Circadian rhythmicity in emerging mood disorders: state or trait marker?

Background: Circadian rhythm disturbances overlap with the symptoms of mood episodes and may trigger or prolong mood symptoms. There is limited research on the role of circadian disturbances in mood disorders in young people and/or first episode cases of unipolar and bipolar disorders. Methods: Actigraphy was undertaken for about 14 days in 63 post-pubertal individuals aged 13–25 years with a recent onset of a mood disorder meeting recognised diagnostic criteria. We examined associations between three easily interpretable markers of circadian rhythm activity (amplitude, acrophase and rhythmicity index) and demography and clinical characteristics. Then, circadian markers were compared between diagnostic groups, controlling for potential confounders. Results: Longer duration of illness was correlated with reduced circadian rhythmicity and lower levels of activity over 24 h. A delay in the timing of maximum activity was associated with the level of manic but not depressive symptoms. The circadian rhythmicity index differentiated unipolar from bipolar cases, and in bipolar but not unipolar disorder, the rhythmicity was less robust in those with more severe manic or depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Less robust circadian rhythmicity, especially associated with increasing symptom severity, may represent a more specific or a trait marker of young people with mood disorders who are at higher risk of a bipolar course of illness

IN VITRO ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF EXTRACTS FROM THE LEAVES OF FELICIA MURICATA THUNB. AN UNDERUTILIZED MEDICINAL PLANT IN THE EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA

Felicia muricata is a medicinal plant used for the management of different human and livestock diseases in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The antioxidant potential of the leaves from this herb was investigated using its water, methanol, acetone and ethanol extracts. All the extracts were rich in phenols, proanthocyanidins and flavonols but low in flavonoids. The water extract exhibited low DPPH scavenging activity while the methanol, acetone and ethanol extracts showed higher activities. Again all the extracts showed high ABTS scavenging activity with a correlation between total phenolic content (R2=0.9965), DPPH (R2 =0.982) and ABTS (R2=0.927). Traditionally, however, plant extracts are prepared with water as infusions, decoction and poultice. Our results have shown that both the water and ethanol extracts from Felicia muricata displayed strong antioxidant activity. Therefore, it would seem likely that both solvents were able to extract those compounds which are responsible for the antioxidant activity of F. muricata

Influence of Surface Passivation on the Friction and Wear Behavior of Ultrananocrystalline Diamond and Tetrahedral Amorphous Carbon Thin Films

Highly sp3-bonded, nearly hydrogen-free carbon-based materials can exhibit extremely low friction and wear in the absence of any liquid lubricant, but this physical behavior is limited by the vapor environment. The effect of water vapor on friction and wear is examined as a function of applied normal force for two such materials in thin film form: one that is fully amorphous in structure (tetrahedral amorphous carbon, or ta-C) and one that is polycrystalline with sp3 to disordered sp2 bonding is observed, no crystalline graphite formation is observed for either film. Rather, the primary solid-lubrication mechanism is the passivation of dangling bonds by OH and H from the dissociation of vapor-phase H2O. This vapor-phase lubrication mechanism is highly effective, producing friction coefficients as low as 0.078 for ta-C and 0.008 for UNCD, and wear rates requiring thousands of sliding passes to produce a few nanometers of wear

Serum Concentrations of Myostatin and Myostatin-Interacting Proteins do not differ between young and Scarcopenic elderly men

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