[Social media restriction: caselaw from the new Dutch Compulsory Mental Healthcare Act].

Background: Patients use social media on a daily basis, and they can be restricted under the new Dutch Compulsory Mental Healthcare Act.

Aim: To describe which social media behaviors of psychiatric patients were rightfully restricted by health care professionals and reveal underlying reasons.

Method: We searched for law cases of the courts of first instance and decisions of boards on patients’ complaints from implementation of the new act (2020-2023) about patients’ behaviors related to social media in two open source databases.

Lab on a rod: Size-based particle separation and sorting in a helical channel.

Size-based particle separation using inertial microfluidics in spiral channels has been well studied over the past decade. Though these devices can effectively separate particles, they require a relatively large device footprint with a typical outer channel radius of approximately 15 mm. In this paper, we describe a microfluidic device with a footprint diameter of 5.

Improving the characterization of endothelial progenitor cell subsets by an optimized FACS protocol.

The characterization of circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) is fundamental to any study related to angiogenesis. Unfortunately, current literature lacks consistency in the definition of EPC subsets due to variations in isolation strategies and inconsistencies in the use of lineage markers. Here we address critical points in the identification of hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs), circulating endothelial cells (CECs), and culture-generated outgrowth endothelial cells (OECs) from blood samples of healthy adults (AB) and umbilical cord (UCB).

Vitamin D deficiency in patients with erythropoietic protoporphyria.

Background: The main symptom of patients with erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP) is painful photosensitivity, starting within minutes of sun exposure and leading to sun-avoidance. As 80-100% of vitamin D is synthesized under the influence of sunlight, we investigated whether the avoidance of sunlight exposure in the Dutch EPP patient population causes vitamin D deficiency. Furthermore, we studied the relation between vitamin D levels, total erythrocyte protoporphyrin and quality of life.

Schizophrenia-associated neural growth factors in peripheral blood. A review.

In this paper we review the findings on neural growth factors in the peripheral blood of schizophrenia patients. The studies we review provide evidence for the fact that in schizophrenia the levels of growth factors in peripheral blood are disturbed. The most robust results (7 studies) are reported for S100B protein, which seems to be elevated in acute psychosis and in patients with predominant negative symptoms.