Are patients with panic disorder respiratory subtype more vulnerable to tobacco, alcohol or illicit drug use?

CONTEXTO: Estudos anteriores têm mostrado associações entre o transtorno de pânico (TP) e o uso de tabaco, álcool e substâncias ilícitas. É conhecido que transtornos de uso de substâncias interferem negativamente no prognóstico de transtornos de ansiedade e depressão. No subtipo respiratório (SR) do TP há mais história familiar de TP e maior risco de comorbidades com transtornos de ansiedade. OBJETIVOS: Descrever os padrões de uso de tabaco, álcool e outras substâncias em pacientes com TP. Além disso, analisar se pacientes do SR usam mais essas substâncias do que os pacientes do subtipo não respiratório. MÉTODOS: Esse foi um estudo transversal com 71 pacientes com TP. As escalas Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test e Fagerstrom Tobacco Questionnaire foram aplicadas. Pacientes com quatro ou cinco sintomas respiratórios foram considerados no SR, e os demais pacientes foram considerados como do subtipo não respiratório. RESULTADOS: Na amostra estudada, 31,0% dos pacientes eram fumantes, 11,3% faziam uso perigoso de álcool e nenhum fazia uso de substâncias ilícitas. Não houve diferença entre os subtipos respiratório e não respiratório em relação a tabagismo, uso de álcool, cannabis, cocaína, estimulantes e alucinógenos. CONCLUSÃO: O SR não foi correlacionado com o uso de tabaco, álcool ou drogas ilícitas. Mais estudos clínicos e epidemiológicos focando a relação entre o TP e uso de substâncias são necessários.BACKGROUND: Studies have documented high use of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs in patients with panic disorder (PD). The comorbid substance use disorders worsen the prognosis of mood and anxiety disorders. The respiratory subtype (RS) of PD seems to represent a more severe and distinct form of this disorder associated with higher familial history of PD and more comorbidity with other anxiety disorders. OBJECTIVES: Describe the patterns of tobacco, alcohol or illicit drug use in PD patients, and also to ascertain if patients with the RS use these substances more than those of the non-respiratory subtype. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study with 71 PD patients. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test and Fagerstrom Tobacco Questionnaire were used in the evaluation. Patients with four or five respiratory symptoms were classified in the RS, the remaining patients were classified as non-respiratory subtype. RESULTS: In our sample 31.0% were smokers, 11.3% were hazardous alcohol users and none of them was using illicit drugs. There were no differences between the respiratory and non-respiratory subtypes regarding the use of tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, stimulants and hallucinogens. DISCUSSION: The RS was not correlated to the use of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs. Additional epidemiological and clinical studies focusing the relationship between PD and substance use are warranted

Relationship between sexual offences and mental and developmental disorders: a review

CONTEXTO: A violência sexual é um grave problema de saúde pública que preocupa e confronta nossa sociedade. A prevalência, a magnitude e as consequências desse problema têm merecido atenção crescente por parte de estudiosos e pesquisadores da saúde e dos direitos humanos. OBJETIVO: Realizar uma revisão bibliográfica sobre a relação entre crimes sexuais e transtornos mentais e do desenvolvimento. MÉTODOS: Foi realizada uma pesquisa bibliográfica nas bases de dados do PubMed, Scientific Eletronic Library Online (SciELO) e Lilacs, utilizando os descritores "sexual crime", "sexual offense", "mental disorder", "mental retardation", "developmental disability" e suas combinações. RESULTADOS: Os transtornos mentais e do desenvolvimento mais frequentemente relacionados à perpetração de crimes sexuais foram esquizofrenia, transtorno bipolar e retardo mental. CONCLUSÃO: São importantes a detecção e o tratamento da morbidade psiquiátrica entre ofensores sexuais nos sistemas de saúde e de justiça criminal, o que pode contribuir para menor risco de reincidência desse comportamento sexual.BACKGROUND: Sexual violence is a serious public health problem that concerns and faces our society. The prevalence, magnitude and consequences of this problem have merited growing attention by health researchers and human rights scholars. OBJECTIVE: To conduct a review of the literature regarding the relationship between mental disorders, sexual offences and those of development. METHODS: A bibliographic research was performed in PubMed, Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) and Lilacs, employing the terms "sexual crime", "sexual offence", "mental disorder", "mental retardation", "developmental disability" and its combinations. RESULTS: The mental disorders and developmental disorders more frequently related to the perpetration of sexual offences were schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and mental retardation. DISCUSSION: The detection and treatment of psychiatric morbidity among sexual offenders in health and criminal justice systems, which may contribute to a lower risk of recidivism of this sexual behaviour, is important

