Metabotropic glutamate 2/3 receptors and epigenetic modifications in psychotic disorders: a review

Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder are chronic psychiatric disorders, both considered as "major psychosis"; they are thought to share some pathogenetic factors involving a dysfunctional gene x environment interaction. Alterations in the glutamatergic transmission have been suggested to be involved in the pathogenesis of psychosis. Our group developed an epigenetic model of schizophrenia originated by Prenatal Restraint Stress (PRS) paradigm in mice. PRS mice developed some behavioral alterations observed in schizophrenic patients and classic animal models of schizophrenia, i.e. deficits in social interaction, locomotor activity and prepulse inhibition. They also showed specific changes in promoter DNA methylation activity of genes related to schizophrenia such as reelin, BDNF and GAD67, and altered expression and function of mGlu2/3 receptors in the frontal cortex. Interestingly, behavioral and molecular alterations were reversed by treatment with mGlu2/3 agonists. Based on these findings, we speculate that pharmacological modulation of these receptors could have a great impact on early phase treatment of psychosis together with the possibility to modulate specific epigenetic key protein involved in the development of psychosis. In this review, we will discuss in more details the specific features of the PRS mice as a suitable epigenetic model for major psychosis. We will then focus on key proteins of chromatin remodeling machinery as potential target for new pharmacological treatment through the activation of metabotropic glutamate receptors

Ethical difficulties in clinical practice : experiences of European doctors

Background: Ethics support services are growing in Europe to help doctors in dealing with ethical difficulties. Currently, insufficient attention has been focused on the experiences of doctors who have faced ethical difficulties in these countries to provide an evidence base for the development of these services. Methods: A survey instrument was adapted to explore the types of ethical dilemma faced by European doctors, how they ranked the difficulty of these dilemmas, their satisfaction with the resolution of a recent ethically difficult case and the types of help they would consider useful. The questionnaire was translated and given to general internists in Norway, Switzerland, Italy and the UK. Results: Survey respondents (n = 656, response rate 43%) ranged in age from 28 to 82 years, and averaged 25 years in practice. Only a minority (17.6%) reported having access to ethics consultation in individual cases. The ethical difficulties most often reported as being encountered were uncertain or impaired decisionmaking capacity (94.8%), disagreement among caregivers (81.2%) and limitation of treatment at the end of life (79.3%). The frequency of most ethical difficulties varied among countries, as did the type of issue considered most difficult. The types of help most often identified as potentially useful were professional reassurance about the decision being correct (47.5%), someone capable of providing specific advice (41.1%), help in weighing outcomes (36%) and clarification of the issues (35.9%). Few of the types of help expected to be useful varied among countries. Conclusion: Cultural differences may indeed influence how doctors perceive ethical difficulties. The type of help needed, however, did not vary markedly. The general structure of ethics support services would not have to be radically altered to suit cultural variations among the surveyed countries

Keterampilan Proses Fisika Siswa melalui LKS Berbasis Jelajah Alam Sekitar (JAS) pada Materi Pokok Suhu dan Kalor di SMAN 2 XIII Koto Kampar”.

The purpose of this study was to describe the results of the physics students learn the skills and know the difference between the skills students learn physics processes using worksheets based natural learnig (JAS) with students who learn using worksheets conventional. The research was conducted from February 2015 through June 2015 with a population of class X IPA and sample class X IPA 25 students and XIPA 2, 24 students. The design of this research is a form of pre-experimental design intact-group comparison. Instruments used test results of students' learning skills physics process which comprises 12 multiple choice questions. Data collection techniques in research is the provision of test results of physical processes of learning skills of students. Technical analysis of data used descriptive analysis and inferential analysis. Descriptive analysis of the average absorption of 80% class experiment with both categories while the control group was 74% in both categories. Based on the absorption of students it can be said the effectiveness of learning in the experimental class and control class is effective. Classical mastery learning students in the experimental class is 84% ​​complete and 62.5% control class is declared incomplete. Classical completeness indicators of process skills in the experimental class that is 100% complete and incomplete control class is 75%. Inferential analysis through statistical calculation t test SPSS 16. tcount = 2.1667 and ttable = 2.012. Based on the criteria of hypothesis testing tcount> ttable so that there is a significant difference against worksheets skills through a process physics-based Natural base learning Around with worksheets conventional level of 95%

Association of Systemic Inflammation With Retinal Vascular Caliber in Patients With AIDS.

PurposeTo evaluate relationships among retinal vascular caliber and biomarkers of systemic inflammation in patients with AIDS.MethodsA total of 454 participants with AIDS had retinal vascular caliber (central retinal artery equivalent and central retinal vein equivalent) determined from enrollment retinal photographs by reading center graders masked to clinical and biomarker information. Cryopreserved plasma specimens were assayed for inflammatory biomarkers, including C-reactive protein (CRP), IL-6, interferon-γ inducible protein (IP)-10, kynurenine/tryptophan (KT) ratio, and intestinal fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP).ResultsIn the simple linear regression of retinal vascular caliber on plasma biomarkers, elevated CRP, IL-6, and IP-10 were associated with retinal venular dilation, and elevated KT ratio with retinal arteriolar narrowing. In the multiple linear regression, including baseline characteristics and plasma biomarkers, AMD was associated with dilation of retinal arterioles (mean difference: 9.1 μm; 95% confidence interval [CI] 5.2, 12.9; P < 0.001) and venules (mean difference, 10.9 μm; 95% CI, 5.3, 16.6; P < 0.001), as was black race (P < 0.001). Hyperlipidemia was associated with retinal venular narrowing (mean difference, -7.5 μm; 95% CI, -13.7, -1.2; P = 0.02); cardiovascular disease with arteriolar narrowing (mean difference, -5.2 μm; 95% CI, -10.3, -0.1; P = 0.05); age with arteriolar narrowing (slope, -0.26 μm/year; 95% CI, -0.46, -0.06; P = 0.009); and IL-6 with venular dilation (slope, 5.3 μm/standard deviation log10[plasma IL-6 concentration]; 95% CI, 2.7, 8.0; P < 0.001).ConclusionsThese data suggest that retinal vascular caliber is associated with age, race, AMD, hyperlipidemia, cardiovascular disease, and selected biomarkers of systemic inflammation

