Anxiolytic treatment of a trapped rat reduces helping and anxiogenic treatment increases helping: Evidence for emotional contagion in altruism.

The present experiment used the trapped rat model to explore whether pharmacological manipulation of distress affects the likelihood of helping behavior. 120 Sprague-Dawley rats (30 male pairs and 30 female pairs) completed 12 consecutive, daily trials assessing helping behavior. During an individual trial, a trapped rat was placed in a restrainer in the center of an open field, while its cagemate could move around freely and possibly open the restrainer by lifting a door.

MECHANISMS IN ENDOCRINOLOGY: Mechanisms and evaluation of bone fragility in type 1 diabetes mellitus.

Subjects with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) have decreased bone mineral density and an up to sixfold increase in fracture risk. Yet bone fragility is not commonly regarded as another unique complication of diabetes. Both animals with experimentally induced insulin deficiency syndromes and patients with T1DM have impaired osteoblastic bone formation, with or without increased bone resorption.

Genomic medicine and risk prediction across the disease spectrum.

Genomic medicine is based on the knowledge that virtually every medical condition, disease susceptibility or response to treatment is caused, regulated or influenced by genes. Genetic testing may therefore add value across the disease spectrum, ranging from single-gene disorders with a Mendelian inheritance pattern to complex multi-factorial diseases. The critical factors for genomic risk prediction are to determine: (1) where the genomic footprint of a particular susceptibility or dysfunction resides within this continuum, and (2) to what extent the genetic determinants are modified by environmental exposures.

The safety of osteoporosis medication.

Osteoporosis is a common, costly and serious disease, which is still too often regarded as an inevitable part of the normal ageing process and therefore sub-optimally treated, especially in the elderly--in fact, only two out of every 10 patients who sustain a hip fracture receive any form of assessment or prophylactic therapy for osteoporosis. One out of five patients die within 1 year after a hip fracture, and < 50% are capable of leading an independent life. Yet very effective anti-fracture therapy, capable of reducing fracture risk by 35 - 60%, is available.

Determinants of bone marrow adiposity: the modulation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ2 activity as a central mechanism.

Although the presence of adipocytes in the bone marrow is a normal physiological phenomenon, the role of these cells in bone homeostasis and during pathological states has not yet been fully delineated. As osteoblasts and adipocytes originate from a common progenitor, with an inverse relationship existing between osteoblastogenesis and adipogenesis, bone marrow adiposity often negatively correlates with osteoblast number and bone mineral density. Bone adiposity can be affected by several physiological and pathophysiological factors, with abnormal, elevated marrow fat resulting in a pathological state.