Neuroinflammation, Mast Cells, and Glia: Dangerous Liaisons

The perspective of neuroinflammation as an epiphenomenon following neuron damage is being replaced by the awareness of glia and their importance in neural functions and disorders. Systemic inflammation generates signals that communicate with the brain and leads to changes in metabolism and behavior, with microglia assuming a pro-inflammatory phenotype. Identification of potential peripheral-to-central cellular links is thus a critical step in designing effective therapeutics. Mast cells may fulfill such a role. These resident immune cells are found close to and within peripheral nerves and in brain parenchyma/meninges, where they exercise a key role in orchestrating the inflammatory process from initiation through chronic activation. Mast cells and glia engage in crosstalk that contributes to accelerate disease progression; such interactions become exaggerated with aging and increased cell sensitivity to stress. Emerging evidence for oligodendrocytes, independent of myelin and support of axonal integrity, points to their having strong immune functions, innate immune receptor expression, and production/response to chemokines and cytokines that modulate immune responses in the central nervous system while engaging in crosstalk with microglia and astrocytes. In this review, we summarize the findings related to our understanding of the biology and cellular signaling mechanisms of neuroinflammation, with emphasis on mast cell-glia interactions

Interventions for preventing oral mucositis for patients with cancer receiving treatment

Interventions for preventing oral mucositis for patients with cancer receiving treatmentTreatment for cancer (including bone marrow transplant) can cause oral mucositis (severe ulcers in the mouth). This painful condition can cause difficulties in eating, drinking and swallowing, and may also be associated with infections which may require the patient to stay longer in hospital. Different strategies are used to try and prevent this condition, and the review of trials found that some of these are effective. Two interventions, cryotherapy (ice chips) and keratinocyte growth factor (palifermin®) showed some benefit in preventing mucositis. Sucralfate is effective in reducing the severity of mucositis, and a further seven interventions, aloe vera, amifostine, intravenous glutamine, granulocyte‐colony stimulating factor (G‐CSF), honey, laser and antibiotic lozenges containing polymixin/tobramycin/amphotericin (PTA) showed weaker evidence of benefit. These were evaluated in patients with different types of cancer, undergoing different types of cancer treatment. Benefits may be restricted to the disease and treatment combinations evaluated

Pros percibidos, creencias y conocimientos del consumo de alcohol en estudiantes de enfermería: enfoque cualitativo

Introduction: The pros are considered as the value that an individual gives to beliefs, perceptions or positive consequences about the benefits of developing a behavior, in this case, alcohol consumption, especially if the individual's knowledge about this action is deficient. Objective: To analyze the perceived pros, beliefs and knowledge of alcohol consumption in nursing students. Methods: Qualitative study of focused ethnographic type; it was carried out from May to June 2022; with simple random probabilistic sampling. Ten undergraduate nursing students were recruited to analyze the perceived pros, beliefs and knowledge of alcohol consumption; interviews were conducted with prior informed consent and attention to ethical considerations. The data were analyzed in the qualitative data package ATLAS.ti, constructing codes, categories and semantic networks. Results: 90% were women and 10% men, with an average age of 21 years. In relation to the perceived pros, it was identified that "I think it is not necessary to drink" and "I think it influences, at least in my case, I feel that I am a very introverted person and somehow alcohol consumption helps me to loosen up better and live together more". In terms of beliefs, the population considers that "it is not unpleasant to work with drinkers because the patient should be cared for regardless of their condition, but it is more difficult because they are ruder or more complicated to handle". Regarding knowledge, it was found that "I consider that my education on substance use has been thanks to school", "I have not fallen thanks to God into any addiction". Conclusions: Analyzing the perceived pros, beliefs and knowledge of alcohol consumption in nursing students allows us to make a series of recommendations for practice, public policies and future research and intervention projects, since although the sample is aware of the effects of alcohol consumption on the body, their pros and beliefs lead them to adopt a risk pattern, which if not intervened will expose them to greater problems.Introducción: Los pros, son considerados como el valor que un individuo otorga a las creencias, percepciones o consecuencias positivas sobre los beneficios de desarrollar una conducta, en este caso, el consumo de alcohol, máxime si los conocimientos del individuo sobre esa acción son deficientes. Objetivo: Analizar los pros percibidos, creencias y conocimientos del consumo de alcohol en estudiantes de enfermería. Material y métodos: Estudio cualitativo de tipo etnográfico focalizado; se realizó en los meses de mayo a junio de 2022; con muestreo probabilístico aleatorio simple. Se reclutaron a 10 estudiantes de la licenciatura en enfermería a fin de analizar los pros percibidos, creencias y conocimientos del consumo de alcohol.; se realizaron entrevistas con previo consentimiento informado y atención a las consideraciones éticas. Los datos se analizaron en el paquete de datos cualitativos ATLAS.ti, construyendo códigos, categorías y redes semánticas. Resultados: el 90% son mujeres y el 10% hombres y con media de edad de 21 años. Con relación a los pros percibidos se identificó que “pienso que no es necesario beber” y “creo que influye, por lo menos en mi caso, siento que soy una persona muy introvertida y de alguna manera el consumo del alcohol ayuda a soltarme mejor y convivir más”. Para las creencias la población considera que “no es desagradable trabajar con bebedores porque se debe dar atención al paciente independientemente de cómo esté su condición, sí es más dificultoso porque son más groseros o complicados de manejar”. Respecto a los conocimientos se encontró que “considero que mi educación sobre el uso de sustancias ha sido gracias a la escuela”, “no he caído gracias a Dios en ninguna adicción”. Conclusiones: Analizar los pros percibidos, creencias y conocimientos del consumo de alcohol en estudiantes de enfermería permite realizar una serie de recomendaciones a la práctica, políticas públicas y futuros proyectos de investigación e intervención, ya que la muestra aunque conoce los efectos en el organismo por el consumo de alcohol, sus pros y creencias los lleva a adoptar un patrón de riesgo, que de no ser intervenido estarán expuestos a problemas mayores

