Acupuncture Class to be Taught in Beijing

On May 12, twenty-five ISU Veterinary Medicine students will embark on a study-abroad trip to China. The three-week trip will introduce the students to the principles of veterinary acupuncture and other traditional Chinese medicine techniques

Differential moderating effect of locus of control on effect of driving experience in young male and female drivers

Investigations of relationships between the specific personality variable, locus of control (LOC, Rotter, 1966) and driver behaviour or accidents have returned contrasting results. Review suggests dependence on gender or experience characteristics of participants, suggesting these factors interact with LOC to influence driving. Relationships were investigated in terms of influence on the eight driving styles of the Multidimensional Driving Style Inventory (MDSI, Taubman-Ben-Ari, Mikulincer & Gillarth, 2004) in young drivers (18-29 years). Gender and LOC differences in driving styles previously related to accidents were proposed. It was also proposed that driving experience influences driving style, and LOC influences effect of driving experience. Gender differences were found for dissociative, anxious, patient, risky, angry and high velocity styles. Women had more external LOC than men, and driver stress styles increased with more external LOC, but reduced with increased driving experience, but so did patient style. High velocity style increased with experience. Controlling for LOC revealed important gender differences in effect of experience: positive effects for men (reducing angry and high velocity, increasing carefulness) and negative effects for women (increasing angry and higher velocity, reducing carefulness). Findings suggest negative influence of high internal LOC on young men in terms of its interaction with experience

Executive function and emotional focus in autobiographical memory specificity in older adults

The current study examined the role of executive function in retrieval of specific autobiographical memories in older adults with regard to control of emotion during retrieval. Older and younger adults retrieved memories of specific events in response to emotionally positive, negative and neutral word cues. Contributions of inhibitory and updating elements of executive function to variance in autobiographical specificity were assessed to determine processes involved in the commonly found age-related reduction in specificity. A negative relationship between age and specificity was only found in retrieval to neutral cues. Alternative explanations of this age preservation of specificity of emotional recall are explored, within the context of control of emotion in the self-memory system and preserved emotional processing and positivity effect in older adults. The pattern of relationships suggests updating, rather than inhibition as the source of age-related reduction in specificity, but that emotional processing (particularly of positively valenced memories) is not influenced by age-related variance in executive control. The tendency of older adults to focus on positive material may thus act as a buffer against detrimental effects of reduced executive function capacity on autobiographical retrieval, representing a possible target for interventions to improve specificity of autobiographical memory retrieval in older adults

Results of a UK-wide vignette study with occupational therapists to explore cognitive screening post-stroke

Background. There is a paucity of evidence in the UK regarding occupational therapy (OT) cognitive screening, and whether, and how, cognitive impairments are identified and assessed. AimsTo identify current OT practice for the assessment of cognitive problems in patients following stroke.MethodsOTs were invited to complete an online vignette study. Participants were asked to identify any presenting cognitive problems, decide whether to complete cognitive assessments and list any assessments they would use. Data were analysed using descriptive analysis.Findings Fifty-three OTs from across the UK participated. OTs identified key cognitive issues but some problems, such as apraxia and attention, were overlooked. A large number of potential assessments were suggested: the most common were the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and Oxford Cognitive Screen. Conclusion The variation found in OTs’ recognition and assessment of cognitive problems has potential to impact on management and rehabilitation in stroke services, survivor outcomes, education and research

Identification of a Thymic Epithelial Cell Subset Sharing Expression of the Class Ib HLA-G Molecule with Fetal Trophoblasts

HLA-G is the only class I determinant of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) expressed by the trophoblasts, the fetal cells invading the maternal decidua during pregnancy. A unique feature of this nonclassical HLA molecule is its low polymorphism, a property that has been postulated to play an important role in preventing local activation of maternal alloreactive T and natural killer cells against the fetus. Yet, the mechanisms by which fetal HLA-G can be recognized as a self-MHC molecule by the maternal immune system remain unclear. Here we report the novel observation that HLA-G is expressed in the human thymus. Expression is targeted to the cell surface of thymic medullary and subcapsular epithelium. Thymic epithelial cell lines were generated and shown to express three alternatively spliced HLA-G transcripts, previously identified in human trophoblasts. Sequencing of HLA-G1 transcripts revealed a few nucleotide changes resulting in amino acid substitutions, all clustered within exon 3 of HLA-G, encoding for the α2 domain of the molecule. Our findings raise the possibility that maternal unresponsiveness to HLA-G–expressing fetal tissues may be shaped in the thymus by a previously unrecognized central presentation of this MHC molecule on the medullary epithelium

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Outcomes in pediatric studies of medium-chain acyl-coA dehydrogenase (MCAD) deficiency and phenylketonuria (PKU): a review.

BACKGROUND: Inherited metabolic diseases (IMDs) are a group of individually rare single-gene diseases. For many IMDs, there is a paucity of high-quality evidence that evaluates the effectiveness of clinical interventions. Clinical effectiveness trials of IMD interventions could be supported through the development of core outcome sets (COSs), a recommended minimum set of standardized, high-quality outcomes and associated outcome measurement instruments to be incorporated by all trials in an area of study. We began the process of establishing pediatric COSs for two IMDs, medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (MCAD) deficiency and phenylketonuria (PKU), by reviewing published literature to describe outcomes reported by authors, identify heterogeneity in outcomes across studies, and assemble a candidate list of outcomes. METHODS: We used a comprehensive search strategy to identify primary studies and guidelines relevant to children with MCAD deficiency and PKU, extracting study characteristics and outcome information from eligible studies including outcome measurement instruments for select outcomes. Informed by an established framework and a previously published pediatric COS, outcomes were grouped into five, mutually-exclusive, a priori core areas: growth and development, life impact, pathophysiological manifestations, resource use, and death. RESULTS: For MCAD deficiency, we identified 83 outcomes from 52 articles. The most frequently represented core area was pathophysiological manifestations, with 33 outcomes reported in 29/52 articles (56%). Death was the most frequently reported outcome. One-third of outcomes were reported by a single study. The most diversely measured outcome was cognition and intelligence/IQ for which eight unique measurement instruments were reported among 14 articles. For PKU, we identified 97 outcomes from 343 articles. The most frequently represented core area was pathophysiological manifestations with 31 outcomes reported in 281/343 articles (82%). Phenylalanine concentration was the most frequently reported outcome. Sixteen percent of outcomes were reported by a single study. Similar to MCAD deficiency, the most diversely measured PKU outcome was cognition and intelligence/IQ with 39 different instruments reported among 82 articles. CONCLUSIONS: Heterogeneity of reported outcomes and outcome measurement instruments across published studies for both MCAD deficiency and PKU highlights the need for COSs for these diseases, to promote the use of meaningful outcomes and facilitate comparisons across studies

AZASPIRACIDS – Toxicological Evaluation, Test Methods and Identifcation of the Source Organisms (ASTOX II)

Since the Irish monitoring program was set up in 2001 azaspiracids (AZAs) have been detected in shellfish above the regulatory limit every year with the exception of 2004. The south west coast of Ireland is especially prone to the onsets of AZA events. Over this period a number of poisoning incidents associated with this toxin group have occurred, all related to Irish shellfish. In 2003 the Marine Institute was awarded funding for a research project named ASTOX. This project was very successful in producing a range of reference materials (RMs, which are essential for accurate detection and monitoring, and which up to this point were unavailable. The project also examined the toxicity of AZAs, primarily using in vitro cell assays but some in vivo studies were also performed. The overall aims of the ASTOX 2 project were to strengthen knowledge on the causative organism and toxicity of AZAs. The project aims were grouped into three areas: ecology, chemical support and toxicology.Marine Institute Marine Research Sub Programme (NDP 2007 - 2013), co financed under the European Regional Development Fund

Variation analysis and gene annotation of eight MHC haplotypes: The MHC Haplotype Project

The human major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is contained within about 4 Mb on the short arm of chromosome 6 and is recognised as the most variable region in the human genome. The primary aim of the MHC Haplotype Project was to provide a comprehensively annotated reference sequence of a single, human leukocyte antigen-homozygous MHC haplotype and to use it as a basis against which variations could be assessed from seven other similarly homozygous cell lines, representative of the most common MHC haplotypes in the European population. Comparison of the haplotype sequences, including four haplotypes not previously analysed, resulted in the identification of >44,000 variations, both substitutions and indels (insertions and deletions), which have been submitted to the dbSNP database. The gene annotation uncovered haplotype-specific differences and confirmed the presence of more than 300 loci, including over 160 protein-coding genes. Combined analysis of the variation and annotation datasets revealed 122 gene loci with coding substitutions of which 97 were non-synonymous. The haplotype (A3-B7-DR15; PGF cell line) designated as the new MHC reference sequence, has been incorporated into the human genome assembly (NCBI35 and subsequent builds), and constitutes the largest single-haplotype sequence of the human genome to date. The extensive variation and annotation data derived from the analysis of seven further haplotypes have been made publicly available and provide a framework and resource for future association studies of all MHC-associated diseases and transplant medicine