Effectiveness of Meditation Techniques in Treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition worldwide. The limited effectiveness of current psychological and pharmacological treatments has motivated studies on meditation techniques. This study is a comprehensive, multiple-treatments meta-analysis comparing the effectiveness of different categories of meditation in treating PTSD.

Diverse responses of hypoxia-inducible factor alpha mRNA abundance in fish exposed to low oxygen: the importance of reporting methods.

Low dissolved oxygen (hypoxia) poses significant challenges to aquatic ecosystems, affecting the behavior, reproduction, and survival of aquatic organisms. Some fishes respond to hypoxia by changes in gene expression, which may be regulated by the hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) family of transcription factors. HIF abundance and activity depends upon the post-translational modification of the alpha protein subunit, although several studies indicate that mRNA abundance increases in tissues of fishes exposed to hypoxia.

Evolution of Key Oxygen-Sensing Genes Is Associated with Hypoxia Tolerance in Fishes.

Low dissolved oxygen (hypoxia) is recognized as a major threat to aquatic ecosystems worldwide. Because oxygen is paramount for the energy metabolism of animals, understanding the functional and genetic drivers of whole-animal hypoxia tolerance is critical to predicting the impacts of aquatic hypoxia. In this study, we investigate the molecular evolution of key genes involved in the detection of and response to hypoxia in ray-finned fishes: the prolyl hydroxylase domain (PHD)-hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) oxygen-sensing system, also known as the EGLN (egg-laying nine)-HIF oxygen-sensing system.

Variant patterns of electrical activation and recovery in normal human hearts revealed by noninvasive electrocardiographic imaging.

Aims: Although electrical activity of the normal human heart is well characterized by the electrocardiogram, detailed insights into within-subject and between-subject variations of ventricular activation and recovery by noninvasive electroanatomic mapping are lacking. We characterized human epicardial activation and recovery within and between normal subjects using non-invasive electrocardiographic imaging (ECGI) as a basis to better understand pathology.

Methods And Results: Epicardial activation and recovery were assessed by ECGI in 22 normal subjects, 4 subjects with bundle branch block (BBB) and 4 with long-QT syndrome (LQTS).

Estimating maximum oxygen uptake of fishes during swimming and following exhaustive chase - different results, biological bases and applications.

The maximum rate at which animals take up oxygen from their environment (ṀO2,max) is a crucial aspect of their physiology and ecology. In fishes, ṀO2,max is commonly quantified by measuring oxygen uptake either during incremental swimming tests or during recovery from an exhaustive chase. In this Commentary, we compile recent studies that apply both techniques to the same fish and show that the two methods typically yield different mean estimates of ṀO2,max for a group of individuals.