Comparison of LABORAS with static incapacitance testing for assessing spontaneous pain behaviour in surgically-induced murine osteoarthritis.

Objective: Evoked responses following mechanical or thermal stimulation are typically used to assess pain behaviour in murine osteoarthritis (OA). However, there is no consensus on how best to measure spontaneous pain behaviour.

Method: OA by partial meniscectomy (PMX), or sham surgery was performed in 10-week old C57BL/6 male mice.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the disease course of patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases: results from the Swiss Clinical Quality Management cohort.

Objectives: To investigate whether the transient reduction in rheumatology services imposed by virus containment measures during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with disease worsening in axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

Methods: Patient-reported disease activity assessed during face-to-face visits and/or via a smartphone application were compared between three periods of each 2 months duration (before, during and after the COVID-19-wave) from January to June 2020 in 666 patients with axSpA, RA and PsA in the Swiss Clinical Quality Management cohort.

Results: The number of consultations dropped by 52%, whereas the number of remote assessments increased by 129%.

Does Pain at an Earlier Stage of Chondropathy Protect Female Mice Against Structural Progression After Surgically Induced Osteoarthritis?

Objective: Female C57BL/6 mice exhibit less severe chondropathy than male mice. This study was undertaken to test the robustness of this observation and explore underlying mechanisms.

Methods: Osteoarthritis was induced in male and female C57BL/6 or DBA/1 mice (n = 6-15 per group) by destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) or partial meniscectomy (PMX).

Studying Osteoarthritis Pathogenesis in Mice.

With the increasing availability and complexity of mouse models of disease, either spontaneous or induced, there is a concomitant increase in their use in the analysis of pathogenesis. Among such diseases is osteoarthritis, a debilitating disease with few treatment options. While advances in our understanding of the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis has advanced through clinical investigations and genome-wide association studies, there is still a large gap in our knowledge, hindering advances in therapy.

GS 455534 selectively suppresses binge eating of palatable food and attenuates dopamine release in the accumbens of sugar-bingeing rats.

Binge eating palatable foods has been shown to have behavioral and neurochemical similarities to drug addiction. GS 455534 is a highly selective reversible aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 inhibitor that has been shown to reduce alcohol and cocaine intake in rats. Given the overlaps between binge eating and drug abuse, we examined the effects of GS 455534 on binge eating and subsequent dopamine release.

The representation of tool and non-tool object information in the human intraparietal sulcus.

Humans have an amazing ability to quickly and efficiently recognize and interact with visual objects in their environment. The underlying neural processes supporting this ability have been mainly explored in the ventral visual stream. However, the dorsal stream has been proposed to play a critical role in guiding object-directed actions.