Identificação e caracterização molecular de genes envolvidos no metabolismo de diterpenos específicos do cafeeiro.

Apesar de pouco estudado, os lipídeos do café desempenham papel importante na qualidade da bebida e do aroma. Cerca de dez a vinte por cento da fração lipídica do café corresponde a diterpenos que além da provável relação com a qualidade também estão relacionados com a questão do café e a saúde. As espécies de Coffea são as únicas capazes de sintetizar os diterpenos cafestol, caveol e seus compostos derivados (16-O-metilcafestol, 16-O-metilcaveol). Visando um entendimento maior dos genes envolvidos na formação dos diterpenos de café, foi realizado um estudo in silico da expressão de três genes que codificam para as primeiras etapas da sua via de biossíntese ? copalil difosfato sintase (CPS), caureno sintase (KS) e caureno oxidase (KO). Posteriormente foi feita uma análise da expressão destes genes durante o desenvolvimento de frutos de Coffea arabica cv. IAPAR 59 e Coffea canephora cv. Apoatã. Este estudo permitiu a identificação de um gene para a CPS e KS e dois para a KO. A análise in silico revelou níveis e perfis de expressão específicos para cada gene. Os resultados obtidos in vivo apresentaram algumas diferenças dos dados obtidos in silico, e a comparação de C. arabica e C. canephora também revelou perfis de expressão diferentes para os genes estudados. Esses dados serão confirmados por RT-PCR e um estudo geral do transcriptoma, usando macroarranjos desenvolvidos a partir do Projeto Genoma Café, será iniciado para identificar os outros genes envolvidos nessa via metabólica.Biotecnologia aplicada à cadeia agroindustrial do café

Differential neural processing of social exclusion in adolescents with non-suicidal self-injury: An fMRI study

AbstractNon-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is highly prevalent in adolescence and has been suggested as an autonomous diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5). Social rejection is as potential risk-factor for NSSI and depression in adolescence. Objectives of this study were to identify differences in neural processing of social rejection in depressed adolescents with and without co-morbid NSSI and healthy controls. Participants were 28 depressed adolescents (14 with co-morbid NSSI, 79% females) and 15 healthy controls, with an average age of 15.2 years (SD=1.8). Social exclusion was implemented using the Cyberball paradigm ‘Cyberball’ during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). All participants reported feelings of social exclusion after fMRI scanning. Investigating the effects of NSSI, we found that depressed adolescents with NSSI showed relatively enhanced activation of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) compared to depressed adolescents without NSSI and also compared to healthy controls. Results point towards divergent processing of social exclusion in depressed adolescents with NSSI as compared to adolescents with mere depression in brain regions previously related to the processing of social exclusion. This finding of distinct neurophysiological responses may stimulate further research on individual treatment approaches

An international comparison of adolescent non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicide attempts: Germany and the USA

Background This study examined the prevalence of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), suicide attempts, suicide threats and suicidal ideation in a German school sample and compared the rates with a similar sample of adolescents from the midwestern USA by using cross-nationally validated assessment tools. Method Data were provided from 665 adolescents (mean age 14.8 years, s.d.=0.66, range 14-17 years) in a school setting. Students completed the Self-Harm Behavior Questionnaire (SHBQ), the Ottawa Self-Injury Inventory (OSI) and a German version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D). Results A quarter of the participants (25.6%) endorsed at least one act of NSSI in their life, and 9.5% of those students answered that they had hurt themselves repetitively (more than four times). Forty-three (6.5%) of the students reported a history of a suicide attempt. No statistically significant differences were observed between the German and US samples in terms of self-injury or suicidal behaviors. Conclusions By using the same validated assessment tools, no differences were found in the prevalence and characteristics of self-injury and suicidal behaviors between adolescents from Germany and the USA. Thus, it seems that NSSI has to be understood as worldwide phenomenon, at least in Western culture

Intranasal esketamine as therapeutic option: a case report of an adolescent with treatment resistant depression

Depression is among the most common mental health disorders worldwide and treatment resistant depression (TRD) represents a major challenge for both patients and clinicians. In recent years ketamine has received attention as an antidepressant agent, demonstrating promising results in TRD in adults. To date, few attempts have been made in treating adolescent TRD with ketamine and none have used intranasal application. This paper discusses a case of a 17-year-old female adolescent suffering from TRD who underwent treatment with intranasal esketamine application (Spravato 28 mg). As symptoms showed clinically insignificant improvement despite modest gains in objective assessments (GAF, CGI, MADRS), treatment was prematurely discontinued. However, the treatment was tolerable and side effects were scarce and mild. Although this case report does not demonstrate clinical effectiveness, ketamine may nonetheless be a promising substance in treating TRD in other adolescents. Questions regarding the safety of ketamine use in the rapidly developing brains of adolescents still remain unanswered. To further explore the potential benefits of this treatment method a short term RCTs for adolescents with TRD is recommended

The situation of former adolescent self-injurers as young adults: a follow-up study

