Use of ziprasidone in parkinsonian patients with psychosis.

Twelve patients with Parkinson disease and psychosis were included in an open-label 12-week trial of ziprasidone. Two patients withdrew from the treatment because of adverse effects. The remaining 10 patients reported a significant improvement in psychiatric symptoms.

[Baroreflex failure after chemodectoma resection].

Baroreflex failure after chemodectoma resection We present a case of baroreflex failure secondary to a unilateral injury of the glossopharyngeal nerve. The patient was operated for a left-sided chemodectoma in the carotid body. Some months after surgery she started to report presyncopal episodes exacerbated by mental stress and when standing up.

Evidence for rapid consumption of millimolar concentrations of cytoplasmic ATP during rigor-contracture of metabolically compromised single cardiomyocytes.

Cytoplasmic ATP can be measured continuously in single cardiac myocytes by monitoring the luminescence from microinjected firefly luciferase. We show here that the signals are markedly influenced by changes in cytoplasmic pH, and the calibration of the signals as ATP concentration is markedly affected by cytoplasmic protein. Measurements with a pH-sensitive fluorescent dye show that intracellular pH (pHi) can be clamped at pH 7.

Cytoplasmic factors that affect the intensity and stability of bioluminescence from firefly luciferase in living mammalian cells.

In order to improve calibration of firefly luciferase signals obtained by injecting the enzyme into single, isolated heart and liver cells we have investigated why the luminescence from cells is greatly depressed compared with in vitro (in mammalian ionic milieu) and why the decay of the intracellular signal is remarkably slow. We have shown that inorganic pyrophosphatase greatly depresses the signal in vitro and that micromolar concentrations of inorganic pyrophosphate, comparable with that in cytoplasm, reverse this inhibition and stabilize the signal, eliminating its decay. Higher concentrations of pyrophosphate depress the signal by inhibiting ATP-binding to luciferase.