Correction of Severely Contracted Nose.

Background: Severely contracted nose is manifested with a tight and hardened nasal envelope. Expansion of the contracted skin is an important first step in correcting these revision cases. The underlying weak lower lateral cartilage makes the tip projection structurally difficult to achieve and maintain without rigid supporting cartilage grafting.

Enhanced hypothalamic leptin signaling in mice lacking dopamine D2 receptors.

The dopamine D(2) receptor (D2R) plays a critical role in diverse neurophysiological functions. D2R knock-out mice (D2R(-/-)) show reduced food intake and body weight while displaying an increased basal energy expenditure level, compared with their wild type littermates. Thus, these mice show a lean phenotype.

The dopamine D2 receptor regulates the development of dopaminergic neurons via extracellular signal-regulated kinase and Nurr1 activation.

Because the dopaminergic pathways in the midbrain have been closely associated with serious neuropsychiatric disorders, the elucidation of the mechanisms underlying dopaminergic neuronal development should provide some important clues for related disorders. In mice lacking the dopamine D2 receptor (D2R-/-), stereological cell counting analysis showed that the number of mesencephalic tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) cells was significantly low during ontogeny, compared with that observed in wild-type (WT) mice, thereby indicating an alteration in dopaminergic neuronal development in the absence of D2R. The results of immunohistochemical and reverse transcription-PCR analyses revealed that the expression of Nurr1, an orphan nuclear receptor, as well as Ptx3 expression, was selectively reduced in D2R-/- mice during the embryonic stage.