Background: Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescence has been described as comorbid condition in affective or anxiety disorders, as well as borderline personality disorder (BPD) and is a risk factor for later suicide attempts. Prevalence rates of NSSI decline steeply from adolescence to young adulthood. Yet, to the best of our knowledge, the longitudinal development of adolescent psychiatric patients with NSSI into their young adulthood has not been investigated. The aim of this study was to assess current NSSI and psychological impairment of young adults, who had been in treatment for NSSI in their adolescence. Methods: Former patients of the departments of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy in Ulm and Ravensburg, Germany (N = 52), who presented with NSSI in their adolescence, were recruited (average age: 21.5 years (SD = 2.6)). Data was assessed using questionnaires and structured clinical interviews. Two groups of participants with prevailing NSSI and ceased NSSI were compared concerning their current psychological impairment, history of NSSI, suicide attempts, and BPD diagnosis. Results: Around half of all participants had engaged in NSSI within the last year, and around half met diagnostic criteria for BPD. Although there was no significant association between current NSSI and BPD, an earlier age of onset of NSSI and a longer duration of NSSI during adolescence was significantly predictive of adult BPD. Two thirds of participants still met criteria of an axis 1 psychiatric disorder. Suicide attempts were reported by 53.8 % of all participants. Participants with current NSSI were more likely to meet criteria for a current axis 1 disorder, had engaged in NSSI more often in their lifetime, and reported more suicide attempts. Conclusions: Reduction of NSSI from adolescence to young adulthood was lower than described in previous community samples. This may be due to the initial high psychiatric impairment of this sample in adolescence. Early onset of NSSI seemed to be a risk factor for a longer duration of NSSI during adolescence but not for NSSI prevailing into adulthood. However, it was a risk factor for adult BPD. Furthermore, the occurrence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors and prevailing NSSI was highly associated

The Interplay between Child Maltreatment and Stressful Life Events during Adulthood and Cardiovascular Problems—A Representative Study

Psychological stress is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. While the relevance of early life stress, such as that which is due to child maltreatment (CM), is well known to impact individual stress responses in the long-term, and data on the interplay between CM and stressful events in adulthood on cardiovascular health are sparse. Here, we aimed to assess how stressful life events in adulthood are associated with cardiovascular health infarction in later life and whether this association is independent of CM. In a cross-sectional design, a probability sample of the German population above the age of 14 was drawn using different sampling steps. The final sample included 2510 persons (53.3% women, mean age: 48.4 years). Participants were asked about sociodemographic factors, adult life events, CM, and health conditions in adulthood. Results indicate that the number of experienced adverse life events in adulthood is associated with significantly increased odds for obesity (Odds Ration (OR)women = 1.6 [1.3; 2.0], ORmen = 1.4 [1.1; 1.9]), diabetes (ORwomen = 1.5 [1.1; 2.1], ORmen = 1.5 [1.1; 2.3]) and myocardial infarction (ORwomen = 2.1 [1.0; 4.3], ORmen = 1.8 [1.1; 2.8]). This association is not moderated by the experience of CM, which is associated with cardiovascular problems independently. Taken together, adult stressful life events and CM are significantly and independently associated with cardiovascular health in men and women in the German population in a dose-dependent manner. General practitioners, cardiologists and health policy-makers should be aware of this association between psychosocial stressors during childhood and adulthood and cardiovascular health

Somatosensory Stimulus Intensity Encoding in Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is clinically characterized by emotional instability, interpersonal disturbances and dysfunctional behavior such as non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). During NSSI, patients with BPD typically report analgesic or hypoalgesic phenomena, and pain perception and pain processing in BPD have been repeatedly investigated. Most of the studies so far focused on affective-motivational and cognitive-evaluative neural components of pain within categorial study designs. By contrast, rather basic somatosensory aspects such as neural intensity-encoding of somatosensory stimuli were not examined in further details. Thus, we investigated patients with BPD and healthy controls (HC) by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during an unpleasant sensory stimulation task with parametrically increasing stimulus intensities. 15 females diagnosed with BPD and 15 HCs were investigated with fMRI during four individually adjusted levels of electrical stimulus intensities. Ratings of stimulus intensity were assessed by button presses during fMRI. fMRI-data were analyzed by analyses of variances (ANOVA) at a statistical threshold of p < 0.05 FWE-corrected on cluster level. Subjective ratings of stimulus intensities were alike between BPD and HC, and intensity levels identified with equal accuracy. Significant intensity-encoding neural activations were observed within the primary and secondary somtasensory cortex, the posterior insula, the posterior midcingulate cortex (pMCC) and the supplementary motor area (SMA) in both, HC and BPD. Notably, there were no significant between-groups differences in intensity-encoding neural activations, even at lowered significance thresholds. Present results suggest a similar neural somatosensory stimulus intensity encoding in BPD as previously observed on a behavioral level. The alterations in neural affective-motivational or cognitive-evaluative components reported so far may be restricted to pain rather than unpleasant stimulus processing and were absent in our study

Organophosphorus poisoning in animals and enzymatic antidotes

© 2018 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature Organophosphorus compounds (OPs) are neurotoxic molecules developed as pesticides and chemical warfare nerve agents (CWNAs). Most of them are covalent inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), a key enzyme in nervous systems, and are therefore responsible for numerous poisonings around the world. Many animal models have been studied over the years in order to decipher the toxicity of OPs and to provide insights for therapeutic and decontamination purposes. Environmental impact on wild animal species has been analyzed to understand the consequences of OP uses in agriculture. In complement, various laboratory models, from invertebrates to aquatic organisms, rodents and primates, have been chosen to study chronic and acute toxicity as well as neurobehavioral impact, immune response, developmental disruption, and other pathological signs. Several decontamination approaches were developed to counteract the poisoning effects of OPs. Among these, enzyme-based strategies are particularly attractive as they allow efficient external decontamination without toxicity or environmental impact and may be of interest for treatment. Approaches using bioscavengers for prophylaxis, treatment, and external decontamination are emphasized and their potential is discussed in the light of toxicological observations from various animal models. The relevance of animal models, regarding their cholinergic system and the abundance of naturally protecting enzymes, is also discussed for better extrapolation of results to human