Winning a won game: caffeine panacea for obesity syndemic.

Over the past decades, chronic sleep reduction and a concurrent development of obesity have been recognized as a common problem in the industrialized world. Among its numerous untoward effects, there is a possibility that insomnia is also a major contributor to obesity. This attribution poses a problem for caffeine, an inexpensive, "natural" agent that is purported to improve a number of conditions and is often indicated in a long-term pharmacotherapy in the context of weight management.

Ingestion-controlling network: what's language got to do with it?

The prevalence of obesity has increased dramatically worldwide, whereas the types of treatment and their efficacy have not substantially changed over the last two decades. Additionally, drugs used to control weight gain could occasionally create untoward effects in cardiovascular functions, as well as in behaviors, memory, sleep, and emotions because the molecular machinery responsible for ingestion control is interconnected with or shared by the above domains. How each group of drugs preserves the privacy of its message in the mutual network is not fully understood.

Managing the pandemic of obesity: siding with the fox or the hedgehog?

Obesity is a major public health problem of pandemic proportion. Despite its high prevalence and widespread distribution (consistent with a common underlying etiology), clinical psychologists and primary care physicians routinely approach the problem with individualized but often ineffective treatments like psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, or propose alterations to specific components of the 'toxic environment', cultural influences, and psychosocial factors purported to cause overeating. This paper presents an alternative perspective and proposes a potential framework for assisting health professionals in developing rational approaches to education about and preventive treatment of obesity based on the role of factors in early life that contribute to personality and behavior and which over time lead to obesity and its maintenance.

The 'Tyranny of choices' in the ingestion-controlling network.

Background: Currently used antiobesity remedies offer only a modest weight reduction, and have untoward effects that can complicate treatment efforts. Motivated by the needs of the pharmacotherapy of obesity, the study explored the role of neuropeptide Y, leptin, and corticotrophin-releasing hormone.

Method: The study used Ingenuity Pathway Analysis which is a tool for automated discovery and visualization of molecular interactions.

The paradox of caffeine-zolpidem interaction: a network analysis.

A widely prescribed and potent short-acting hypnotic, zolpidem has become the mainstay for the treatment of middle-of-the-night sleeplessness. It is expected to be antagonized by caffeine. Paradoxically, in some cases caffeine appears to slightly enhance zolpidem sedation.

Multitasking of neuropeptide Y through the lens of motifs.

Networks controlling ingestion-related peptides are also known to be the targets and signals for numerous other systems. Yet, their topological properties are still ill understood. The Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) was employed to represent molecules engaged in feeding as nodes, and the interactions between them as edges.

Ingenuity pathway analysis of clozapine-induced obesity.

Background: Lipid accretion is one of the major side effects of clozapine pharmacotherapy of schizophrenia that made clozapine into an interesting obesity drug model.

Method: Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) engine was used for core analysis and building the networks of weight regulation.

Results: The examination of molecules that were selected into 'clozapine neighborhood' identified them as multifunctional signals that appear to orchestrate vascular and tissue functions plausibly implicated in adiposity side effect.

Molecular network of obesity: what does it promise for pharmacotherapy?

There is growing evidence that receptors that respond to orexigenic and anorexigenic signals of respective neuropeptides are also implicated in cognitive, emotional, sensory and motor functions. How do these signals trigger a particular appetitive function while also acting in so different contexts in controlling non-appetitive behaviours? This perspective seeks an answer in their peculiar modular organization when each module planted in complex networks controlling appetite is also engaged in different domains. Network analysis may be essential in considering pharmacotherapeutic interventions and, in particular, when anticipating untoward central effects of agents explored from a therapeutic point of view.

Phobic memory and somatic vulnerabilities in anorexia nervosa: a necessary unity?

Anorexia nervosa is a clinically significant illness that may be associated with permanent medical complications involving almost every organ system. The paper raises a question whether some of them are associated with premorbid vulnerability such as subcellular ion channel abnormalities ('channelopathy') that determines the clinical expression of the bodily response to self-imposed malnutrition. Aberrant channels emerge as a tempting, if rather speculative alternative to the notion of cognitively-driven neurotransmitter modulation deficit in anorexia nervosa.

