Targeted effects of ketamine on perceptual expectation during mediated learning in rats.

Rationale: While neural correlates of hallucinations are known, the mechanisms have remained elusive. Mechanistic insight is more practicable in animal models, in which causal relationships can be established. Recent work developing animal models of hallucination susceptibility has focused on the genesis of perceptual expectations and perceptual decision-making.

BRAF accelerates disease progression and enhances immune suppression in a mouse model of B-cell leukemia.

Mutated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway components promote tumor survival, proliferation, and immune evasion in solid tumors. MAPK mutations occur in hematologic cancers as well, but their role is less clear and few models are available to study this. We developed an in vivo model of disseminated BRAF B-cell leukemia to determine the effects of this mutation on tumor development and immune evasion.

Survivin and Granzyme B-induced apoptosis, a novel anticancer therapy.

Survivin is an antiapoptotic protein highly expressed in malignant cells that confers resistance to cytotoxic therapy. Granzyme B is a potent cytotoxic protein that is released from mammalian natural killer cells and CTLs following noxious stimuli, including foreign invaders. Here, we took advantage of the properties of these two functionally divergent molecules to create a molecular agent that specifically activates Granzyme B within tumor cells.

Pseudosarcomatous myofibroblastic tumor of the urinary bladder in children: a study of 11 cases with review of the literature. An Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study.

Pseudosarcomatous myofibroblastic tumor (PMT) is the result of reactive proliferation of myofibroblasts. In children, PMT of the urinary bladder can be mistaken for embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma clinically, radiologically, and by light microscopy. We are reporting the clinical, histological, and immunohistological features of 11 patients with childhood PMT of urinary bladder that were diagnosed initially as a sarcoma, usually rhabdomyosarcoma.