community composition were analysed in an existing data set of marine bacterioplankton communities to elucidate the evolutionary and ecological processes dictating the assembly. The communities were sampled from coastal waters at nine locations distributed worldwide and were examined through the use of comprehensive clone libraries of 16S ribosomal RNA genes. The analyses show that the local communities are phylogenetically different from each other and that a majority of them are phylogenetically clustered, i.e. the species (operational taxonomic units) were more related to each other than expected by chance. Accordingly, the local communities were assembled non-randomly from the global pool of available bacterioplankton. Further, the phylogenetic structures of the communities were related to the water temperature at the locations. In agreement with similar studies, including both macroorganisms and bacteria, these results suggest that marine bacterial communities are structured by “habitat filtering”, i.e. through non-random colonization and invasion determined by environmental characteristics. Different bacterial types seem to have different ecological niches that dictate their survival in different habitats. Other eco-evolutionary processes that may contribute to the observed phylogenetic patterns are discussed. The results also imply a mapping between phenotype and phylogenetic relatedness which facilitates the use of community phylogenetic structure analysis to infer ecological and evolutionary assembly processes

Breeding systems in Tolpis (Asteraceae) in the Macaronesian islands: the Azores, Madeira and the Canaries

Plants on oceanic islands often originate from self-compatible (SC) colonizers capable of seed set by self fertilization. This fact is supported by empirical studies, and is rooted in the hypothesis that one (or few) individuals could find a sexual population, whereas two or more would be required if the colonizers were self-incompatible (SI). However, a SC colonizer would have lower heterozygosity than SI colonizers, which could limit radiation and diver sification of lineages following establishment. Limited evidence suggests that several species-rich island lineages in the family Asteraceae originated from SI colonizers with some ‘‘leakiness’’ (pseudo-self-compatibility, PSC) such that some self-seed could be produced. This study of Tolpis (Asteraceae) in Macaronesia provides first reports of the breeding system in species from the Azores and Madeira, and additional insights into variation in Canary Islands. Tolpis from the Azores and Madeira are predominately SI but with PSC. This study suggests that the breeding sys tems of the ancestors were either PSC, possibly from a single colonizer, or from SI colonizers by multiple dis seminules either from a single or multiple dispersals. Long distance colonists capable of PSC combine the advantages of reproductive assurance (via selfing) in the establishment of sexual populations from even a single colonizer with the higher heterozygosity resulting from its origin from an outcrossed source population. Evolution of Tolpis on the Canaries and Madeira has generated diversity in breeding systems, including the origin of SC. Macaronesian Tolpis is an excellent system for studying breeding system evolution in a small, diverse lineage.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Current challenges in software solutions for mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteomics

This work was in part supported by the PRIME-XS project, grant agreement number 262067, funded by the European Union seventh Framework Programme; The Netherlands Proteomics Centre, embedded in The Netherlands Genomics Initiative; The Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre; and the Centre for Biomedical Genetics (to S.C., B.B. and A.J.R.H); by NIH grants NCRR RR001614 and RR019934 (to the UCSF Mass Spectrometry Facility, director: A.L. Burlingame, P.B.); and by grants from the MRC, CR-UK, BBSRC and Barts and the London Charity (to P.C.

Brain injury-associated biomarkers of TGF-beta1, S100B, GFAP, NF-L, tTG, AbetaPP, and tau were concomitantly enhanced and the UPS was impaired during acute brain injury caused by Toxocara canis in mice

BACKGROUND: Because the outcomes and sequelae after different types of brain injury (BI) are variable and difficult to predict, investigations on whether enhanced expressions of BI-associated biomarkers (BIABs), including transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1), S100B, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), neurofilament light chain( NF-L), tissue transglutaminases (tTGs), beta-amyloid precursor proteins (AbetaPP), and tau are present as well as whether impairment of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) is present have been widely used to help delineate pathophysiological mechanisms in various BIs. Larvae of Toxocara canis can invade the brain and cause BI in humans and mice, leading to cerebral toxocariasis (CT). Because the parasitic burden is light in CT, it may be too cryptic to be detected in humans, making it difficult to clearly understand the pathogenesis of subtle BI in CT. Since the pathogenesis of murine toxocariasis is very similar to that in humans, it appears appropriate to use a murine model to investigate the pathogenesis of CT. METHODS: BIAB expressions and UPS function in the brains of mice inoculated with a single dose of 250 T. canis embryonated eggs was investigated from 3 days (dpi) to 8 weeks post- infection (wpi) by Western blotting and RT-PCR. RESULTS: Results revealed that at 4 and 8 wpi, T. canis larvae were found to have invaded areas around the choroid plexus but without eliciting leukocyte infiltration in brains of infected mice; nevertheless, astrogliosis, an indicator of BI, with 78.9~142.0-fold increases in GFAP expression was present. Meanwhile, markedly increased levels of other BIAB proteins including TGF-beta1, S100B, NF-L, tTG, AbetaPP, and tau, with increases ranging 2.0~12.0-fold were found, although their corresponding mRNA expressions were not found to be present at 8 wpi. Concomitantly, UPS impairment was evidenced by the overexpression of conjugated ubiquitin and ubiquitin in the brain. CONCLUSION: Further studies are needed to determine whether there is an increased risk of CT progression into neurodegenerative disease because neurodegeneration-associated AbetaPP and phosphorylated tau emerged in the brain. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2334-8-8

