From conduct disorder to severe mental illness: associations with aggressive behaviour, crime and victimization.

Background: Conduct disorder (CD) prior to age 15 has been associated with an increased risk of aggressive behaviour and crime among men with schizophrenia. The present study aimed to replicate and extend this finding in a clinical sample of severely mentally ill men and women.

Method: We examined a cohort of in-patients with severe mental illness in one mental health trust.

Aggressive behaviour, victimization and crime among severely mentally ill patients requiring hospitalisation.

Background: Severe mental illness is associated with increased risk of aggressive behaviour, crime and victimization. Mental health policy does not acknowledge this evidence. The number of forensic beds has risen dramatically.

Poloxamer 188 enhances endothelial cell survival in bovine corneas in cold storage.

Purpose: To improve corneal endothelial cell survival during cold preservation by the addition of a compound that enhances cell membrane repair.

Methods: Cell survival was assessed using intracellular accumulation of the fluorescent molecule calcein as a marker for endothelial cell viability in bovine corneas stored at 4 degrees C in Optisol-GS. The effect on endothelial cell survival of artificially lowering the surface tension of the cell membrane was also assayed by the addition of a surfactant, Poloxamer 188 (PLURONIC F68), which has been shown to reseal damaged cell membranes, even under conditions where metabolism is inhibited.

Long-term potentiation of exocytosis and cell membrane repair in fibroblasts.

We previously found that a microdisruption of the plasma membrane evokes Ca(2+)-regulated exocytosis near the wound site, which is essential for membrane resealing. We demonstrate herein that repeated membrane disruption reveals long-term potentiation of Ca(2+)-regulated exocytosis in 3T3 fibroblasts, which is closely correlated with faster membrane resealing rates. This potentiation of exocytosis is cAMP-dependent protein kinase A dependent in the early stages (minutes), in the intermediate term (hours) requires protein synthesis, and for long term (24 h) depends on the activation of cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB).

How calcium influx through calcium leak channels is responsible for the elevated levels of calcium-dependent proteolysis in dystrophic myotubes.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients lack the protein dystrophin which is an essential link in the complex of proteins that connect the cytoskeleton to the extracellular matrix. In mechanically stressed tissues such as muscle, transient sarcolemmal microdisruptions are normal, but in dystrophic muscle cells the frequency of these microdisruptions is greatly increased. Although both normal and dystrophic cells are able to actively repair these microdisruptions, calcium entry through the more frequent sarcolemmal microdisruptions of dystrophic cells results in an increased calcium-dependent proteolysis that alters the activity of the calcium leak channel.