Eco-Friendly Synthesis of Lipophilic EGCG Derivatives and Antitumor and Antioxidant Evaluation

Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) was structurally modified to obtain EGCG fatty acid esters using an eco-friendly method employing Er(OTf)3 in 2-MeTHF as the catalyst. The products were purified in short times on a large scale using VERSAFLASH HTFP station on octadecyl-functionalized silica gel. The same Lewis acid showed to be a good catalyst for the synthesis of EGCG peracetated. The EGCG derivatives were assayed for their antioxidant capacity by DPPH assay and by ROS formation using the SH-SY5Y cell line

Abnormal salivary total and oligomeric alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's disease

In Parkinson’s disease (PD), alpha-synuclein (a-syn) can be detected in biological fluids including saliva. Although previous studies found reduced a-syn total (a-syntotal) concentration in saliva of PD patients, no studies have previously examined salivary a-syn oligomers (a-synolig) concentrations or assessed the correlation between salivary a-syntotal, a-synolig and clinical features in a large cohort of PD patients. Is well known that a-synolig exerts a crucial neurotoxic effect in PD. We collected salivary samples from 60 PD patients and 40 age- and sex-comparable healthy subjects. PD was diagnosed according to the United Kingdom Brain Bank Criteria. Samples of saliva were analyzed by specific anti-a-syn and anti-oligomeric a-syn ELISA kits. A complete clinical evaluation of each patient was performed using MDS-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, Montreal Cognitive Assessment and Frontal Assessment Battery. Salivary a-syntotal was lower, whereas a-synolig was higher in PD patients than healthy subjects. The a-synolig/a-syntotal ratio was also higher in patients than in healthy subjects. Salivary a-syntotal concentration negatively correlated with that of a-synolig and correlated with several patients’ clinical features. In PD, decreased salivary concentration of a-syntotal may reflect the reduction of a-syn monomers (a-synmon), as well as the formation of insoluble intracellular inclusions and soluble oligomers. The combined detection of a-syntotal and a-synolig in the saliva might help the early diagnosis of P

Dream-Reality confusion: differential psychiatric diagnosis in narcoleptic subjects

Dream-reality confusion (DRC) is the consequence of hypnagogic content confusion with real events and memories. Narcoleptic subjects eventually have DRC and can be misdiagnosed as schizophrenic or with another disorder with delusional or hallucinatory symptoms. Although dream-related experiences and hallucinatory perception share neurophysiological pathways, they are phenomenologically distinct. The lack of phenomenological intentionality in Dreamrelated perceptions, the different cognitive pathways for delusion generation, and other differences between mental disorders psychopathology, and DRC-related phenomena are here discussed. The lived world and awake experience interpretation, and dream neurobiology in narcoleptic subjects related to DRC, might indicate some hints for the mind-brain gap issue that still exists in neurology and psychiatry

Análise de deslizamento rotacional e translacional de um cambissolo de substrato de depósito de encosta na Bacia do Itacorubi em Florianópolis/SC

