Tonic inhibition originates from synapses close to the soma

AbstractCentral neurons are subject to a tonic barrage of randomly occurring spontaneous inhibitory events (mIPSCs) resulting from the action potential-independent release of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Do the terminals making synapses onto somatic versus dendritic sites, which arise from specific populations of interneurons, differ in their ability to generate mIPSCs? We have combined the techniques of whole-cell patch-clamp recording and computational simulation to demonstrate that in granule cells of the dentate gyrus, most of the action potential-independent inhibition taking place as mIPSCs originates from proximal sites. Indeed, removal of the bulk (>50%) of the dendritic tree did not change the characteristics of mIPSCs. These results are consistent with a functional segregation of GABAergic terminals synapsing at proximal versus distal portions of central neurons. Thus, proximal GABAergic terminals are responsible for tonic inhibition targeted at the soma

Deficiency in Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase PTP1B shortens lifespan and leads to development of acute leukemia

This work was performed with the funds from the Wellcome Trust ISSF grant to M. Delibegovic and BHF project grant to M. Delibegovic (PG/11/8/28703). S. Le Sommer is a recipient of the University of Aberdeen Institute of Medical Sciences PhD studentship. Conflict of interest: Authors declare there are no conflicts of interests.Peer reviewedPostprin

The determinants of vulnerability to currency crises: country-specific factors versus regional factors

We investigate the determinants of exchange market pressures (EMP) for some new EU member states at both the national and regional levels, where macroeconomic and financial variables are considered as potential sources. The regional common factors are extracted from these variables by using dynamic factor analysis. The linear empirical analysis, in general, highlights the importance of country-specific factors to defend themselves against vulnerability in their external sectors. Yet, given a significant impact of the common component in credit on EMP, a contagion effect is apparent through the conduit of credit market integration across these countries under investigation

Interaction between foreing financial services and foreign direct investment in transition economies: an empirical analysis with focus on the manufacturing sector

This paper studies the nexus between financial and non-financial foreign direct investment in Transition Economies, which are members of the EU. Three questions, which are pointed out in the theoretical literature, are discussed in the paper. We use a dataset for nine Transition Economies over the period 1996-2007, for most regressions we apply GMM and for one regression 2SLS. The empirical results lead to three important statements: non-financial FDI is positively affected by financial services FDI and by market potential. Foreign banks in the EU Transition Economies are mainly driven by non-financial FDI and the capital intensity of a country. FDI crowds out domestic investment in the manufacturing sector. © 2012 University of Venice

Smoking and health-related quality of life in English general population: Implications for economic evaluations

Copyright @ 2012 Vogl et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Little is known as to how health-related quality of life (HRQoL) when measured by generic instruments such as EQ-5D differ across smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers in the general population; whether the overall pattern of this difference remain consistent in each domain of HRQoL; and what implications this variation, if any, would have for economic evaluations of tobacco control interventions. Methods: Using the 2006 round of Health Survey for England data (n = 13,241), this paper aims to examine the impact of smoking status on health-related quality of life in English population. Depending upon the nature of the EQ-5D data (i.e. tariff or domains), linear or logistic regression models were fitted to control for biology, clinical conditions, socio-economic background and lifestyle factors that an individual may have regardless of their smoking status. Age- and gender-specific predicted values according to smoking status are offered as the potential 'utility' values to be used in future economic evaluation models. Results: The observed difference of 0.1100 in EQ-5D scores between never-smokers (0.8839) and heavy-smokers (0.7739) reduced to 0.0516 after adjusting for biological, clinical, lifestyle and socioeconomic conditions. Heavy-smokers, when compared with never-smokers, were significantly more likely to report some/severe problems in all five domains - mobility (67%), self-care (70%), usual activity (42%), pain/discomfort (46%) and anxiety/depression (86%) -. 'Utility' values by age and gender for each category of smoking are provided to be used in the future economic evaluations. Conclusion: Smoking is significantly and negatively associated with health-related quality of life in English general population and the magnitude of this association is determined by the number of cigarettes smoked. The varying degree of this association, captured through instruments such as EQ-5D, may need to be fed into the design of future economic evaluations where the intervention being evaluated affects (e.g. tobacco control) or is affected (e.g. treatment for lung cancer) by individual's (or patients') smoking status

Monetary Policy, Bank Bailouts and the Sovereign-Bank Risk Nexus in the Euro Area

The paper analyses the empirical relationship between bank risk and sovereign credit risk in the euro area. Using structural VAR with daily financial markets data for 2003-13, the analysis confirms two-way causality between shocks to sovereign risk and bank risk, with the former being overall more important in explaining bank risk, than vice versa. The paper focuses specifically on the impact of non-standard monetary policy measures by the European Central Bank and on the effects of bank bailout policies by national governments. Testing specific hypotheses formulated in the literature, we find that bank bailout policies have reduced solvency risk in the banking sector mostly at the expense of raising the credit risk of sovereigns. By contrast, monetary policy was in most, but not all cases effective in lowering credit risk among both sovereigns and banks. Finally, we find spillover effects in particular from sovereigns in the euro area periphery to the core countries

Phase Ib Study of Lenvatinib Plus Pembrolizumab in Patients With Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma

PURPOSE The immunomodulatory effect of lenvatinib (a multikinase inhibitor) on tumor microenvironments may contribute to antitumor activity when combined with programmed death receptor-1 (PD-1) signaling inhibitors in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We report results from a phase Ib study of lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab (an anti-PD-1 antibody) in unresectable HCC (uHCC). PATIENTS AND METHODS In this open-label multicenter study, patients with uHCC received lenvatinib (bodyweight $60 kg, 12 mg; , 60 kg, 8 mg) orally daily and pembrolizumab 200 mg intravenously on day 1 of a 21- day cycle. The study included a dose-limiting toxicity (DLT) phase and an expansion phase (first-line patients). Primary objectives were safety/tolerability (DLT phase), and objective response rate (ORR) and duration of response (DOR) by modified RECIST (mRECIST) and RECIST version 1.1 (v1.1) per independent imaging review (IIR; expansion phase). RESULTS A total of 104 patients were enrolled. No DLTs were reported (n 5 6) in the DLT phase; 100 patients (expansion phase; included n 5 2 from DLT phase) had received no prior systemic therapy and had Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage B (n 5 29) or C disease (n 5 71). At data cutoff, 37$ 3 treatment-related adverse events occurred in 67% (grade 5, 3%) of patients. No new safety signals were identified. CONCLUSION Lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab has promising antitumor activity in uHCC. Toxicities were manageable, with no unexpected safety signals