Determination of heavy metals content in Astacus leptodactylus caspicus in Anzali Lagoon

With attention to different human activities around Anzali lagoon and entrance different pollutants containing heavy metals into this aquatic ecosystem and alterante absorption and accumulation of heavy metals in shell and muscle of Astacus leptodactylus which is native species of Anzali lagoon and having food and economic importance. Sampling of water and sediments from 18 stations and also shell and muscle of Astacus leptodactylus from 5 stations have been conducted. After biometric evaluation of Astacus leptodactylus, the chemical analysis of the samples were done by using international standard methods and then their heavy metals content was determined by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (A.A.S). Result of the analysis stated that: There wasn't significant difference between weight and size of Astacus leptodactylus with their absorption and accumulation of heavy metals; but there was a significant difference and correlation coefficient between heavy metals content in water and sediments, and also in sediments with shell and muscle of Astacus leptodactylus in Anzali lagoon

Protective effects of Lithium on Sumatriptan-induced memory impairment in mice

Lithium is a drug used for the treatment of bipolar disorder. It has several mechanisms of action, and recently it is shown that lithium can antagonize the 5-HT1B/1D serotonin receptors. Sumatriptan is a 5- HT1B/1D receptor agonist used for the treatment of cluster headaches and migraine which might cause memory impairment as a potential side effect. In this study, effects of lithium on sumatriptan-induced memory impairment have been determined in a two trial recognition Y-maze and passive avoidance tests. Male mice weighing 25-30 g were divided into several groups randomly. In Y-maze test, effects of lithium (1,5,10,20,40,80 mg/kg) and sumatriptan (1,5,10 mg/kg) were assessed on memory acquisition, then lithium (0.1,1,10 mg/kg) and sumatriptan (1,10 mg/kg) were studied in passive avoidance test. Effects of lithium (1mg/kg) on sumatriptan (10 mg/kg)-induced memory impairment were studied in both of tests. The present study demonstrated that sumatriptan impaired memory in Y-maze and passive avoidance tests (P0.05), but significantly reversed sumatriptan-induced memory impairment in Y-maze and passive avoidance tests (P<0.001, P<0.05, respectively). It is concluded that lithium reverses the sumatriptan-induced memory impairment probably through 5-HT1B/1D receptors antagonism. © 2016 Tehran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

Types and Causalities in Dead Patients Due to Traumatic Injuries

Background: Trauma constitutes a major public health problem in our country and contributes significantly to unacceptably high morbidity and mortality. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the epidemiology of trauma in dead patients referred to Shahid Rajaee Trauma Hospital, Shiraz, Iran. Patients and Methods: In a cross-sectional study, all patients with trauma admitted to our center were enrolled between March 2011 and February 2012. Age, gender, months of referring, causalities, and injured body parts of the victims were extracted from the data registry and analyzed. Results: A total of 9113 patients, including 7163 (78.6%) males and 1950 (21.4%) females were evaluated. Among them, 479 patients (5.3%) had died. There was a significant difference between the age of alive and dead patients (35.70 ± 0.18 and 45.44 ± 1.01 years, respectively (P < 0.001)). In addition, dead men had significantly higher percentage than alive men (83.7% and 78.3%, respectively, P = 0.005). The highest percentages of men and women who referred to our center and died were in September. Crashing by car had the most frequency of dead (247 cases) in referred patients and motorcycle accident, stabbing, and falling related injuries with 67, 36 and 26 dead cases were in the next ranks. Thorax injury had the most frequency between dead patients (53.2% of all dead) and the intracranial injury and trauma to extremities altogether were in the next ranks, which constituted more than 18.8% of all dead. Conclusions: Our data demonstrated that car and motorcycle accidents are the most important cause of trauma and thorax trauma had the most frequency among dead patients. Epidemiological evaluations and preventive measures such as this study should be conducted to provide valuable data

Assessment of patient dose in routine digital radiography in Iran

Background: The present study aimed to investgate patent dose in common X-ray examinatons to estmate effectve dose in the digital radiography in Iran. Materials and Methods: Entrance surface dose (ESD) was measured based on applied exposure parameters for the common actual examinaton; and then effectve dose (ED) was calculated by use of PCXMC software. The study was conducted on 15358 patents in 85 X-ray rooms; and the necessary data was collected for five age groups, 0-1 year, 1-5 years, 5-10 years, 10-15 years old and adults in each projecton. Results: The ranges of ESD and ED in different examinatons for all the age groups are 0.02-10.20 mGy and 2.42-378.96 μSv respectvely. Conclusion: The effectve dose as criteria can be used to reduce patents' doses. The special consideratons such as: adequate training of imaging staff; updatng clinical audits; patent dose consideratons; implementaton of systematc and regular quality assurance and quality control programs in medical imaging departments should be taken into account to optmize radiological practces. © 2020 Novin Medical Radiation Institute. All rights reserved

