Factors associated with stress, anxiety, and depression during social distancing in Brazil.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of clinical signs and symptoms of severe/extreme stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as their associated factors, among Brazilians during social distancing.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted in April/May 2020 with 3,200 Brazilians over 18 years old. Respondents' sociodemographic and clinical data were collected using an online questionnaire, which also included the 21-item Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) to assess emotional symptoms.

Genetic structuring and fixed polymorphisms in the gene period among natural populations of Lutzomyia longipalpis in Brazil.

Background: Even one hundred years after being originally identified, aspects of the taxonomy of the sand fly Lutzomyia longipalpis, the principal vector of Leishmania infantum in the Americas, remain unresolved for Brazilian populations of this vector. The diversity of morphological, behavioral, biochemical, and ethological characters, as well as the genetic variability detected by molecular markers are indicative of the presence of a complex of species.

Methods: In this study, a 525 bp fragment of the period gene was used to evaluate sympatric populations of L.

Searching for new genetic variations in expression databases for the GABAergic and glutamatergic systems.

Changes in gene expression and genetic variations in coding regions have likely functional impact, potentially associated with complex diseases, such as neuropsychiatric conditions. A current need for high throughput analysis of genomic data is leading to the development and improvement of sophisticated bioinformatics approaches, which allows the processing of large amounts of sequence and gene expression data. In this study, we identified new potential genetic variations prioritizing genes related to glutamatergic and GABAergic systems, using different bioinformatics resources.

Searching for new genetic risk factors for neuropsychiatric disorders in expression databases.

Genetic variations might contribute to differences in protein activities and gene expression levels observed in complex genetic traits, like neuropsychiatric disease. This finding motivated the development of original approaches using expression studies to guide the finding of new genetic variations. We extended this approach to new genes selected from microarrays studies of brain samples of patients with Alzheimer's disease, major depressive disorder, bipolar affective disorder, and sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.