Children's traditional ecological knowledge of wild food resources: a case study in a rural village in Northeast Thailand

Consuming wild foods is part of the food ways of people in many societies, including farming populations throughout the world. Knowledge of non-domesticated food resources is part of traditional and tacit ecological knowledge, and is largely transmitted through socialization within cultural and household contexts. The context of this study, a small village in Northeast Thailand, is one where the community has experienced changes due to the migration of the parental generation, with the children being left behind in the village to be raised by their grandparents

Famine food of vegetal origin consumed in the Netherlands during World War II

Background: Periods of extreme food shortages during war force people to eat food that they normally do not consider edible. The last time that countries in Western Europe experienced severe scarcities was during World War II. The so-called Dutch famine or Hunger Winter (1944-1945) made at least 25,000 victims. The Dutch government took action by opening soup kitchens and providing information on wild plants and other famine food sources in "wartime cookbooks." The Dutch wartime diet has never been examined from an ethnobotanical perspective. Methods: We interviewed 78 elderly Dutch citizens to verify what they remembered of the consumption of vegetal and fungal famine food during World War II by them and their close surroundings. We asked whether they experienced any adverse effects from consuming famine food plants and how they knew they were edible. We identified plant species mentioned during interviews by their local Dutch names and illustrated field guides and floras. We hypothesized that people living in rural areas consumed more wild species than urban people. A Welch t test was performed to verify whether the number of wild and cultivated species differed between urban and rural citizens. Results: A total number of 38 emergency food species (14 cultivated and 21 wild plants, three wild fungi) were mentioned during interviews. Sugar beets, tulip bulbs, and potato peels were most frequently consumed. Regularly eaten wild species were common nettle, blackberry, and beechnuts. Almost one third of our interviewees explicitly described to have experienced extreme hunger during the war. People from rural areas listed significantly more wild species than urban people. The number of cultivated species consumed by both groups was similar. Negative effects were limited to sore throats and stomachache from the consumption of sugar beets and tulip bulbs. Knowledge on the edibility of famine food was obtained largely by oral transmission; few people remembered the written recipes in wartime cookbooks. Conclusion: This research shows that 71years after the Second World War, knowledge on famine food species, once crucial for people's survival, is still present in the Dutch society. The information on famine food sources supplied by several institutions was not distributed widely. For the necessary revival of famine food knowledge during the 1940s, people needed to consult a small group of elders. Presumed toxicity was a major reason given by our participants to explain why they did not collect wild plants or mushrooms during the war

Using graph theory to analyze biological networks

Understanding complex systems often requires a bottom-up analysis towards a systems biology approach. The need to investigate a system, not only as individual components but as a whole, emerges. This can be done by examining the elementary constituents individually and then how these are connected. The myriad components of a system and their interactions are best characterized as networks and they are mainly represented as graphs where thousands of nodes are connected with thousands of vertices. In this article we demonstrate approaches, models and methods from the graph theory universe and we discuss ways in which they can be used to reveal hidden properties and features of a network. This network profiling combined with knowledge extraction will help us to better understand the biological significance of the system

Biased-corrected richness estimates for the Amazonian tree flora

Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia is best approximated by a logseries with aggregated individuals, where aggregation increases with rarity. By averaging several methods to estimate total richness, we confirm that over 15,000 tree species are expected to occur in Amazonia. We also show that using ten times the number of plots would result in an increase to just ~50% of those 15,000 estimated species. To get a more complete sample of all tree species, rigorous field campaigns may be needed but the number of trees in Amazonia will remain an estimate for years to come

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe