Sleep promoters and insomnia

The purpose of this updating manuscript is to briefly describe the profile, clinical use and indication of some of the most used sedative and hypnotic compounds. About 2/3 of all hypnotic prescriptions go to chronic use. Benzodiazepines are among the most prescribed drugs worldwide. Women, elderly, psychiatric and medical disease patients are among chronic users of hypnotics. Zolpidem is now the most prescribed hypnotic in most countries. It appears to be safer, compared to benzodazepines, and might be an option for long-term and controlled use (as needed). Sedative antidepressants are also among the most prescribed drug for sedation in insomnia patients in USA and UK. Sedative effect and use of trazodone, mirtazapine, doxepine, amitryptilin are described. The authors also discuss the use of melatonin and its sleep properties, and the rational use of sedative antipsychotics for chronic insomnia, particularly in psychiatric patients. Finally, some phytotherapeutic compounds are mentioned.O objetivo deste artigo de atualização é o de descrever brevemente o perfil, a utilização clínica e a indicação de alguns dos sedativos e compostos hipnóticos mais utilizados. Cerca de 2/3 de todas as prescrições hipnóticas vão para o uso crônico. Os benzodiazepínicos estão entre as drogas mais prescritas mundialmente. As mulheres, os idosos e os pacientes psiquiátricos e clínicos estão entre os usuários crônicos de hipnóticos. O zolpidem é, atualmente, o hipnótico mais prescrito na maioria dos países. Parece ser mais seguro em comparação aos benzodiazepínicos e poderia ser uma opção para o uso de longo prazo e controlado (quando necessário). Os antidepressivos sedativos encontram-se também entre as medicações mais prescritas para sedação em pacientes com insônia nos EUA e no Reino Unido. São descritos efeito sedativo e uso de trazodona, mirtazapina, doxepina e amitriptilina. Os autores também discutem o uso de melatonina e suas propriedades sedativas e o uso racional de antipsicóticos sedativos para insônia crônica, em especial em pacientes psiquiátricos. Finalmente, alguns compostos fitoterápicos são mencionados.Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP)Universidade de São Paulo Hospital das Clínicas Centro para Estudos do Sono Instituto de PsiquiatriaHospital Saint AntoineUNIFESPSciEL

Emotional management and biological markers of dietetic regimen in chronic kidney disease patients

The aim of the study was to investigate the association between psychological characteristics and biological markers of adherence in chronic kidney disease patients receiving conservative therapy, hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis (PD), or kidney transplantation. Seventy-nine adult patients were asked to complete the following questionnaires: Toronto Alexithymia scale, Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale, and Short Form Health Survey. Biological markers of adherence to treatment were measured. Peritoneal dialysis patients showed a lower capacity to feel pleasure from sensorial experience (p = .011) and a higher values of phosphorus compared to the other patients’ groups (p = .0001). The inability to communicate emotions was negatively correlated with hemoglobin levels (r = −(0).69; p = .001) and positively correlated with phosphorus values in the PD patients (r = .45; p = .050). Findings showed higher psychological impairments and a lower adherence to the treatment in PD patients and suggest the implication of emotional competence in adherence to treatment.The aim of the study was to investigate the association between psychological characteristics and biological markers of adherence in chronic kidney disease patients receiving conservative therapy, hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis (PD), or kidney transplantation. Seventy-nine adult patients were asked to complete the following questionnaires: Toronto Alexithymia scale, Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale, and Short Form Health Survey. Biological markers of adherence to treatment were measured. Peritoneal dialysis patients showed a lower capacity to feel pleasure from sensorial experience (p = .011) and a higher values of phosphorus compared to the other patients' groups (p = .0001). The inability to communicate emotions was negatively correlated with hemoglobin levels (r = -(0).69; p = .001) and positively correlated with phosphorus values in the PD patients (r = .45; p = .050). Findings showed higher psychological impairments and a lower adherence to the treatment in PD patients and suggest the implication of emotional competence in adherence to treatment