Laparophobia: a cognitive perspective on appetite control in anorexia nervosa.

Decades of research have demonstrated that anorexia nervosa (AN) may be associated with aberrant cognition, yet, its role in maintaining stringent dieting has received relatively little attention from mainstream researchers of eating disorders. The purpose of the present article is to highlight cognitive ('top-down') factors that are considered responsible for anticipatory anxiety of stoutness and frank fat-phobia (laparophobia). A cognitive model proposed departs from the formulation suggesting that phobia of over-eating is superimposed on avoidant tendencies ('environmental autonomy syndrome'), whereas excessive exercising becomes a natural coping strategy with laparophobia, an instrument of reward.

Profiles of patients with a history of mild head injury.

Mild head injury (MHI) causes heterogeneous disorders. In this exploratory study, the authors attempted to gain an understanding of this heterogeneity by isolating on clinical criteria three groups of bona fide MHI patients. These were patients who presented with virtually no complaints unless prodded (a "stoic" or "low complaint," LC) group; those who were admitted with numerous complaints, who were also demanding and argumentative ("extraverted-aggressive," EA); and those who, although symptomatic, appeared to retreat under conditions of environmental stress ("introverted-withdrawn," IW).

Gourmand savants and environmental determinants of obesity.

Obesity is an embodiment of a multifactorial problem with several intermediates in its casual pathway. Virtually all who have written on obesity have responded to four inter-related factors: genetic, perinatal, environmental, and consumption-expenditure energy imbalance. The message to take home is that while a molecular description of each participant of the obesity machinery seems achievable in principle, a complex model describing all of them is currently beyond our grasp.

Effects of prenatal exposure to gamma rays on circling and activity behavior in prepubertal and postpubertal rats.

The study departs from the finding that postural asymmetries in low-weight female neonates are greatly increased following prenatal lesions inflicted by gamma irradiation at day 15. Given that amphetamine-induced rotation in adult rats could be predicted by their infantile axial asymmetry we expected a greater tendency for circling in rats exposed at day 15. To examine this prediction, Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to a single dose of gamma radiation at 1.

Dissociation between startle and prepulse inhibition in rats exposed to gamma radiation at day 15 of embryogeny.

The role of prenatal trauma in disordered sensory gating was explored in albino rats of the Sprague-Dawley strain. Pregnant rats were exposed to 1.5 Gy (0.

Auditory inattention in right-hemisphere-damaged patients with and without visual neglect.

Fifteen right-hemisphere-damaged patients, eight with- and seven without visual neglect (N+ and N-, respectively), were assessed for the presence of auditory neglect using free-field bilateral simultaneous stimulation (BSS) and pseudorandom unilateral stimulation. Eight healthy subjects served as controls. Both N+ and N- groups extinguished left-sided sound stimuli in the BSS condition.

Bilateral comparison of occipital lobe sulci: a sulcus identifying algorithm.

A procedure for automatic identification of sulci of cerebral hemispheres in magnetic resonance images is presented. The algorithm departs from information of the spatial location of a given feature (e.g.

Increased prevalence of septal cavitation in a nonschizophrenic sample: an MRI study of HIV-infected individuals.

Analyses of MRI scans of 26 asymptomatic HIV-infected individuals (HIV+) and 10 HIV-seronegative psychiatric control subjects (HIV-) revealed an incidental finding: 50% of the HIV+ subjects had discernible cleft in the septum pellucidum (cavum septi pellucidi; CSP), compared to only 20% of the HIV- control subjects. HIV+ subjects with CSP were more likely to complain of sensory changes and performed more poorly on specific neuropsychological tests when compared with HIV+ subjects without CSP. These findings suggest that elevated rates of CSP are not limited to the schizophrenic population.

Changes of brain anatomy in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder: a pilot magnetic resonance imaging study.

No abnormalities in magnetic resonance images were recorded in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder other than an increased incidence (50%) of a small cleft in the callosal-septal interface, a cavum of the septum pellucidum. A similar grade of cavum was obtained in 14% of normal volunteers matched for age, socioeconomic background, and military experience. The cavum is believed to have antedated the disorder and is conceived to be a neurodevelopmental aberration.