Beyond neuropathic pain: gabapentin use in cancer pain and perioperative pain.

Background: Gabapentin (GBP), originally an antiepileptic drug, is more commonly used in the treatment of neuropathic pain. In recent years, GBP has been used as an adjunct or primary therapy in non-neuropathic pain, most commonly for the treatment of perioperative and cancer pain.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to conduct a clinical evidence literature review of GBP's use in perioperative pain and cancer pain.

Henry Ingersoll Bowditch (1808-82): American physician, public health advocate and social reformer.

Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, a Bostonian physician from the mid-19th century, lived a passionate life full of commitment and devotion to various noble causes--he was a champion of public health, an advocate for inclusion of women in medicine and a staunch abolitionist, all unpopular social perspectives at that time in medical and political history. Seemingly difficult personality traits including his stubbornness and moralistic outlook were likely 'adaptive' as he confronted the political reality of major institutional change. His interest in statistical trends and environmental influences and his inductive reasoning led to a deeper understanding of consumption (tuberculosis), the widespread diagnostic use of the stethoscope and thoracocentesis.

Disease-associated differences in religious cognition in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Objective: We sought to establish whether patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) exhibit change in religiosity as a function of disease progression and asymmetry, medication regimens, mood dysfunction, sex, and age.

Method: We assessed both controlled (conscious reflection) and automatic (semantic priming) modes of religiosity. In the main study, self-reported religiosity, cognitive, and clinical measures were assessed in 71 patients with midstage PD and 75 age-matched controls with non-neurological chronic health conditions.

Side of onset in Parkinson's disease and alterations in religiosity: novel behavioral phenotypes.

Behavioral neurologists have long been interested in changes in religiosity following circumscribed brain lesions. Advances in neuroimaging and cognitive experimental techniques have been added to these classical lesion-correlational approaches in attempt to understand changes in religiosity due to brain damage. In this paper we assess processing dynamics of religious cognition in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD).

Novelty-seeking DRD4 polymorphisms are associated with human migration distance out-of-Africa after controlling for neutral population gene structure.

Numerous lines of evidence suggest that Homo sapiens evolved as a distinct species in Africa by 150,000 years before the present (BP) and began major migrations out-of-Africa ∼50,000 BP. By 20,000 BP, our species had effectively colonized the entire Old World, and by 12,000 BP H. sapiens had a global distribution.

Deficits in the automatic activation of religious concepts in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Religion is central to the lives of billions of people worldwide. To probe processing dynamics of religious cognition and its potential brain correlates, we used a novel priming procedure to assess the integrity of religious and control semantic networks in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and controls. Priming for control, but not religious, concepts was intact in PD patients.

Relative efficiency of preferred and nonpreferred patterns of lateralized foraging in the gentle lemur (Hapalemur griseus).

Lateralized patterns of hand use in species-typical bamboo shoot foraging were evaluated for efficiency in five female and six male gentle lemurs (Hapalemur griseus sp.). Efficiency was defined as amount of time required to complete a foraging response sequence.