ESTree db: a Tool for Peach Functional Genomics

BACKGROUND: The ESTree db represents a collection of Prunus persica expressed sequenced tags (ESTs) and is intended as a resource for peach functional genomics. A total of 6,155 successful EST sequences were obtained from four in-house prepared cDNA libraries from Prunus persica mesocarps at different developmental stages. Another 12,475 peach EST sequences were downloaded from public databases and added to the ESTree db. An automated pipeline was prepared to process EST sequences using public software integrated by in-house developed Perl scripts and data were collected in a MySQL database. A php-based web interface was developed to query the database. RESULTS: The ESTree db version as of April 2005 encompasses 18,630 sequences representing eight libraries. Contig assembly was performed with CAP3. Putative single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detection was performed with the AutoSNP program and a search engine was implemented to retrieve results. All the sequences and all the contig consensus sequences were annotated both with blastx against the GenBank nr db and with GOblet against the viridiplantae section of the Gene Ontology db. Links to NiceZyme (Expasy) and to the KEGG metabolic pathways were provided. A local BLAST utility is available. A text search utility allows querying and browsing the database. Statistics were provided on Gene Ontology occurrences to assign sequences to Gene Ontology categories. CONCLUSION: The resulting database is a comprehensive resource of data and links related to peach EST sequences. The Sequence Report and Contig Report pages work as the web interface core structures, giving quick access to data related to each sequence/contig

The Human EST Ontology Explorer: a tissue-oriented visualization system for ontologies distribution in human EST collections

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The NCBI dbEST currently contains more than eight million human Expressed Sequenced Tags (ESTs). This wide collection represents an important source of information for gene expression studies, provided it can be inspected according to biologically relevant criteria. EST data can be browsed using different dedicated web resources, which allow to investigate library specific gene expression levels and to make comparisons among libraries, highlighting significant differences in gene expression. Nonetheless, no tool is available to examine distributions of quantitative EST collections in Gene Ontology (GO) categories, nor to retrieve information concerning library-dependent EST involvement in metabolic pathways. In this work we present the Human EST Ontology Explorer (HEOE) <url>http://www.itb.cnr.it/ptp/human_est_explorer</url>, a web facility for comparison of expression levels among libraries from several healthy and diseased tissues.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The HEOE provides library-dependent statistics on the distribution of sequences in the GO Direct Acyclic Graph (DAG) that can be browsed at each GO hierarchical level. The tool is based on large-scale BLAST annotation of EST sequences. Due to the huge number of input sequences, this BLAST analysis was performed with the aid of grid computing technology, which is particularly suitable to address data parallel task. Relying on the achieved annotation, library-specific distributions of ESTs in the GO Graph were inferred. A pathway-based search interface was also implemented, for a quick evaluation of the representation of libraries in metabolic pathways. EST processing steps were integrated in a semi-automatic procedure that relies on Perl scripts and stores results in a MySQL database. A PHP-based web interface offers the possibility to simultaneously visualize, retrieve and compare data from the different libraries. Statistically significant differences in GO categories among user selected libraries can also be computed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The HEOE provides an alternative and complementary way to inspect EST expression levels with respect to approaches currently offered by other resources. Furthermore, BLAST computation on the whole human EST dataset was a suitable test of grid scalability in the context of large-scale bioinformatics analysis. The HEOE currently comprises sequence analysis from 70 non-normalized libraries, representing a comprehensive overview on healthy and unhealthy tissues. As the analysis procedure can be easily applied to other libraries, the number of represented tissues is intended to increase.</p

Influence of substances with acid pH on composite resins microhardness

Resin composites are aesthetic restorative materials widely used in Dentistry and changes in pH can promote amendments in composite surface, compromising their initial characteristics. The aim of this study was to evaluate, in vitro, the effect of low pH beverages on two commercially available materials, the composite resins ICE (SDI) and Durafill VS (Heraeus Kulzer). The materials were evaluated for surface microhardness obtained by Vickers microhardness testing. Fifteen samples were prepared with 11 mm diameter and 2 mm thick, each restorative material. The samples were kept in storage conditions of the following substances: Gatorade ® (pH 2,9); Coca- Cola ® (pH 2,2) and distilled water (pH 6,0; control group) under temperature of 37 ° C, and the environment of immersing exchanged every 24 hours. Five samples of each material were immersed in the beverages tested and monitored for periods of 24 hours, 7, 14 and 21 days. The results were submitted to multifactorial analysis of variance and Tukey test. There were statistically significant differences (p 0.05) for factors environment, material and time, and for the interaction between them. The distilled water resulted in higher values of microhardness, followed by Coca-Cola® and Gatorade®. The highest values of microhardness were obtained at baseline, followed by 7, 14 and 21 days. There was no statistically significant difference (p 0,05) between the times of 14 and 21 days. It was concluded that the nanocomposite better results and that the acidic pH associated with progressive immersion time significantly alter the microhardness of the composites evaluated

Documentación asociada a un fósil, registro que recupera la historia en las colecciones.

