Zoning for Conservation Easements

Richardson and Bernard talk about zoning for conservation easements. Most conservation easements are perpetual and may have a huge impact on the land use in a community. With few exceptions, however, conservation easements have not been incorporated in any meaningful way into local land-use planning

Geographical and seasonal barriers to mammography services and breast cancer stage at diagnosis

Introduction: Routine mammography screening and early detection are important prognostic indicators for breast cancer. Geographical and seasonal barriers to mammography services and relationship to breast cancer stage at diagnosis were examined. Methods: Travel time to mammography center, seasonal distribution of mammogram use, mammography frequency, and stage of cancer were retrospectively examined in 1428 female patients diagnosed with primary breast cancer at a tertiary care clinic system in Wisconsin, USA, from 2002 to 2008. Results: Women with no missed mammograms before diagnosis lived a median of 15 minutes from the nearest facility, while those who missed five of their past five annual mammograms lived nearly twice as far, with a median travel time of 27 minutes (p<0.0001). There was a direct relationship between travel time to nearest mammogram facility and stage of breast cancer at diagnosis, with travel time increasing from 17 to 24 minutes for stage 0 and stage 4 breast cancers, respectively (p=0.0586). Women were less likely to undergo mammography screening during the winter months (p<0.0001), especially women with greater than 30 mi (48.3 km) to travel to the nearest mammogram facility (p=0.0448). Conclusions: In the studied service area, travel time to nearest mammogram center appears inversely related to regular mammography screening and breast cancer stage at diagnosis. Mammograms are less common in the winter, especially in women with further to travel. This is the first study to demonstrate that inclement winter weather may impact on screening behaviors in rural areas and demonstrates the importance of considering climate as part of geographical access to preventative care

Effects of erythropoietin on depressive symptoms and neurocognitive deficits in depression and bipolar disorder

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Depression and bipolar disorder are associated with reduced neural plasticity and deficits in memory, attention and executive function. Drug treatments for these affective disorders have insufficient clinical effects in a large group and fail to reverse cognitive deficits. There is thus a need for more effective treatments which aid cognitive function. Erythropoietin (Epo) is involved in neuroplasticity and is a candidate for future treatment of affective disorders. The investigators have demonstrated that a single dose of Epo improves cognitive function and reduces neurocognitive processing of negative emotional information in healthy and depressed individuals similar to effects seen with conventional antidepressants. The current study adds to the previous findings by investigating whether repeated Epo administration has antidepressant effects in patients with treatment resistant depression and reverses cognitive impairments in these patients and in patients with bipolar disorder in remission.</p> <p>Methods/design</p> <p>The trial has a double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group design. 40 patients with treatment-resistant major depression and 40 patients with bipolar disorder in remission are recruited and randomised to receive weekly infusions of Epo (Eprex; 40,000 IU) or saline (NaCl 0.9%) for 8 weeks. Randomisation is stratified for age and gender. The primary outcome parameters for the two studies are: depression severity measured with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale 17 items (HDRS-17) <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B1">1</abbr></abbrgrp> in study 1 and, in study 2, verbal memory measured with the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B2">2</abbr><abbr bid="B3">3</abbr></abbrgrp>. With inclusion of 40 patients in each study we obtain 86% power to detect clinically relevant differences between intervention and placebo groups on these primary outcomes.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>The trial is approved by the Local Ethics Committee: H-C-2008-092, Danish Medicines Agency: 2612-4020, EudraCT: 2008-04857-14, Danish Data Agency: 2008-41-2711 and ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT 00916552.</p

The International Consortium Investigating Neurocognition in Bipolar Disorder (ICONICâ BD)

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148257/1/bdi12748.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148257/2/bdi12748_am.pd

Effects of the 5-HT2C receptor agonist meta-chlorophenylpiperazine on appetite, food intake and emotional processing in healthy volunteers

RATIONALE: The treatment of obesity is an increasing global health priority, yet few effective drug treatments are currently available. The discovery of novel anti-obesity therapies could be assisted by the validation of experimental (translational) medicine models in healthy volunteers that assess efficacy and safety at an early stage of drug development. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of the 5-HT2C receptor agonist meta-chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) in an experimental medicine model assessing both appetite and mood. METHODS: Using a between-subjects, double-blind, placebo-controlled design, 24 male and 24 female participants were randomly assigned to either placebo, 15- or 30-mg mCPP treatment groups. Lunch was eaten from a Universal Eating Monitor (UEM) that measured eating rate, and the participants completed the P1vital® Oxford Emotional Test Battery (ETB) and a series of appetite and mood ratings. RESULTS: mCPP reduced appetite and, in women, enhanced measures of satiation. The drug also enhanced memory for emotional material in the word recall and recognition memory tasks of the ETB. CONCLUSIONS: The results provide new insight into the effects of mCPP on appetite, satiety and memory in humans. In addition, our data provide an illustration of the value of measuring changes in appetite and mood in healthy volunteers to determine the potential efficacy and safety of novel anti-obesity drugs

Risk for depression is associated with neural biases in emotional categorisation

Negative biases in emotional processing are a major characteristic of depression. Recent research has shown that such negative biases are evident in high risk individuals even in the absence of personal history of depression, suggesting that they may serve as key vulnerability markers of depression. However, the neural basis of these behavioural observations has not been fully explored. This study therefore aimed to (1) illustrate the neural processes involved in the categorisation of emotional personality-trait words; and (2) examine whether these neural mechanisms are biased towards negative information in high risk individuals. Risk for depression was defined by high neuroticism (N). We recruited a sample of high risk (high N) and low risk (low N) never-depressed young adults. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was acquired during the categorisation and memory for positive and negative self-referent personality-trait words (e.g. honest, rude). High risk volunteers showed greater responses in the right superior parietal cortex than low risk volunteers specifically during the categorisation of negative words. Moreover, neuroticism score was positively correlated with neural responses in the left anterior cingulate during the categorisation of negative words but negatively correlated within the same region during the retrieval of these words. These results highlight a role of the fronto-parietal circuitry in emotional processing and further suggest that negative biases in these neural processes may be involved in risk for depression