The nosological significance of Folie à Deux: a review of the literature

BACKGROUND: Folie à Deux is a rare syndrome that has attracted much clinical attention. There is increasing doubt over the essence of the condition and the validity of the original description, such that it remains an elusive entity difficult to define. METHOD: We conducted a systematic review of the literature of all cases reporting the phenomenon of Folie à Deux, from the years 1993–2005. RESULTS: 64 cases were identified of which 42 met the inclusion criteria. The diagnoses in the primary and secondary were more heterogeneous than current diagnostic criteria suggest. There exists a high degree of similarity between the primary and secondary in terms of susceptibility to psychiatric illness, family and past psychiatric history, than previously thought. CONCLUSION: Folie à Deux can occur in many situations outside the confines of the current classification systems and is not as rare as believed, and should alert the clinician to unrecognized psychiatric problems in the secondary

DISC1 and Huntington's disease-overlapping pathways of vulnerability to neurological disorder?

We re-annotated the interacting partners of the neuronal scaffold protein DISC1 using a knowledge-based approach that incorporated recent protein interaction data and published literature to. This revealed two highly connected networks. These networks feature cellular function and maintenance, and cell signaling. Of potentially greatest interest was the novel finding of a high degree of connectivity between the DISC1 scaffold protein, linked to psychiatric illness, and huntingtin, the protein which is mutated in Huntington's disease. The potential link between DISC1, huntingtin and their interacting partners may open new areas of research into the effects of pathway dysregulation in severe neurological disorders

Aggressive Behaviour in Huntington’s Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Nursing Home Population

We describe a cross-sectional study of aggressive behaviour in a sample of patients suffering from Huntington's disease in a residential nursing home. Data were obtained using the RAGE, a behaviourally oriented rating scale for measuring aggressive behaviour in cognitively impaired patients. Nursing staff rated 27 patients after a 3 day observation period. A third of the sample were rated to be at least mildly aggressive; the frequencies of some specific types of aggressive behaviour were high. In contrast, the frequency of injuries sustained and the use of restraints and medication for aggressive behaviour were low. Aggressive behaviour was found to be significantly related to the degree of functional impairment. These data are compared with those reported in a study using the RAGE to assess aggressive behaviour in a sample of elderly patients with dementia

Plant Responses to Drought Resistance: A Review

Plants cope up drought stress by stress avoidance, tolerance, or a combination of both to various degrees. Plant groups follow variety of strategies for survival under drought conditions. Some plants try to avoid drought stress by various physiological and biochemical mechanisms. Stress avoidance is the ability to prevent an externally applied stress from producing an equivalent internal stress in the plant, i.e. the ability to maintain high cellular water content even when the external water potential is low. Desiccation postponement is the ability to maintain tissue hydration and Desiccation tolerance is the ability to function while dehydrated. Another category, drought escape comprises plants that complete their life cycles during the wet season, before the onset of drought. These are the only true “drought avoiders.” Stress resistance (hardiness) is the ability to endure an externally applied stress i.e. the ability to survive low external water potential. Stress tolerance is the ability to survive an internal stress, i.e the ability to survive low cellular water content. Hardening (acclimation) is the development of stress resistance, stimulated by subjection to mild and/or gradually increasing stress. Adaptation and acclimation to environmental stresses result from integrated events occurring at all levels of organization, from the anatomical and morphological level to the cellular, biochemical, and molecular level. A plant that is capable of acquiring more water or that has higher water-use efficiency will resist drought better