Perfil neuropsicológico, neurofisiológico y emocional de pacientes con acromegalia en diferentes estados de la enfermedad

Programa de Doctorado en NeurocienciasEstudios recientes sugieren que los pacientes expuestos a una hipersecreción del eje somatotropo (acromegalia) pueden presentar un deterioro neurocognitivo. El presente trabajo de tesis investiga esta posibilidad examinando a pacientes con la acromegalia en diferentes situaciones clínicas, como son en la fase naive sin tratar o las situaciones de curación/control de la enfermedad. Con metodología de evaluación neuropsicológica y neurofisiológica se encuentran déficits en las funciones ejecutivas y memoria en los pacientes naive y en aquellos pacientes cuyo control de la enfermedad se lleva a cabo con fármacos inhibidores del eje somatotropo. Además, estos pacientes muestran un descenso en la actividad cerebral en áreas específicas del cerebro, como son la corteza prefrontal y el cortex medial temporal. Los pacientes curados sin fármacos no presentan estos déficits cognitivos y su examen neurofisiológico muestra signos de mejoría respecto a los otros pacientes. Estos resultados suponen un apoyo hacía la afectación cerebral en situaciones de hipersecreción de GH e IGF-I y aporta evidencias sobre el efecto de ciertas hormonas en el funcionamiento del sistema nervioso central.Universidad Pablo de Olavide. Departamento de Fisiología, Anatomía y Biología Celula

The effect of task difficulty on decision-making: Differences between obsessive–compulsive disorder and non-affective psychosis

The aim was to determine whether there are differences between groups in jumping to conclusions and the number of beads required to make a decision based on task difficulty. An assessment was made of 19 patients with non-affective psychosis, 19 with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and 19 healthy controls. The Beads Task scale was used in its two versions. Patients with non-affective psychosis jumped to conclusions. There was significant interaction between group and task difficulty. Increased difficulty of the task did not affect the number of beads patients with non-affective psychosis or OCD needed to make their decision. However, healthy controls needed to see more beads before they could make a decision in the hard test than in the easy one. Patients with non-affective psychosis jump to conclusions, but neither this group nor the OCD patients benefit from the changes in task difficulty when making their decisions

Binding of PhoP to promoters of phosphate‐regulated genes in Streptomyces coelicolor: identification of PHO boxes

[EN] The control of phosphate-regulated genes in Streptomyces coelicolor is mediated by the two-component system PhoR–PhoP. When coupled to the reporter xylE gene the pstS, phoRP and phoU promoters were shown to be very sensitive to phosphate regulation. The transcription start points of the pstS, the phoRP and the phoU promoters were identified by primer extension. phoRP showed a leaderless transcript. The response-regulator (DNA-binding) PhoP protein was overexpressed and purified in Escherichia coli as a GST–PhoP fused protein. The DNA-binding domain (DBD) of PhoP was also obtained in a similar manner. Both PhoP and its truncated DBD domain were found to bind with high affinity to an upstream region of the pstS and phoRP–phoU promoters close to the −35 sequence of each of these promoters. DNase I protection studies revealed a 29 bp protected stretch in the sense strand of the pstS promoter that includes two 11 bp direct repeat units. Footprinting of the bidirectional phoRP–phoU promoter region showed a 51 bp protected sequence that encompasses four direct repeat units, two of them with high similarity to the protected sequences in the pstS promoter. PHO boxes have been identified by alignment of the six direct repeat units found in those promoter regions. Each direct repeat unit adjusts to the consensus GG/TTCAYYYRG/CGSIThis work was supported by Grants BIO2003-01489 and GEN2003-20245-C09-01-NAC of the CICYT, Ministry of Science and Technology, Madrid, Spain. E.F.-D. received a fellowship of the Diputación de León, Spain. We thank J. Merino, B. Martín, A. Casenave and M. Álvarez for the excellent technical assistance

Using visual attention in a Nao humanoid to face the RoboCup any-ball challenge

Visual attention is a natural tool which allows animals to locate relevant objects or areas in a given scene, discarding the rest of elements present and thus reducing the amount of information to deal with. In this paper we present the design an implementation of a visual attention mechanism based on a saliency map and its implementation in the Nao humanoid. This control mechanism is applied to solve one of the challenges proposed in the RoboCup competition named ”any-ball”. The results obtained are analysed and future works derived from that analysis are presente