La documentación asociada al fósil de una colección se vincula entre sí y al ejemplar por medio del número de catálogo. La desvinculación entre la pieza y toda su información conlleva la pérdida o la disminución de su valor científico. El traslado de piezas, dentro o fuera de la institución, es un paso crítico para esta asociación. Escasos establecimientos conservan la documentación administrativa de las colecciones. Ante estas situaciones y el paso del tiempo, pueden aparecer dudas sobre los datos originales de algunas piezas, lo cual puede motivar reclamos. En 1998, previo a la Ley N° 25.743 de Protección del Patrimonio Arqueológico y Paleontológico, ocurrió un intercambio epistolar entre el Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia (MACN) de la ciudad de Buenos Aires y el Museo Municipal de Ciencias Naturales Lorenzo Scaglia de Mar del Plata, con motivo de la restitución de un ejemplar fósil del género Abrocoma (Mammalia, Rodentia). Este evento surgió a raíz de varias situaciones donde predominaron la trasmisión oral de la información y la memoria. Esto desencadenó una discusión sobre dónde debía quedar alojado el material (colectado en el partido de General Pueyrredón, provincia de Buenos Aires). La resolución del conflicto quedó registrada en una serie de cartas que ambas instituciones conservan, gracias a lo cual pudo reconstruirse la historia del material.Fil: Alvarez, Stella Maris. Universidad Maimónides; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Fundación de Historia Natural Félix de Azara; ArgentinaFil: Taglioretti, Matias Luciano. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Geología de Costas y del Cuaternario. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Geología de Costas y del Cuaternario; ArgentinaFil: Chornogubsky, L.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; Argentina34º Jornadas Argentinas de Paleontología de VertebradosMendozaArgentinaUniversidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y CienciasMuseo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino RivadaviaMuseo de Historia Natural de San Rafae

Dental twinning in the primary dentition: new archaeological cases from Italy

Dental twinning (or “double teeth”) is a rare developmental condition that implies the fusion of two or more adjacent teeth. Clinical literature reports individual cases and extensive population studies to clarify causation, distribution, heritability and differential diagnosis of the different types of dental twinning (i.e. fusion, gemination, and accretion) whereas, documentation for past populations is still scarce. Aims: the present study documents four new archaeological cases of dental twinning of deciduous teeth from four different Italian archeological sites and positions them within the framework of the known literature.Materials and methods: the observed cases include five deciduous teeth from four subadults from Sardinia (Monte Sirai, 7th-4th cent. BCE and Santa Filitica, 7th cent. CE), Campania (Velia, 1st-2nd cent. CE) and Latium (Villamagna, 13th-15th cent. CE). The identification, descriptions and differential diagnoses of the anomalies were performed with the use of morphological analyses and, in one case, radiographic means.Results: all cases fall within the category of double teeth; each involving a different set of processes (gemination and dental fusion), teeth (deciduous central incisors, lateral incisors and canines), locations (upper and lower) and occurrence (unilateral and bilateral). Conclusion: to this day, cases reported in literature of dental twinning in archaeological samples are sparse and limited to specific geographical areas. This study adds four more cases from Italy suggesting such anomalies should be recorded in dental analyses in order to, one day, obtain a more reliable modelling of the frequencies and distributions in past populations

Dental twinning in the primary dentition: new archaeological cases from Italy

Dental twinning (or “double teeth”) is a rare developmental condition that implies the fusion of two or more adjacent teeth. Clinical literature reports individual cases and extensive population studies to clarify causation, distribution, heritability and differential diagnosis of the different types of dental twinning (i.e. fusion, gemination, and accretion) whereas, documentation for past populations is still scarce. Aims: the present study documents four new archaeological cases of dental twinning of deciduous teeth from four different Italian archeological sites and positions them within the framework of the known literature.Materials and methods: the observed cases include five deciduous teeth from four subadults from Sardinia (Monte Sirai, 7th-4th cent. BCE and Santa Filitica, 7th cent. CE), Campania (Velia, 1st-2nd cent. CE) and Latium (Villamagna, 13th-15th cent. CE). The identification, descriptions and differential diagnoses of the anomalies were performed with the use of morphological analyses and, in one case, radiographic means.Results: all cases fall within the category of double teeth; each involving a different set of processes (gemination and dental fusion), teeth (deciduous central incisors, lateral incisors and canines), locations (upper and lower) and occurrence (unilateral and bilateral). Conclusion: to this day, cases reported in literature of dental twinning in archaeological samples are sparse and limited to specific geographical areas. This study adds four more cases from Italy suggesting such anomalies should be recorded in dental analyses in order to, one day, obtain a more reliable modelling of the frequencies and distributions in past populations