Designing an artificial neural network for prediction of pregnancy outcomes in women with systemic lupus erythematosus in Iran

Background: Pregnancy in women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is still introduced as a major challenge. Consulting before pregnancy in these patients is essential in order to estimating the risk of undesirable maternal and fetal outcomes by using appropriate information. The purpose of this study was to develop an artificial neural network for prediction of pregnancy outcomes including spontaneous abortion and live birth in SLE. Methods: In a retrospective study, forty-five variables were identified as effective factors for prediction of pregnancy outcomes in systemic lupus erythematosus. Data of 104 pregnancies in women with systemic lupus erythematosus in Shariati Hospital and 45 pregnancies in a private specialized center in Tehran from 1982 to 2014 in August and September, 2014 were collected and analyzed. For feature selection, information of the 149 pregnancies was analyzed with a binary logistic regression model in SPSS software, version 20 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). These selected variables were used for inputs of neural networks in MATLAB software, version R2013b (MathWorks Inc., Natick, MA, USA). A Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) network with scaled conjugate gradient (trainscg) back propagation learning algorithm has been designed and evaluated for this purpose. We used confusion matrix for evaluation. The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were calculated from the confusion matrix. Results: Twelve features with P<0.05 and four features with P<0.1 were identified by using binary logistic regression as effective features. These sixteen features were used as input variables in artificial neural networks. The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the test data for the MLP network were 90.9, 80.0, and 94.1 respectively and for the total data were 97.3, 93.5, and 99.0 respectively. Conclusion: According to the results, we concluded that feed-forward Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) neural network with scaled conjugate gradient (trainscg) back propagation learning algorithm can help physicians to predict the pregnancy outcomes (spontaneous abortion and live birth) among pregnant women with lupus by using identified effective variables. © 2015, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

Structure of the Afferent Terminals in Terminal Ganglion of a Cricket and Persistent Homology

We use topological data analysis to investigate the three dimensional spatial structure of the locus of afferent neuron terminals in crickets Acheta domesticus. Each afferent neuron innervates a filiform hair positioned on a cercus: a protruding appendage at the rear of the animal. The hairs transduce air motion to the neuron signal that is used by a cricket to respond to the environment. We stratify the hairs (and the corresponding afferent terminals) into classes depending on hair length, along with position. Our analysis uncovers significant structure in the relative position of these terminal classes and suggests the functional relevance of this structure. Our method is very robust to the presence of significant experimental and developmental noise. It can be used to analyze a wide range of other point cloud data sets

Standardized Treatment of Active Tuberculosis in Patients with Previous Treatment and/or with Mono-resistance to Isoniazid: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Performing a systematic review of studies evaluating retreatment of tuberculosis or treatment of isoniazid mono-resistant infection, Dick Menzies and colleagues find a paucity of evidence to support the WHO-recommended regimen

Ulk4 regulates GABAergic signaling and anxiety-related behavior

Excitation/inhibition imbalance has been proposed as a fundamental mechanism in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, in which copy number variations of the Unc-51 like kinase 4 (ULK4) gene encoding a putative Serine/Threonine kinase have been reported in approximately 1/1000 of patients suffering pleiotropic clinical conditions of schizophrenia, depression, autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), developmental delay, language delay, intellectual disability, or behavioral disorder. The current study characterized behavior of heterozygous Ulk4(+/tm1a) mice, demonstrating that Ulk4(+/tm1a) mice displayed no schizophrenia-like behavior in acoustic startle reactivity and prepulse inhibition tests or depressive-like behavior in the Porsolt swim or tail suspension tests. However, Ulk4(+/tm1a) mice exhibited an anxiety-like behavioral phenotype in several tests. Previously identified hypo-anxious (Atp1a2, Ptn, and Mdk) and hyper-anxious (Gria1, Syngap1, and Npy2r) genes were found to be dysregulated accordingly in Ulk4 mutants. Ulk4 was found to be expressed in GABAergic neurons and the Gad67⁺ interneurons were significantly reduced in the hippocampus and basolateral amygdala of Ulk4(+/tm1a) mice. Transcriptome analyses revealed a marked reduction of GABAergic neuronal subtypes, including Pvalb, Sst, Cck, Npy, and Nos3, as well as significant upregulation of GABA receptors, including Gabra1, Gabra3, Gabra4, Gabra5, and Gabrb3. This is the first evidence that Ulk4 plays a major role in regulating GABAergic signaling and anxiety-like behavior, which may have implications for the development of novel anxiolytic treatments

Effect of Duration and Intermittency of Rifampin on Tuberculosis Treatment Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

In a systematic review of randomized controlled trials on tuberculosis treatment, Dick Menzies and colleagues find shorter courses of rifampin to be associated with poorer treatment outcomes