The development of direct extrusion-injection moulded zein matrices as novel oral controlled drug delivery systems

Purpose: To evaluate the potential of zein as a sole excipient for controlled release formulations prepared by hot melt extrusion. Methods: Physical mixtures of zein, water and crystalline paracetamol were hot melt extruded (HME) at 80°C and injection moulded (IM) into caplet forms. HME-IM Caplets were characterised using differential scanning calorimetry, ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and powder X-ray diffraction. Hydration and drug release kinetics of the caplets were investigated and fitted to a diffusion model. Results: For the formulations with lower drug loadings, the drug was found to be in the non-crystalline state, while for the ones with higher drug loadings paracetamol is mostly crystalline. Release was found to be largely independent of drug loading but strongly dependent upon device dimensions, and predominately governed by a Fickian diffusion mechanism, while the hydration kinetics shows the features of Case II diffusion. Conclusions: In this study a prototype controlled release caplet formulation using zein as the sole excipient was successfully prepared using direct HME-IM processing. The results demonstrated the unique advantage of the hot melt extruded zein formulations on the tuneability of drug release rate by alternating the device dimensions

Word Processing differences between dyslexic and control children

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to investigate brain responses triggered by different wordclasses in dyslexic and control children. The majority of dyslexic children have difficulties to phonologically assemble a word from sublexical parts following grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences. Therefore, we hypothesised that dyslexic children should mainly differ from controls processing low frequent words that are unfamiliar to the reader. METHODS: We presented different wordclasses (high and low frequent words, pseudowords) in a rapid serial visual word (RSVP) design and performed wavelet analysis on the evoked activity. RESULTS: Dyslexic children had lower evoked power amplitudes and a higher spectral frequency for low frequent words compared to control children. No group differences were found for high frequent words and pseudowords. Control children had higher evoked power amplitudes and a lower spectral frequency for low frequent words compared to high frequent words and pseudowords. This pattern was not present in the dyslexic group. CONCLUSION: Dyslexic children differed from control children only in their brain responses to low frequent words while showing no modulated brain activity in response to the three word types. This might support the hypothesis that dyslexic children are selectively impaired reading words that require sublexical processing. However, the lacking differences between word types raise the question if dyslexic children were able to process the words presented in rapid serial fashion in an adequate way. Therefore the present results should only be interpreted as evidence for a specific sublexical processing deficit with caution

"Now we are in a different time; various bad diseases have come." understanding men's acceptability of male circumcision for HIV prevention in a moderate prevalence setting

Background: Adult male surgical circumcision (MC) has been shown to reduce HIV acquisition in men and is recommended by the WHO for inclusion in comprehensive national HIV prevention programs in high prevalence settings. Only limited research to date has been conducted in countries experiencing moderate burden epidemics, where the acceptability, operational feasibility and potential epidemiological impact of MC remain unclear. Methods. A multi-method qualitative research study was conducted at four sites in Papua New Guinea (PNG), with 24 focus group discussions and 65 in-depth interviews carried out among 276 men. Results: The majority of men were in favour of MC being introduced for HIV prevention in PNG and considered improved genital hygiene, enhanced sexual pleasure and culturally appropriateness key factors in the acceptability of a future intervention. A minority of men were against the introduction of MC, primarily due to concerns regarding sexual risk compensation and that the intervention went against prevailing cultural and religious beliefs. Conclusion: This is one of the first community-based MC acceptability studies conducted in a moderate prevalence setting outside of Africa. Research findings from this study suggest that a future MC program for HIV prevention would be widely accepted by men in PNG