Enhancement of Opioid-Mediated Analgesia\ud by Ingestion of Amniotic Fluid:\ud Onset Latency and Duration

Ingestion of placenta and amniotic fluid has been shown to enhance opioid-mediated analgesia produced by morphine injection, footshock, vaginal/cervical stimulation, and during late pregnancy in rats. The present study was designed to determine how soon after ingestion the enhancement begins and how long it lasts. Tail-flick latencies in Long-Evans rats were determined before and during vaginal/cervical stimulation; analgesia was measured as the percent increase in tail-flick latency during vaginal stimulation. After determination of baseline, rats were intubated with 0.25 ml of either amniotic fluid or beef bouillon. We found that analgesia enhancement was detectable as early as 5 minutes after ingestion of amniotic fluid, and the effect lasted at least 30 minutes, but no longer than 40 minutes

Amniotic-Fluid Ingestion Enhances\ud Morphine Analgesia During Morphine\ud Tolerance and Withdrawal in Rats

Ingestion of placenta and amniotic fluid has been shown to enhance opioid-mediated analgesia in rats produced by morphine injection. footshock, vaginal/cervical stimulation, and during late pregnancy. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of amniotic fluid ingestion on the characteristics of morphine dependency and withdrawal. Tail-flick latencies in Long-Evans rats were determined before and after repeated daily injections of morphine sulfate. It was found that ingestion of amniotic fluid after establishment of the morphine dependency, coupled with an injection of an otherwise ineffective dose of morphine, enhanced analgesia in morphine-dependent rats, and reversed hyperalgesia seen during withdrawal from morphine dependency

The Utility of Music-based Interventions in Dementia Care

While research has investigated the impact of music-based interventions on management of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), there is limited discussion of which music-based interventions are most effective for various levels of dementia severity, or of how to determine which music-based interventions are both accessible and feasible for caregivers and nursing staff. This review sought to identify the benefits of music-based interventions in dementia care within various domains of functioning and determine whether music-based interventions are effective for various levels of dementia severity. Peer-reviewed articles and studies that evaluated the effectiveness of various music interventions or demonstrated music\u27s impact on cognitive, behavioral, psychological, or social functioning for individuals with various levels of dementia were examined in this review. Most studies reviewed demonstrated that music-based interventions might yield improvements in various aspects of cognitive, behavioral, psychological, and social functioning across all levels of dementia severities. Due to the heterogeneity of methods and limitations of study designs, research is unable to demonstrate a systematic approach to selecting music interventions based on dementia severity. However, current patterns in the literature support recommendations for caregivers and nursing staff in individualizing music-based interventions for individuals with dementia

Ingested bovine amniotic fluid enhances morphine antinociception in rats

Ingestion by rats of rat placenta or amniotic fluid enhances opioid-mediated, or partly opioid-mediated, antinociception produced by morphine injection, vaginal or cervical stimulation, late pregnancy, and foot shock. This phenomenon is believed to be produced by a placental\ud opioid-enhancing factor (POEF). Ingestion by rats of human or dolphin placenta has also been shown to enhance opioid antinociception, suggesting that POEF may be common to many mammalian species. We tested bovine amniotic fluid (BAF) for its capacity to enhance morphine antinociception in female Long-Evans rats, as determined by percentage change from baseline tail-flick latency in response to radiant heat, and we report that 0.50 mL BAF effectively enhanced morphine antinociception but did not by itself produce antinociception. The efficacy of POEF across species suggests that POEF may have been functionally (and structurally) conserved during evolution. Furthermore, the availability of POEF at parturition, as well as its ability to enhance pregnancy-mediated antinociception without\ud disrupting maternal behavior, offers a tenable explanation for the long-debated ultimate causality of placentophagia

Ingested placenta blocks the effect of morphine on gut transit in Long–Evans rats

Opioids produce antinociception, and ingested placenta or amniotic fluid modifies that antinociception. More specifically, ingested placenta enhances the antinociception produced by selective activation of central n-opioid or y-opioid receptors but attenuates that produced by activation of central A-opioid receptors. Opioids also slow gut transit by acting on central or peripheral A-opioid receptors. Therefore, we hypothesized that ingested placenta would reverse the slowing of gut transit that is produced by morphine, a preferential A-opioid-receptor agonist. Rats were injected with morphine either centrally or systemically and fed placenta, after which gastrointestinal transit was evaluated. We report here that ingested placenta reversed the slowing of gut transit produced by centrally administered morphine but did not affect the slowing of gut transit produced by systemically administered morphine. These results suggest another likely consequence of placentophagia at parturition in mammals—reversal of opioid-mediated, pregnancy-based disruption of gastrointestinal function—as well as an important consideration in opioid-based treatments for pain in humans—enhancement of desirable effects with attenuation of adverse effects

IMDfence: Architecting a Secure Protocol for Implantable Medical Devices

Over the past decade, focus on the security and privacy aspects of implantable medical devices (IMDs) has intensified, driven by the multitude of cybersecurity vulnerabilities found in various existing devices. However, due to their strict computational, energy and physical constraints, conventional security protocols are not directly applicable to IMDs. Custom-tailored schemes have been proposed instead which, however, fail to cover the full spectrum of security features that modern IMDs and their ecosystems so critically require. In this paper we propose IMDfence, a security protocol for IMD ecosystems that provides a comprehensive yet practical security portfolio, which includes availability, non-repudiation, access control, entity authentication, remote monitoring and system scalability. The protocol also allows emergency access that results in the graceful degradation of offered services without compromising security and patient safety. The performance of the security protocol as well as its feasibility and impact on modern IMDs are extensively analyzed and evaluated. We find that IMDfence achieves the above security requirements at a mere less than 7% increase in total IMD energy consumption, and less than 14 ms and 9 kB increase in system delay and memory footprint, respectively