Decadal prediction of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre in the HiGEM high-resolution climate model

This paper presents an analysis of initialised decadal hindcasts of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre (SPG) using the HiGEM model, which has a nominal grid-spacing of 90 km in the atmosphere, and 1/3 ∘∘ in the ocean. HiGEM decadal predictions (HiGEM-DP) exhibit significant skill at capturing 0–500 m ocean heat content in the SPG, and outperform historically forced transient integrations and persistence for up to a decade ahead. An analysis of case-studies of North Atlantic decadal change, including the 1960s cooling, the mid-1990s warming, and the post-2005 cooling, show that changes in ocean circulation and heat transport dominate the predictions of the SPG. However, different processes are found to dominate heat content changes in different regions of the SPG. Specifically, ocean advection dominates in the east, but surface fluxes dominate in the west. Furthermore, compared to previous studies, we find a smaller role for ocean heat transport changes due to ocean circulation anomalies at the latitudes of the SPG, and, for the 1960s cooling, a greater role for surface fluxes. Finally, HiGEM-DP predicts the observed positive state of the North Atlantic Oscillation in the early 1990s. These results support an important role for the ocean in driving past changes in the North Atlantic region, and suggest that these changes were predictable

Breakfast Staple Types Affect Brain Gray Matter Volume and Cognitive Function in Healthy Children

Childhood diet is important for brain development. Furthermore, the quality of breakfast is thought to affect the cognitive functioning of well-nourished children. To analyze the relationship among breakfast staple type, gray matter volume, and intelligence quotient (IQ) in 290 healthy children, we used magnetic resonance images and applied voxel-based morphometry. We divided subjects into rice, bread, and both groups according to their breakfast staple. We showed that the rice group had a significantly larger gray matter ratio (gray matter volume percentage divided by intracranial volume) and significantly larger regional gray matter volumes of several regions, including the left superior temporal gyrus. The bread group had significantly larger regional gray and white matter volumes of several regions, including the right frontoparietal region. The perceptual organization index (POI; IQ subcomponent) of the rice group was significantly higher than that of the bread group. All analyses were adjusted for age, gender, intracranial volume, socioeconomic status, average weekly frequency of having breakfast, and number of side dishes eaten for breakfast. Although several factors may have affected the results, one possible mechanism underlying the difference between the bread and the rice groups may be the difference in the glycemic index (GI) of these two substances; foods with a low GI are associated with less blood-glucose fluctuation than are those with a high GI. Our study suggests that breakfast staple type affects brain gray and white matter volumes and cognitive function in healthy children; therefore, a diet of optimal nutrition is important for brain maturation during childhood and adolescence

Interspecific Hybridization and Mitochondrial Introgression in Invasive Carcinus Shore Crabs

Interspecific hybridization plays an important role in facilitating adaptive evolutionary change. More specifically, recent studies have demonstrated that hybridization may dramatically influence the establishment, spread, and impact of invasive populations. In Japan, previous genetic evidence for the presence of two non-native congeners, the European green crab Carcinus maenas and the Mediterranean green crab C. aestuarii, has raised questions regarding the possibility of hybridization between these sister species. Here I present analysis based on both nuclear microsatellites and the mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase subunit I (COI) gene which unambiguously argues for a hybrid origin of Japanese Carcinus. Despite the presence of mitochondrial lineages derived from both C. maenas and C. aestuarii, the Japanese population is panmictic at nuclear loci and has achieved cytonuclear equilibrium throughout the sampled range in Japan. Furthermore, analysis of admixture at nuclear loci indicates dramatic introgression of the C. maenas mitochondrial genome into a predominantly C. aestuarii nuclear background. These patterns, along with inferences drawn from the observational record, argue for a hybridization event pre-dating the arrival of Carcinus in Japan. The clarification of both invasion history and evolutionary history afforded by genetic analysis provides information that may be critically important to future studies aimed at assessing risks posed by invasive Carcinus populations to Japan and the surrounding region

Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs and Cognitive Function: Are Prostaglandins at the Heart of Cognitive Impairment in Dementia and Delirium ?

Studies of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in rheumatoid arthritis imply that inflammation is important in the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, these drugs have not alleviated the symptoms of AD in those who have already developed dementia. This suggests that the primary mediator targeted by these drugs, PGE2, is not actively suppressing memory function in AD. Amyloid-β oligomers appear to be important for the mild cognitive changes seen in AD transgenic mice, yet amyloid immunotherapy has also proven unsuccessful in clinical trials. Collectively, these findings indicate that NSAIDs may target a prodromal process in mice that has already passed in those diagnosed with AD, and that synaptic and neuronal loss are key determinants of cognitive dysfunction in AD. While the role of inflammation has not yet become clear, inflammatory processes definitely have a negative impact on cognitive function during episodes of delirium during dementia. Delirium is an acute and profound impairment of cognitive function frequently occurring in aged and demented patients exposed to systemic inflammatory insults, which is now recognised to contribute to long-term cognitive decline. Recent work in animal models is beginning to shed light on the interactions between systemic inflammation and CNS pathology in these acute exacerbations of dementia. This review will assess the role of prostaglandin synthesis in the memory impairments observed in dementia and delirium and will examine the relative contribution of amyloid, synaptic and neuronal loss. We will also discuss how understanding the role of inflammatory mediators in delirious episodes will have major implications for ameliorating the rate of decline in the demented population