Publications by authors named "Carrasco J"

Objective: In order to explore the relationships of fronto-limbic dysfunction with the clinical features of borderline personality disorder (BPD), the authors investigated brain electrophysiological activity in BPD patients following stimulation with emotionally arousing images.

Methods: Seventeen non-medicated patients with borderline personality disorder were studied with magneto-encephalography. Regional cortical activities were obtained by minimum norm estimate (MNE) of steady-state visual evoked fields (ssVEFs).

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Background: In order to identify novel loci associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in the Spanish population.

Methods: We genotyped 1,128 individuals using the Affymetrix Nsp I 250K chip. A sample of 327 sporadic AD patients and 801 controls with unknown cognitive status from the Spanish general population were included in our initial study.

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Purpose: To assess the activity and toxicity of the combination of gemcitabine plus dacarbazine (DTIC) in patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma (STS) in a randomized, multicenter, phase II study using DTIC alone as a control arm.

Patients And Methods: Patients with previously treated advanced STS were randomly assigned to receive either fixed-dose rate gemcitabine (10 mg/m2/min) at 1800 mg/m2 followed by DTIC at 500 mg/m2 every 2 weeks, or DTIC alone at 1200 mg/m2 every 3 weeks. The primary end point of the study was progression-free rate (PFR) at 3 months.

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Objective: To compare psychophysiological responses among novice surgeons during performance of endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS).

Design: Randomized study.

Setting: Academic institution.

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Background: The use of antidepressant drugs in fibromyalgia is extensive despite small evidence of the real impact in the clinical practice setting. This study was aimed to evaluate the long-term efficiency of antidepressant treatment in fibromyalgia and the role of psychosocial factors in treatment response.

Methods: A total of 102 consecutive patients with fibromyalgia from primary health care centers were studied with psychopathological and psychological assessment interviews and questionnaires.

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Late Chlamydia trachomatis inclusions express each member of the surface-exposed polymorphic membrane protein family (Pmp subtypes A through I) with a reproducible distribution of fully-on, fully-off and intermediate phenotypes. This observation is consistent with observed variable Pmp antibody profiles in C. trachomatis-infected patients and has led to the hypothesis that the pmp gene family forms the basis of a phase variation-like mechanism of antigenic variation.

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Background: Three different burnout types have been described: The "frenetic" type describes involved and ambitious subjects who sacrifice their health and personal lives for their jobs; the "underchallenged" type describes indifferent and bored workers who fail to find personal development in their jobs, and the "worn-out" in type describes neglectful subjects who feel they have little control over results and whose efforts go unacknowledged. The study aimed to describe the possible associations between burnout types and general sociodemographic and occupational characteristics.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on a multi-occupational sample of randomly selected university employees (n = 409).

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Understanding the composition and stability of mixed water-hydroxyl layers is a key step in describing wetting and how surfaces respond to redox processes. Here we show that, instead of forming a complete hydrogen bonding network, structures containing an excess of water over hydroxyl are stabilized on Cu(110) by forming a distorted hexagonal network of water-hydroxyl trimers containing Bjerrum defects. This arrangement maximizes the number of strong bonds formed by water donation to OH and provides uncoordinated OH groups able to hydrogen bond multilayer water and nucleate growth.

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Despite widespread discussion, the role of van der Waals dispersion forces in wetting remains unclear. Here we show that nonlocal correlations contribute substantially to the water-metal bond and that this is an important factor in governing the relative stabilities of wetting layers and 3D bulk ice. Because of the greater polarizability of the substrate metal atoms, nonlocal correlations between water and the metal exceed those between water molecules within ice.

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A novel integrated optical source capable of emitting faint pulses with different polarization states and with different intensity levels at 100 MHz has been developed. The source relies on a single laser diode followed by four semiconductor optical amplifiers and thin film polarizers, connected through a fiber network. The use of a single laser ensures high level of indistinguishability in time and spectrum of the pulses for the four different polarizations and three different levels of intensity.

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The dietary intake of total arsenic (tAs), inorganic arsenic (iAs) and total mercury (tHg) in lunch and breakfast servings provided by the Chilean School Meal Program (SMP) was estimated, using the duplicate-portion variant of the total diet study. Lunch and breakfast samples were collected from 65 schools throughout the country in 2006. The population sample was a group of girls and boys between 6 and 18 years old.

