Substance use disorders in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a 4-year follow-up study

Aim To examine the relationship between a childhood diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with or without oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)/conduct disorder (CD) and the development of later alcohol/drug use disorder [psychoactive substance use disorder (PSUD)] and nicotine dependence in a large European sample of ADHD probands, their siblings and healthy control subjects. Participants design and settingSubjects (n=1017) were participants in the Belgian, Dutch and German part of the International Multicenter ADHD Genetics (IMAGE) study. IMAGE families were identified through ADHD probands aged 5-17 years attending out-patient clinics, and control subjects from the same geographic areas. After a follow-up period (mean: 4.4 years) this subsample was re-assessed at a mean age of 16.4 years. Measurements PSUD and nicotine dependence were assessed using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, Drug Abuse Screening Test and Fagerstrom test for Nicotine Dependence. Findings The ADHD sample was at higher risk of developing PSUD [hazard ratio (HR)=1.77, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.05-3.00] and nicotine dependence (HR=8.61, 95% CI=2.44-30.34) than healthy controls. The rates of these disorders were highest for ADHD youth who also had CD, but could not be accounted for by this comorbidity. We did not find an increased risk of developing PSUD (HR=1.18, 95% CI=0.62-2.27) or nicotine dependence (HR=1.89, 95% CI=0.46-7.77) among unaffected siblings of ADHD youth. Conclusions A childhood diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a risk factor for psychoactive substance use disorder and nicotine dependence in adolescence and comorbid conduct disorder, but not oppositional defiant disorder, further increases the risk of developing psychoactive substance use disorder and nicotine dependence

Motor timing deficits in community and clinical boys with hyperactive behaviour: The effect of methylphenidate on motor timing.

In a previous paper we showed that community children with hyperactive behavior were more inconsistent than controls in the temporal organization of their motor output. In this study we investigated: (1) various aspects of motor timing processes in 13 clinically diagnosed boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who were compared to 11 community boys with hyperactive behavior and to a control group and (2) the effect of methylphenidate on the motor timing processes in the clinical group with ADHD in a double blind, cross-over, medication-placebo design, including 4 weeks of medication. The clinical group with ADHD, like the community group with hyperactivity, showed greater variability in sensorimotor synchronization and in sensorimotor anticipation relative to controls. The clinical group was also impaired in time perception, which was spared in the community group with hyperactivity. The persistent, but not the acute dose, of methylphenidate reduced the variability of sensorimotor synchronization and anticipation, but had no effect on time perception. This study shows that motor timing functions are impaired in both clinical and community children with hyperactivity. It is the first study to show the effectiveness of persistent administration of methylphenidate on deficits in motor timing in ADHD children and extends the use of methylphenidate from the domain of attentional and inhibitory functions to the domain of executive motor timing

Aprotinin reduces cardiac troponin I release and inhibits apoptosis of polymorphonuclear cells during off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery

Objectives: In addition to blood-sparing effects, aprotinin may have cardioprotective and anti-inflammatory effects during cardiopulmonary bypass-assisted cardiac surgery. In this study, the authors examined whether aprotinin had cardioprotective and/or anti-inflammatory effects in patients undergoing off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting. Design: A prospective randomized clinical trial. Setting: University hospital. Participants: Fifty patients were randomized to control (n = 25) or aprotinin treatment (n = 25) groups. Interventions: Aprotinin was given as a loading dose (2 x 10(6) KIU) followed by a continuous infusion at 5 x 10(5) KIU/h until skin closure. Measurements and Main Results: Blood samples for cardiac troponin I; interleukin-6, interleukin-8, and interleukin-10; tumor necrosis factor a; and elastase were taken after anesthesia induction, completion of revascularization, and 6 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours after revascularization. Blood samples were taken to assess for apoptosis in polymorphonuclear cells. Baseline plasma levels for cardiac troponin I did not differ between groups but were significantly lower in aprotinin-treated patients at the time of revascularization (P = 0.03) and 6 hours (p = 0.004) and 24 hours (p = 0.03) later. Aprotinin significantly reduced apoptosis in polymorphonuclear cells compared with control-treated patients (p = 0.04). There were no differences in plasma cytokine or elastase levels between groups. Conclusions: The authors conclude that aprotinin reduces perioperative cardiac troponin I release and attenuates apoptosis in polymorphonuclear cells but has no significant effects on plasma cytokine levels in patients undergoing off-pump coronary artery bypass graft surgery

Dissociative style and directed forgetting.

