Health impact on women using solid cooking fuels in rural area of Cuttack district, Odisha

Background: Around 3 billion people use solid fuels (biomass and coal) for cooking and heating, and this number is expected to grow until at least 2030. Around 73.7% of households in rural Odisha use wood for cooking. This current study is an attempt to evaluate the impact of solid cooking fuels on health of rural women in age group of 20–40 years and to study the relationship between the duration of exposure to cooking fuels and various health problems. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in a village which is under the field practice area of the rural health and training centre, under Department of Community Medicine, Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences. Universal sampling technique was adopted for sample selection. Chi-square test was used to find the association between cooking fuel usage and self-reported symptoms. Results: Dry cough was the most common presenting symptom (15.03%), followed by eye and nose irritation present in nearly 12% each among the study participants. Headache, dry cough, and hypertension (HT) was found to associated with number of cooking years and was also found to be statistically significant (P = 0.03, 0.02 and 0.0065, respectively). Discussion: Our study clearly indicated that the exposure to biomass fuel smoke is significantly associated with the prevalence of symptoms of headache, dry cough, and HT. Further research is required for improving information on dose-response relationships between indoor air pollution and various health effects. Conclusion: The morbidities were increased with increase in duration of cooking . Knowledge related to health effects of cooking fuels seems to be poor among the participants

Study protocol for evaluating the clinical efficacy and neurobiological correlates of sequential treatment with tDCS primed iTBS and ECT in treatment-resistant depression

A project under DBT Wellcome trust India Alliance funded "Clinical Research Center for Neuromodulation in Psychiatry

Melatonin promotes myelination by decreasing white matter inflammation after neonatal stroke.

International audienceMelatonin demonstrates neuroprotective properties in adult models of cerebral ischemia, acting as a potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent. We investigated the effect of melatonin in a 7-d-old rat model of ischemia-reperfusion, leading to both cortical infarct and injury in the underlying white matter observed using MRI and immunohistochemistry. Melatonin was given i.p. as either a single dose before ischemia or a double-dose regimen, combining one before ischemia and one 24 h after reperfusion. At 48 h after injury, neither a significant reduction in cortical infarct volume nor a variation in the number of TUNEL- and nitrotyrosine-positive cells within the ipsilateral lesion was observed in melatonin-treated animals compared with controls. However, a decrease in the density of tomato lectin-positive cells after melatonin treatment was found in the white matter underlying cortical lesion. Furthermore, we showed a marked increase in the myelin basic protein-immunoreactivity in the cingulum and in the density of mature oligodendrocytes (APC-immunoreactive) in both the ipsilateral cingulum and external capsule. These results suggest that melatonin is not able to reduce cortical infarct volume in a neonatal stroke model but strongly reduces inflammation and promotes subsequent myelination in the white matter