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Background: Reducing childhood mortality is the fourth goal of the Millennium Development Goals agreed at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000. However, childhood mortality in developing countries remains high. Providing an accurate picture of space and time-trend variations in child mortality in a region might generate further ideas for health planning actions to achieve such a reduction.

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Objective: To evaluate the reporting of critical design issues and methods of statistical analysis in pharmacogenetic studies published in the medical literature.

Study Design And Settings: Systematic review of 65 original pharmacogenetic studies published in the literature over the last 15 years.

Results: The sample size determination and the planned sample size were lacking in 63 papers.

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Historically, many cases of demonic possession have masked major psychiatric disorder. Our aim is to increase awareness that symptoms of schizophrenia are still being classified as demonic possession by priests today. We report the case of a 28-year-old patient who had been diagnosed 5 years previously with paranoid schizophrenia (treated with clozapine, risperidone, ziprasidone and onlanzapine without a complete response) and was also receiving treatment in a first episode psychosis unit in Spain.

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Background: Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have become a very popular tool for decision making in healthcare. While there is some evidence that CPGs improve outcomes, there are numerous factors that influence their acceptability and use by healthcare providers. While evidence of clinicians' knowledge, perceptions and attitudes toward CPGs is extensive, results are still disperse and not conclusive.

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Introduction: The cycloid psychoses have not been included in the modern classifications-what makes scientific research difficult. The aim of the present study is to investigate the presence and specific characteristics of the cycloid psychoses in a broad sample of first psychotic episodes.

Methods: Seventy patients diagnosed with one-year first schizophrenia episode, schizophreniform disorder, or schizoaffective disorder were studied (mean age, 27.

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Objective: The purpose of the present study was to analyse the evolution of the Spanish population's global and regional adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD) since 1987.

Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted analysing food consumption from the Spanish Household Consumption Surveys administered by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

Setting: The Mediterranean Adequacy Index (MAI) was applied to measure the adherence to the MD.

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Medical diagnostic tests are used to classify subjects as non-diseased or diseased. The classification rule usually consists of classifying subjects using the values of a continuous marker that is dichotomised by means of a threshold. Here, the optimum threshold estimate is found by minimising a cost function that accounts for both decision costs and sampling uncertainty.

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In a previous paper we observed that (classical) tree-level gauge-theory amplitudes can be rearranged to display a duality between color and kinematics. Once this is imposed, gravity amplitudes are obtained using two copies of gauge-theory diagram numerators. Here we conjecture that this duality persists to all quantum loop orders and can thus be used to obtain multiloop gravity amplitudes easily from gauge-theory ones.

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Article Synopsis
  • Human CD8(+) TILs have trouble secreting IFN-γ after restimulation due to their T-cell receptors being trapped by glycoproteins caused by galectin-3.
  • Treatments with N-acetyllactosamine and anti-galectin-3 antibodies have shown to improve IFN-γ secretion from these T cells.
  • GCS-100, a developing polysaccharide, increased secretion of IFN-γ from both CD8(+) and CD4(+) TILs and, when used with tumor vaccination in mice, resulted in tumor rejection in half of the cases, hinting at potential synergy for cancer treatment.
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Background: Chlamydia pneumoniae is a widespread pathogen causing upper and lower respiratory tract infections in addition to a range of other diseases in humans and animals. Previous whole genome analyses have focused on four essentially clonal (> 99% identity) C. pneumoniae human genomes (AR39, CWL029, J138 and TW183), providing relatively little insight into strain diversity and evolution of this species.

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Aim: Upper oesophageal pH monitoring may play a significant role in the study of extra-oesophageal GERD, but limited normal data are available to date. Our aim was to develop a large series of normal values of proximal oesophageal acidification.

Methods: 155 healthy volunteers (74 male) participated in a multi-centre national study including oesophageal manometry and 24 hours oesophageal pH monitoring using two electrodes individually located 5 cm above the LOS and 3 cm below the UOS.

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Purpose: To describe the clinical characteristics, interventions, and visual outcomes of orbital injuries associated with wooden foreign bodies.

Methods: A retrospective case review of orbital injuries managed at Wills Eye Institute and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary was conducted between 1992 and 2006.

Results: The clinical course and management for a total of 23 intraorbital wooden foreign body injuries were reviewed.

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Background: Genetic admixture is a common caveat for genetic association analysis. Therefore, it is important to characterize the genetic structure of the population under study to control for this kind of potential bias.

Results: In this study we have sampled over 800 unrelated individuals from the population of Spain, and have genotyped them with a genome-wide coverage.

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