Rare and common epilepsies converge on a shared gene regulatory network providing opportunities for novel antiepileptic drug discovery

Background The relationship between monogenic and polygenic forms of epilepsy is poorly understood, and the extent to which the genetic and acquired epilepsies share common pathways is unclear. Here, we use an integrated systems-level analysis of brain gene expression data to identify molecular networks disrupted in epilepsy. Results We identify a co-expression network of 320 genes (M30), which is significantly enriched for non-synonymous de novo mutations ascertained from patients with monogenic epilepsy, and for common variants associated with polygenic epilepsy. The genes in M30 network are expressed widely in the human brain under tight developmental control, and encode physically interacting proteins involved in synaptic processes. The most highly connected proteins within M30 network are preferentially disrupted by deleterious de novo mutations for monogenic epilepsy, in line with the centrality-lethality hypothesis. Analysis of M30 expression revealed consistent down-regulation in the epileptic brain in heterogeneous forms of epilepsy including human temporal lobe epilepsy, a mouse model of acquired temporal lobe epilepsy, and a mouse model of monogenic Dravet (SCN1A) disease. These results suggest functional disruption of M30 via gene mutation or altered expression as a convergent mechanism regulating susceptibility to epilepsy broadly. Using the large collection of drug-induced gene expression data from Connectivity Map, several drugs were predicted to preferentially restore the down-regulation of M30 in epilepsy toward health, most notably valproic acid, whose effect on M30 expression was replicated in neurons. Conclusions Taken together, our results suggest targeting the expression of M30 as a potential new therapeutic strategy in epilepsy

Ozone loss derived from balloon-borne tracer measurements and the SLIMCAT CTM

Balloon-borne measurements of CFC-11 (on flights of the DIRAC in situ gas chromatograph and the DESCARTES grab sampler), ClO and O3 were made during the 1999/2000 winter as part of the SOLVE-THESEO 2000 campaign. Here we present the CFC-11 data from nine flights and compare them first with data from other instruments which flew during the campaign and then with the vertical distributions calculated by the SLIMCAT 3-D CTM. We calculate ozone loss inside the Arctic vortex between late January and early March using the relation between CFC-11 and O3 measured on the flights, the peak ozone loss (1200 ppbv) occurs in the 440–470 K region in early March in reasonable agreement with other published empirical estimates. There is also a good agreement between ozone losses derived from three independent balloon tracer data sets used here. The magnitude and vertical distribution of the loss derived from the measurements is in good agreement with the loss calculated from SLIMCAT over Kiruna for the same days

Ozone loss derived from balloon-borne tracer measurements in the 1999/2000 Arctic winter

Balloon-borne measurements of CFC11 (from the DIRAC in situ gas chromatograph and the DESCARTES grab sampler), ClO and O3 were made during the 1999/2000 Arctic winter as part of the SOLVE-THESEO 2000 campaign, based in Kiruna (Sweden). Here we present the CFC11 data from nine flights and compare them first with data from other instruments which flew during the campaign and then with the vertical distributions calculated by the SLIMCAT 3D CTM. We calculate ozone loss inside the Arctic vortex between late January and early March using the relation between CFC11 and O3 measured on the flights. The peak ozone loss (~1200ppbv) occurs in the 440-470K region in early March in reasonable agreement with other published empirical estimates. There is also a good agreement between ozone losses derived from three balloon tracer data sets used here. The magnitude and vertical distribution of the loss derived from the measurements is in good agreement with the loss calculated from SLIMCAT over Kiruna for the same days

Term-BLAST-like alignment tool for concept recognition in noisy clinical texts.

MOTIVATION: Methods for concept recognition (CR) in clinical texts have largely been tested on abstracts or articles from the medical literature. However, texts from electronic health records (EHRs) frequently contain spelling errors, abbreviations, and other nonstandard ways of representing clinical concepts. RESULTS: Here, we present a method inspired by the BLAST algorithm for biosequence alignment that screens texts for potential matches on the basis of matching k-mer counts and scores candidates based on conformance to typical patterns of spelling errors derived from 2.9 million clinical notes. Our method, the Term-BLAST-like alignment tool (TBLAT) leverages a gold standard corpus for typographical errors to implement a sequence alignment-inspired method for efficient entity linkage. We present a comprehensive experimental comparison of TBLAT with five widely used tools. Experimental results show an increase of 10% in recall on scientific publications and 20% increase in recall on EHR records (when compared against the next best method), hence supporting a significant enhancement of the entity linking task. The method can be used stand-alone or as a complement to existing approaches. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: Fenominal is a Java library that implements TBLAT for named CR of Human Phenotype Ontology terms and is available at https://github.com/monarch-initiative/fenominal under the GNU General Public License v3.0

Priorities for Patient‐Centered Outcomes Research: The Views of Minority and Underserved Communities

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136533/1/hesr12505_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136533/2/hesr12505.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136533/3/hesr12505-sup-0001-AppendixSA1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136533/4/hesr12505-sup-0002-AppendixSA2.pd