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro Tecnológico. Engenharia Civil.Os deslizamentos de taludes naturais, também denominados de encostas, são um dos desastres naturais mais recorrentes em nosso país, afetando de forma direta e indireta a população brasileira. Como medida preventiva, é interessante dispor-se de estudos e análises que avaliam a segurança de encostas e a sua suscetibilidade a ocorrência de tais eventos. Este trabalho referese à análise de estabilidade global de uma seção de um talude, após passar por um processo de retaludamento. Foi-se investigado sua estabilidade para a ocorrência de deslizamento rotacional, cuja superfície de ruptura é considerada circular, fazendo-se o uso do software Mac.STARS 2000, e também para deslizamento translacional, que possui curta duração e grande poder de destruição, utilizando o Método dos Taludes Infinitos. Os parâmetros de resistência ao cisalhamento do solo, coesão e ângulo de atrito, consistem em variáveis sine qua non para a análise da suscetibilidade a deslizamentos de encostas. Neste trabalho, para as suas determinações, primeiramente, fez-se o uso do ensaio in situ Borehole Shear Test, que vem apresentando resultados muito satisfatórios e com maior rapidez em comparação com o ensaio mais utilizado nestas análises, o Cisalhamento Direto. Após isso foi feito um comparativo utilizando os parâmetros apresentados no mapeamento de Christ (2019), utilizando como base o mapeamento geotécnico de Santos (1997), para a unidade geotécnica da encosta em estudo. Utilizando a geometria do corte encontrada em campo e fazendo alterações pertinentes para a análise, encontravou-se o Fator de Segurança. Os parâmetros médios de Christ foram os que se mostraram mais adequados em comparação com os obtidos in situ

Phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial protein coding genes confirms the reciprocal paraphyly of Hexapoda and Crustacea.

BACKGROUND: The phylogeny of Arthropoda is still a matter of harsh debate among systematists, and significant disagreement exists between morphological and molecular studies. In particular, while the taxon joining hexapods and crustaceans (the Pancrustacea) is now widely accepted among zoologists, the relationships among its basal lineages, and particularly the supposed reciprocal paraphyly of Crustacea and Hexapoda, continues to represent a challenge. Several genes, as well as different molecular markers, have been used to tackle this problem in molecular phylogenetic studies, with the mitochondrial DNA being one of the molecules of choice. In this study, we have assembled the largest data set available so far for Pancrustacea, consisting of 100 complete (or almost complete) sequences of mitochondrial genomes. After removal of unalignable sequence regions and highly rearranged genomes, we used nucleotide and inferred amino acid sequences of the 13 protein coding genes to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships among major lineages of Pancrustacea. The analysis was performed with Bayesian inference, and for the amino acid sequences a new, Pancrustacea-specific, matrix of amino acid replacement was developed and used in this study. RESULTS: Two largely congruent trees were obtained from the analysis of nucleotide and amino acid datasets. In particular, the best tree obtained based on the new matrix of amino acid replacement (MtPan) was preferred over those obtained using previously available matrices (MtArt and MtRev) because of its higher likelihood score. The most remarkable result is the reciprocal paraphyly of Hexapoda and Crustacea, with some lineages of crustaceans (namely the Malacostraca, Cephalocarida and, possibly, the Branchiopoda) being more closely related to the Insecta s.s. (Ectognatha) than two orders of basal hexapods, Collembola and Diplura. Our results confirm that the mitochondrial genome, unlike analyses based on morphological data or nuclear genes, consistently supports the non monophyly of Hexapoda. CONCLUSION: The finding of the reciprocal paraphyly of Hexapoda and Crustacea suggests an evolutionary scenario in which the acquisition of the hexapod condition may have occurred several times independently in lineages descending from different crustacean-like ancestors, possibly as a consequence of the process of terrestrialization. If this hypothesis was confirmed, we should therefore re-think our interpretation of the evolution of the Arthropoda, where terrestrialization may have led to the acquisition of similar anatomical features by convergence. At the same time, the disagreement between reconstructions based on morphological, nuclear and mitochondrial data sets seems to remain, despite the use of larger data sets and more powerful analytical methods