Two proteins with ornithine acetyltransferase activity show different functions in Streptomyces clavuligerus: Oat2 modulates clavulanic acid biosynthesis in response to arginine

[EN] The oat2 gene, located in the clavulanic acid gene cluster in Streptomyces clavuligerus, is similar to argJ, which encodes N-acetylornithine:glutamic acid acetyltransferase activity. Purified proteins obtained by expression in Escherichia coli of the argJ and oat2 genes of S. clavuligerus posses N-acetyltransferase activity. The kinetics and substrate specificities of both proteins are very similar. Deletion of the oat2 gene did not affect the total N-acetylornithine transferase activity and slightly reduced the formation of clavulanic acid under standard culture conditions. However, the oat2 mutant produced more clavulanic acid than the parental strain in cultures supplemented with high levels (above 1 mM) of arginine. The purified S. clavuligerus ArgR protein bound the arginine box in the oat2 promoter, and the expression of oat2 was higher in mutants with a disruption in argR (arginine-deregulated), confirming that the Arg boxes of oat2 are functional in vivo. Our results suggest that the Oat2 protein or one of its reaction products has a regulatory role that modulates clavulanic acid biosynthesis in response to high arginine concentrationsSIThis work was supported by grant BIO2000-272 and a fellowship (to A. de la Fuente) from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (Madrid, Spain). We thank Rosario Pérez-Redondo for her help with RNA experiments

Diagnostic and Prognostic Implications of Pleural Adhesions in Malignant Effusions

Background and objectiveWe aimed to examine the frequency of pleural adhesions and to determine their relationship with pleural tumor burden, pleural fluid (PF) biochemistries, PF cytologic yield, and survival in patients with malignant pleural effusion (MPE).MethodsWe performed retrospective analysis of 540 consecutive patients with MPE who underwent medical thoracoscopy. Pleural lesion rating and grade of pleural adhesions based on a thoracoscopic score model were recorded.ResultsSixty percent of patients with MPE were found to have adhesions in the pleural space. The sensitivity of PF cytology was 71% if there were no pleural adhesions, and 20% if the maximum adhesion score was reached (p < 0.01). The extent of pleural adhesions correlated positively with the pleural tumor burden, and inversely with PF pH. The median survival of patients with minimal or no adhesions in the pleural space was 9 months as compared with patients with the highest grade of adhesions, whose median survival was 5 months (p < 0.01).ConclusionMPE are often loculated. The higher the grade of pleural adhesions, the greater the tumor burden exists, and paradoxically the lower the PF cytologic yield. The presence of pleural adhesions in MPE implies a poor prognosis

Small particle-size talc is associated with poor outcome and increased inflammation in thoracoscopic pleurodesis

Rationale: Talc is very effective for pleurodesis, but there is concern about complications, especially acute respiratory distress syndrome. Objectives: It was the aim of this study to investigate if talc with a high concentration of small particles induces greater production of cytokines, and if pleural tumor burden has any influence on the local production and spillover of cytokines to the systemic circulation and eventual complications. Methods: We investigated 227 consecutive patients with malignant effusion submitted to talc pleurodesis. One hundred and three patients received 'small-particle talc' (ST; containing about 50% particles <10 ¿m) and 124 received 'large-particle talc' (with <20% particles <10 ¿m). Serial samples of both pleural fluid and blood were taken before and 3, 24, 48 and 72 h after thoracoscopy. Also, mesothelial cells were stimulated with both types of talc in vitro. Measurements and Results: Interleukin-8, tumor necrosis factor-¿, vascular endothelial growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor and thrombin-antithrombin complex were measured in all samples. Early death (<7 days after talc) occurred in 8 of 103 patients in the ST and in 1 of 124 in the 'large-particle talc' group (p = 0.007). Patients who received ST had significantly higher proinflammatory cytokines in pleural fluid and serum after talc application, and also in supernatants of the in vitro study. Pleural tumor burden correlated positively with proinflammatory cytokines in serum, suggesting that advanced tumor states induce stronger systemic reactions after talc application. Conclusions: ST provokes a strong inflammatory reaction in both pleural space and serum, which is associated with a higher rate of early deaths observed in patients receiving it.Instituto de Salud Carlos III FIS 04/028

