Is Addiction being Memorized?

Addiction study has switched to the realm of modern neuroscience, with the most recent and cutting-edge studies focusing on the behaviors that contribute to addiction. Addiction memory is a series of specific plastic changes at the synaptic level caused by long-term drug stimulation through gene transcription and expression. Based on clinical observations, addictive memory is viewed as a dysregulation of independent acquisition associated with the integration of choice lines in the “feedback loop” and “comparative system” of the hippocampus during neural information processing. Two meanings of the addition memory as (i) memory unrelated to the loss of drug control and (ii) drug-specific memory of the addicted drugs

Treatment of allergic conjunctivitis with olopatadine hydrochloride eye drops

Olopatadine hydrochloride exerts a wide range of pharmacological actions such as histamine H1 receptor antagonist action, chemical mediator suppressive action, and eosinophil infiltration suppressive action. Olopatadine hydrochloride 0.1% ophthalmic solution (Patanol®) was introduced to the market in Japan in October 2006. In a conjunctival allergen challenge (CAC) test, olopatadine hydrochloride 0.1% ophthalmic solution significantly suppressed ocular itching and hyperemia compared with levocabastine hydrochloride 0.05% ophthalmic solution, and the number of patients who complained of ocular discomfort was lower in the olopatadine group than in the levocabastine group. Conjunctival cell membrane disruption was observed in vitro in the ketotifen fumarate group, epinastine hydrochloride group, and azelastine hydrochloride group, but not in the olopatadine hydrochloride 0.1% ophthalmic solution group, which may potentially explain the lower discomfort felt by patients on instillation. Many other studies in humans have revealed the superiority of olopatadine 0.1% hydrochloride eye drops to several other anti-allergic eye drops. Overseas, olopatadine hydrochloride 0.2% ophthalmic solution for a once-daily regimen has been marketed under the brand name of Pataday®. It is expected that olopatadine hydrochloride ophthalmic solutions may be used in patients with a more severe spectrum of allergic conjunctival diseases, such as vernal keratoconjunctivitis or atopic keratoconjunctivitis, in the near future

Antiadenoviral effects of N-chlorotaurine in vitro confirmed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction methods

Eiichi Uchio1, Hirotoshi Inoue1, Kazuaki Kadonosono21Department of Ophthalmology, Fukuoka University School of Medicine, Fukuoka, Japan; 2Department of Ophthalmology, Yokohama City University Medical Center, Yokohama, JapanPurpose: Adenoviral keratoconjunctivitis is recognized as one of the major pathogens of ophthalmological nosocomial infection worldwide. N-Chlorotaurine (Cl–HN–CH2–CH2–SO3H, NCT) is the N-chloro derivative of the amino acid taurine, which is an oxidant produced by human granulocytes and monocytes during inflammatory reactions. Using conventional viral plaque assay, it was previously shown that NCT causes inactivation of several human adenovirus (HAdV) serotypes. In this study, we evaluated the antiadenoviral effect of NCT by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods.Methods: A549 cells were used for viral cell culture, and HAdV serotypes 3, 4, 8, 19, and 37 were used. After calculating 50% cytotoxic concentration (CC50) of NCT by MTS (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium) method, HAdV was cultured with NCT for 7 days, and extracted adenoviral DNA was quantitatively measured by real-time PCR.Results: A statistically significant (P < 0.05) dose-dependent inhibition was indicated for all serotypes except HAdV type 4 (HAdV4), which was maximally inhibited by only ~50%. Among the serotypes, NCT was particularly effective against HAdV8, HAdV19a, and HAdV37. The 50% effective concentration (EC50) obtained by real-time PCR of NCT ranged between 49 and 256 µM. EC50 of NCT against HAdV3 was slightly higher than that against serotypes of species D. The selective index (CC50/EC50) ranged between 41 and 60 except for HAdV4 (11.5).Conclusions: These results show that NCT has an antiviral effect against most serotypes of human HAdV inducing keratoconjunctivitis, indicating its possible therapeutic use.Keywords: adenovirus, N-chlorotaurine, epidemic keratoconjunctivitis, antiviral agen