Endocannabinoid involvement in beneficial effects of caloric restriction in a rodent model of comorbid depression and epilepsy.

Clinically, patients with depression are at a heightened risk for developing epilepsy, and vice versa, suggesting shared mechanisms for this bidirectional comorbidity. Unfortunately, comorbid depression and epilepsy is associated with worsened quality of life and treatment refractoriness, highlighting the need for novel treatment targets and nonpharmacologic supplements to existing therapies. The present study used the Swim-Low Active rat, a well-validated model of depression and epilepsy comorbidity that was selectively bred based on forced swim test behavior, to assess the safety and efficacy of caloric restriction in treating this comorbidity.

Something new and something blue: Responses to novelty in a rodent model of depression and epilepsy comorbidity.

A bidirectional comorbidity exists between depression and epilepsy such that patients with epilepsy are at higher risk for developing depression, and vice versa. Each of these conditions individually can be complicated by behavioral effects that worsen quality of life, but less is known about these interactions within the comorbidity of depression and epilepsy. The SwLo rat has been selectively bred for depression-relevant behaviors and exhibits enhanced limbic seizure susceptibility.

The correlates of chaplains' effectiveness in meeting the spiritual/religious and emotional needs of patients.

The study was designed to assess the degree to which two sets of measures about chaplains' visits with patients predicted patients' perceptions that their spiritual/religious needs and their emotional needs were met by the chaplain. The first set consisted of seven items about the chaplain's demeanor during the visit. The second set measured patient satisfaction with seven aspects of the chaplain's care, including specific interventions.

High-throughput gene discovery in the rat.

The rat is an important animal model for human diseases and is widely used in physiology. In this article we present a new strategy for gene discovery based on the production of ESTs from serially subtracted and normalized cDNA libraries, and we describe its application for the development of a comprehensive nonredundant collection of rat ESTs. Our new strategy appears to yield substantially more EST clusters per ESTs sequenced than do previous approaches that did not use serial subtraction.