CcaR is an autoregulatory protein that binds to the ccaR and cefD-cmcI promoters of the cephamycin C-clavulanic acid cluster in Streptomyces clavuligerus

[EN] The putative regulatory CcaR protein, which is encoded in the β-lactam supercluster of Streptomyces clavuligerus, has been partially purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation and heparin affinity chromatography. In addition, it was expressed in Escherichia coli, purified as a His-tagged recombinant protein (rCcaR), and used to raise anti-rCcaR antibodies. The partially purified CcaR protein from S. clavuligerus was able to bind DNA fragments containing the promoter regions of the ccaR gene itself and the bidirectional cefD-cmcI promoter region. In contrast, CcaR did not bind to DNA fragments with the promoter regions of other genes of the cephamycin-clavulanic acid supercluster including lat, blp, claR, car-cyp, and the unlinked argR gene. The DNA shifts obtained with CcaR were prevented by anti-rCcaR immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies but not by anti-rabbit IgG antibodies. ccaR and the bidirectional cefD-cmcI promoter region were fused to the xylE reporter gene and expressed in Streptomyces lividans and S. clavuligerus. These constructs produced low catechol dioxygenase activity in the absence of CcaR; activity was increased 1.7- to 4.6-fold in cultures expressing CcaR. Amplification of the ccaR promoter region lacking its coding sequence in a high-copy-number plasmid in S. clavuligerus ATCC 27064 resulted in a reduced production of cephamycin C and clavulanic acid, by 12 to 20% and 40 to 60%, respectively, due to titration of the CcaR regulator. These findings confirm that CcaR is a positively acting autoregulatory protein able to bind to its own promoter as well as to the cefD-cmcI bidirectional promoter regionSIThis work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (FD97-1419-CO2-O2). I. Santamarta received a fellowship from the University of León. We are grateful to A. de la Fuente, F. J. Enguita, and C. de Torre for their interest and helpful discussions, to A. Jiménez for revising the manuscript, and to M. Mediavilla for technical assistance

Culture and group-functional punishment behaviour

Funding. Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PGC2018-093506-B-I00, ECO2013-44879-R) and theRegionalGovernment ofAndalusia (PY18-FR-0007, P11-SEJ-8286 and P12-SEJ-1436) is gratefully acknowledged.Antonio Espín acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 754446 and UGR Research and Knowledge Transfer Fund – Athenea3i. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada.Data availability statement. The dataset and code (STATA) are available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10481/76057Supplementary material. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.32Humans often ‘altruistically’ punish non-cooperators in one-shot interactions among genetically unrelated individuals. This poses an evolutionary puzzle because altruistic punishment enforces cooperation norms that benefit the whole group but is costly for the punisher. One key explanation is that punishment follows a social-benefits logic: it is eminently normative and group-functional (drawing on cultural group selection theories). In contrast, mismatch-based deterrence theory argues that punishment serves the individual- level function of deterring mistreatment of oneself and one’s allies, hinging upon the evolved human coalitional psychology. We conducted multilateral-cooperation experiments with a sample of Spanish Romani people (Gitanos or Calé) and the non-Gitano majority. The Gitanos represent a unique case study because they rely heavily on close kin-based networks and display a strong ethnic identity. We find that Gitano non-cooperators were not punished by co-ethnics in only-Gitano (ethnically) homogeneous groups but were harshly punished by other Gitanos and by non-Gitanos in ethnically mixed groups. Our findings suggest the existence of culture-specific motives for punishment: Gitanos, especially males, appear to use punishment to protect their ethnic identity, whereas non-Gitanos use punishment to protect a norm of universal cooperation. Only theories that consider normative, group-functional forces underlying punishment behaviour can explain our data.Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PGC2018-093506-B-I00, ECO2013-44879-R)Regional Government ofAndalusia (PY18-FR-0007, P11-SEJ-8286 and P12-SEJ-1436)European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 754446UGR Research and Knowledge Transfer Fund – Athenea3iFunding for open access charge: Universidad de Granad