Latest aspects of aldosterone actions on the heart muscle.

The genomic action of aldosterone has already been known to the scientific community and is well-documented to a satisfactory degree. However, the existence of rapid, non-genomic aldosterone actions has repeatedly been proven. These actions are apparent to a lot of tissues, among which the cardiac tissue, with the cardiac cells being responsible for the secretion of endogenous aldosterone.

Leptin increases luteinizing hormone secretion of fasting female rats.

Purpose: To investigate whether leptin acts directly on the anterior hypophysis by influencing gonadotropin secretion in vivo.

Materials And Methods: Cycling female rats were catheterised for frequent blood sampling and were either fasted or allowed free access to food. Stereotactic lesion of the medial preoptic area (MPOA) of the hypothalamus was performed in order to eliminate gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) production.

Low dose pioglitazone does not affect bone formation and resorption markers or bone mineral density in streptozocin-induced diabetic rats.

Our study aims to investigate the effect of a low-dose pioglitazone regimen on bone mineral density and bone formation-resorption markers in control and diabetic rats. Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups: non-diabetic controls, control rats receiving pioglitazone (3 mg/kg), streptozocin-treated diabetic rats (50 mg/kg), diabetic rats treated with pioglitazone (3 mg/kg). The duration of the experiment was 8 weeks.

A semi-automated approach towards generating three-dimensional mesh of the heart using a hybrid MRI/histology database.

Both the forward and inverse problems of electrocardiography rely on the precise modelling of the anatomic and electrical properties of the thoracic tissues. This, in turn, requires good knowledge of the electrical anisotropy as well as conductivity inhomogeneity of the heart, lungs and the rest of the thorax. Cardiac electrical anisotropy is related to its microstructure (fibre length, density and orientation).

Effect of ramipril alone compared to ramipril with eplerenone on diabetic nephropathy in streptozocin-induced diabetic rats.

Background/aims: We studied the effect of the combined treatment with an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor (ramipril) and eplerenone compared with ramipril alone in streptozocin-induced diabetic rats.

Methods: Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups: nondiabetic controls, streptozocin-treated diabetic rats (50 mg/kg), diabetic rats receiving ramipril (1 mg/kg) and diabetic rats treated with the combination of ramipril (1 mg/kg) and eplerenone (100 mg/kg) for 8 weeks. Our model produced early-stage diabetic nephropathy.