Antidepressants stimulate population growth in the harpacticoid copepod Nitocra spinipes

Like many pharmaceuticals, antidepressants are designed in such a way that they do not degrade easily. Due to their limited breakdown capabilities, they often enter sewage systems in their active form and may even end up in the environment. Significant concentrations of the commonly prescribed antidepressant citalopram have been measured in freshwater systems in the past. Moreover, recent experiments in our laboratory revealed effects on the life history of the harpacticoid copepod Nitocra spinipes caused by exposure to citalopram at concentrations of 100 ng/L and upward. It is, however, unclear how these effects on individuals propagate to the population level. In this study, freshly initialized populations of N. spinipes were exposed to citalopram hydrobromide at concentrations of 0 (control), 100, 1000 μg/L (18 populations per treatment). After 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 weeks, 3 replicate populations per treatment were permanently removed from the setup and preserved in 70% ethanol. All samples were first counted manually under a light microscope (excluding the larval stages which were too small) and subsequently photo-documented using a FlowCam. Manual counts showed no effects on the population abundance at 100 μg/L. At 1000 μg/L, population abundances were slightly reduced, at first, but strongly exceeded the control at weeks 7 and 8. This supposed stimulation effect may be attributed to an increased reproduction rate which had been observed earlier in individual females exposed to citalopram. At the time of abstract submission, the FlowCam pictures are still being processed. They are, however, expected to allow for a more thorough evaluation of the population dynamics, including high-resolution size-distributions of each sample, over time. The results of this study indicate no immediate threat of citalopram to N. spinipes at concentrations found in the environment (< 1 μg/L). However, they provide valuable insights into the form and timing of stressor-induced population-level effects on N. spinipes

Sphingosine 1-phosphate in renal diseases

Because of its highly bioactive properties sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) is an attractive target for the treatment of several diseases. Since the expression of sphingosine kinases as well as S1P receptors was demonstrated in the kidney, questions about the physiological and pathophysiological functions of S1P in this organ have been raised. In this review, we summarize the current state of knowledge about S1P-mediated functions in the kidney. A special focus is put on S1P modulated signal transduction in renal glomerular and tubular cells and consequences for the development and treatment of several kidney diseases, diabetic nephropathy, glomerulonephritis, ischemia-reperfusion injury, as well as for Wilms tumor progression

Harpacticoid copepods in a DEB framework : investigating pharmaceutical effects on Nitocra spinipes

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Uniform decrease of alpha-global field power induced by intermittent photic stimulation of healthy subjects

Nineteen-channel EEGs were recorded from the scalp surface of 30 healthy subjects (16 males and 14 females, mean age: 34 years, SD: 11.7 years) at rest and under trains of intermittent photic stimulation (IPS) at rates of 5, 10 and 20 Hz. Digitalized data were submitted to spectral analysis with fast fourier transformation providing the basis for the computation of global field power (GFP). For quantification, GFP values in the frequency ranges of 5, 10 and 20 Hz at rest were divided by the corresponding data obtained under IPS. All subjects showed a photic driving effect at each rate of stimulation. GFP data were normally distributed, whereas ratios from photic driving effect data showed no uniform behavior due to high interindividual variability. Suppression of alpha-power after IPS with 10 Hz was observed in about 70% of the volunteers. In contrast, ratios of alpha-power were unequivocal in all subjects: IPS at 20 Hz always led to a suppression of alpha-power. Dividing alpha-GFP with 20-Hz IPS by alpha-GFP at rest (R = a-GFPIPS/a-GFPrest) thus resulted in ratios lower than 1. We conclude that ratios from GFP data with 20-Hz IPS may provide a suitable paradigm for further investigations. Key words: EEG, Brain mapping, Intermittent photic stimulation, IPS, Global field power ratio

Multi-Dimensional Transitional Dynamics: A Simple Numberical Procedure

We propose the relaxation algorithm as a simple and powerful method for simulating the transition process in growth models. This method has a number of important advantages: (1 It can easily deal with a wide range of dynamic systems including stiff differential equations and systems giving rise to a continuum of stationary equilibria. (2) The application of theprocedure is fairly user friendly. The only input required consists of the dynamic system. (3) The variant of the relaxation algorithm we propose exploits in a natural manner the infinite time horizon, which usually underlies optimal control problems in economics. As an illustrative application, we simulate the transition process of the Jones (1995) and the Lucas (1988) model.transitional dynamics, continuous time growth models, saddle-point problems, multi-dimensional stable manifolds

Rethinking the Concept of Long-Run Economic Growth

This paper argues that growth theory needs a more general “regularity” concept than that of exponential growth. This offers the possibility of considering a richer set of parameter combinations than in standard growth models. Allowing zero population growth in the Jones (1995) model serves as our illustration of the usefulness of a general concept of “regular growth”.exponential growth, arithmetic growth, regular growth, semi-endogenous growth, knife-edge restrictions