Unique clinical characteristics, autoantibodies and medication use in Native American patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Objective: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a systemic autoimmune disease with varied morbidity and mortality. We assessed clinical presentations, autoantibody specificities and therapeutic interventions in Native American (NA) patients with SLE.

Methods: Patients with SLE meeting 1997 American College of Rheumatology classification criteria (n=3148) were enrolled between 1992 and 2010 in the multiethnic, cross-sectional Lupus Family Registry and Repository.

Neuroanatomical association of hypothalamic HSD2-containing neurons with ERα, catecholamines, or oxytocin: implications for feeding?

This study used immunohistochemical methods to investigate the possibility that hypothalamic neurons that contain 11-β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 (HSD2) are involved in the control of feeding by rats via neuroanatomical associations with the α subtype of estrogen receptor (ERα), catecholamines, and/or oxytocin (OT). An aggregate of HSD2-containing neurons is located laterally in the hypothalamus, and the numbers of these neurons were greatly increased by estradiol treatment in ovariectomized (OVX) rats compared to numbers in male rats and in OVX rats that were not given estradiol. However, HSD2-containing neurons were anatomically segregated from ERα-containing neurons in the Ventromedial Hypothalamus and the Arcuate Nucleus.