Dissociative style may correspond to an enhanced ability to avoid conscious recollection of traumatic experiences, which may, however, remain dormant in nonconscious memory. This hypothesis was tested in two "directed-forgetting" experiments with affectively neutral words (experiment 1) and sex and threat words (experiment 2) employing a total of 83 first-year psychology students high and low in dissociative style, and 14 dissociative patients. Conscious and nonconscious memory were separated with the process dissociation procedure (L. L. Jacoby, 1991). Instruction to forget was expected to reduce conscious but to enhance nonconscious memory performance in Ss with a high dissociative ability. Results were opposite to predictions. Particularly for sex words, the instruction to forget raised the overall (conscious and nonconscious) memory performance of the patients. An alternative construction hypothesis is proposed that identifies dissociative style with enhanced skills of constructing conscious experiences

Analytical modeling of axial flux PM machines with eccentricities

© 2017 IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved. In this paper, an analytical quasi three-dimensional method is used to model an axial flux permanent magnet (AFPM) machine with various eccentricities. AFPM machines (AFPMMs) have various advantages but they are sensitive to geometrical imperfections for manufacturing aspect. The main aim of this paper is to propose a general analytical model to analyze the AFPMMs with various types of eccentricities. The radial and tangential magnetic flux densities in the air gap under healthy condition are obtained via combination of Maxwell's equations and Schwarz-Christoffel (SC) mapping firstly. Next, in order to investigate the eccentricities, equations for air gap length and radii are deduced. The back electromotive force (EMF) is calculated and compared with those from healthy condition and finite element (FE) analysis, respectively. The results show that the analytical predictions agree well with the FE results. Moreover, using this method has a significantly less time consuming than the 3D FM simulation process, which is a great advantage of this method. Finally, the analytical model is verified via experimental results

Inhibitory control during sentence reading in dyslexic children

The present study focused on the nature of the reading disability of children with the guessing subtype of dyslexia (who read fast and inaccurately). The objective was to separate the excitatory account of their reading disturbance (i.e., in guessers the words' resting levels of activation are oversensitive to semantic context) from the inhibitory account (i.e., guessers tend to react prematurely to (false) candidate words that are activated in the lexicon). To disentangle the above accounts, guessers and normal readers were presented with a sentential priming task (SPT). In the SPT, subjects had to determine whether the final word of a sentence was semantically congruent or incongruent with the sentence, but had to inhibit their 'congruent' or 'incongruent' response in case of an occasionally presented pseudoword. To evoke guessing, each pseudoword closely resembled either a valid congruent or incongruent word. Guessing referred to prematurely accepting a pseudoword as a word that either appropriately or inappropriately completed the sentence. The extent to which subjects guessed at word meaning was evidenced by the false recognition rates (FRR) of the misspelled terminal words. Analyses on the FRRs of the pseudowords showed that guessers had significantly more difficulty in suppressing the 'go tendency' triggered by the pseudowords. It was concluded that the impulsive reading style of guessers should be ascribed to a less efficient suppression mechanism rather than to excessive reliance on contextual information. Specifically, the data were explained by assuming that the availability of the pseudoword's candidate meaning activated the hand to respond with, and that guessers found difficulty in suspending this response until they analyzed all letters in the stimulus and they could be sure of its spelling

Recovery of a Medieval Brucella melitensis genome using shotgun metagenomics

ABSTRACT Shotgun metagenomics provides a powerful assumption-free approach to the recovery of pathogen genomes from contemporary and historical material. We sequenced the metagenome of a calcified nodule from the skeleton of a 14th-century middle-aged male excavated from the medieval Sardinian settlement of Geridu. We obtained 6.5-fold coverage of a Brucella melitensis genome. Sequence reads from this genome showed signatures typical of ancient or aged DNA. Despite the relatively low coverage, we were able to use information from single-nucleotide polymorphisms to place the medieval pathogen genome within a clade of B. melitensis strains that included the well-studied Ether strain and two other recent Italian isolates. We confirmed this placement using information from deletions and IS711 insertions. We conclude that metagenomics stands ready to document past and present infections, shedding light on the emergence, evolution, and spread of microbial pathogens

Towards an understanding of unique and shared pathways in the psychopathophysiology of AD/HD

Most attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) research has compared cases with unaffected controls. This has led to many associations, but uncertainties about their specificity to ADHD in contrast with other disorders. We present a selective review of research, comparing ADHD with other disorders in neuropsychological, neurobiological and genetic correlates. So far, a specific pathophysiologicalpathway has not been identified. ADHD is probably not specifically associated with executive function deficits. It is possible, but not yet established, that ADHD symptoms may be more specifically associated with motivational abnormalities, motor organization and time perception. Recent findings indicating common genetic liabilities of ADHD and other conditions raise questions about diagnostic boundaries. In future research, the delineation of the pathophysiological mechanisms of ADHD needs to match cognitive, imaging and genetic techniques to the challenge of defining more homogenous clinical groups; multi-site collaborative projects are needed. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd