Magnetic actuation of otoliths allows behavioral and brain-wide neuronal exploration of vestibulo-motor processing in larval zebrafish.

The vestibular system in the inner ear plays a central role in sensorimotor control by informing the brain about the orientation and acceleration of the head. However, most experiments in neurophysiology are performed using head-fixed configurations, depriving animals of vestibular inputs. To overcome this limitation, we decorated the utricular otolith of the vestibular system in larval zebrafish with paramagnetic nanoparticles.

A simple method to make, trap and deform a vesicle in a gel.

We present a simple method to produce giant lipid pseudo-vesicles (vesicles with an oily cap on the top), trapped in an agarose gel. The method can be implemented using only a regular micropipette and relies on the formation of a water/oil/water double droplet in liquid agarose. We characterize the produced vesicle with fluorescence imaging and establish the presence and integrity of the lipid bilayer by the successful insertion of [Formula: see text]-Hemolysin transmembrane proteins.

[Electroencephalograms (EEG) in 250 patients with epilepsy in a cysticercosis endemic area in Burundi].

Objectives: This work aimed at describing EEG abnormalities in epileptic patients living in areas endemic for cysticercosis, underlining the electroclinical correlations and discussing the interest of EEG examination in this context.

Methods: During a case-control study, 250 EEGs from patients with epilepsy were recorded with a portable system. Types of seizures were assessed clinically and from information obtained through a standardised questionnaire, and along with EEG were related to the results of cysticercosis serological tests.

[Comparison of sociocultural attitudes towards epilepsy in Limousin (France), in Togo and in Benin (Africa)].

Sociocultural attitudes continue to have a negative impact on management of epilepsy in many African countries and in a few advanced countries. The purpose of this study was to compare attitudes toward epilepsy in France and two African nations: Togo and Benin. A total of 305 epileptic patients over 18 years of age were interviewed using the same quantitative questionnaire about their beliefs, knowledge attitudes and practices regarding their disease.

Is the morning peak of acute myocardial infarction's onset due to sleep-related breathing disorders? A prospective study.

Many studies have shown that the risk of experiencing a myocardial infarction (MI) is increased during the first hours of the morning. Sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) is associated with an enhanced adrenergic activity, prolonged a few hours after awakening. We aimed at assessing whether sleep breathing disorders could be a culprit for the morning excess rate of MI.

Reversal of the sleep/wake cycle disorder of sleeping sickness after trypanosomicide treatment.

To determine whether the circadian disruption of the sleep/wake cycle observed in sleeping sickness, human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), can be reversed after trypanosomicide treatment, 10 Congolese patients infected by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense underwent 24-h polysomnographic recordings before treatment with melarsoprol and after each of three weekly treatment sessions. Polysomnography consisted of a continuous recording of the electroencephalogram, electromyogram and electro-oculogram on a Minidix Alvar polygraph. Sleep traces were analysed in 20-sec epochs for wakefulness, REM sleep, and NREM sleep [stages 1, 2, 3, 4; stages 3 and 4 representing slow-wave sleep (SWS)].

Sleep apnoea syndrome and the extent of atherosclerotic lesions in middle-aged men with myocardial infarction.

Background: To determine whether extended atherosclerotic lesions are correlated to the presence of sleep breathing disorders.

Experimental Design: A prospective clinical study.

Setting: A tertiary regional referral center.

Eyelid hyperlaxity and obstructive sleep apnea (O.S.A.) syndrome.

Purpose: An association between the floppy eyelid syndrome and the obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (O.S.A.

Electroencephalographic and polygraphic features of 24-hour recordings in sleeping sickness and healthy African subjects.

Electroencephalographic (EEG) and polygraphic features were analysed in six healthy control subjects and eight patients suffering from sleeping sickness meningoencephalitis in order to determine possible functional relationships. One patient was disqualified because of intermittent metabolic disease. Twenty-four h polygraphic recordings-EEG, electrooculography (EOG), electromyography (EMG), nasal and buccal air flow, chest respiratory movements-were performed continuously both on paper and on cassette tapes.

Relationship of plasma growth hormone to slow-wave sleep in African sleeping sickness.

Human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) is a unique disease model of disrupted circadian rhythms in the sleep-wake cycle and cortisol and prolactin secretion. This study examined the temporal relationship between growth hormone (GH) secretion and the sleep-wake cycle in 8 infected African patients and 6 healthy indigenous African subjects. Twenty-four-hour sleep patterns were recorded by polysomnography and hourly blood samples analyzed for plasma GH.

Twenty-four-hour plasma cortisol and prolactin in human African trypanosomiasis patients and healthy African controls.

We have previously demonstrated that human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) at the stage of meningoencephalitis results in a major disruption of the circadian rhythmicity of sleep and wakefulness that is proportional to the severity of the disease. This paper examines the corresponding 24-hourly secretion in cortisol and prolactin and compares it with the hourly distribution of sleep composition in infected patients and healthy African subjects. The secretion of cortisol in humans follows a circadian rhythm relatively independent of the sleep-wake cycle, whereas that of prolactin exhibits fluctuations over the 24-hr day that are strongly related to the sleep-wake cycle.

Disruptions in the secretion of cortisol, prolactin, and certain cytokines in human African trypanosomiasis patients.

It has been shown previously that sleeping sickness at the stage of meningoencephalitis manifests itself as a significant disturbance in the circadian rhythm of sleep-wakefulness. The objective of the current study was to examine the extent of circadian disruption in infected patients by measuring 24 hours patterns of plasma cortisol, an example of a classical circadian rhythm relatively independent of sleep, and prolactin, a primarily sleep-related rhythm. Plasma levels of certain cytokines were also measured to examine the immunopathogenesis of human African trypanosomiasis.

[The distribution of sleep and wakefulness in human African trypanosomiasis].

Last century, patients with human African trypanosomiasis were described as sleepy by day and restless by night, and physicians referred to this condition as sleeping sickness. Such a description could have evoked a disturbance of circadian rhythms. However, it is only in 1989 that the first 24-hour recording was performed by our team in Niamey (Niger) in a patient with sleeping sickness.

Sleep-wake cycle in human African trypanosomiasis.

Sleeping sickness patients are classically described as sleepy by day and restless by night. Prior to this study, we had objectively confirmed this description by recording 24-h sleep patterns in a patient with human African trypanosomiasis. We report 24-h polysomnographic recordings (EEG, electrooculogram, electromyogram, electrocardiogram, and nasal, buccal, and thoracic respiratory traces) performed on two eight-channel electroencephalographs in eight patients with untreated sleeping sickness at an early stage of meningoencephalitis.

Study of evoked potentials in human African trypanosomiasis.

Human African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness has a stage of neurological involvement characterized by the onset of diffuse meningoencephalitis with sleep disturbances and decreased wakefulness. The pathogenesis of this disease is not well understood. We studied auditory, visual, sensory, and motor evoked potentials in 16 patients with trypanosomiasis in the early stage of meningoencephalitis.

[Circadian analysis of sleep, rectal temperature and immunological and endocrinological variables in sleeping sickness: preliminary study].

A multidisciplinary study was conducted in 8 patients with neurological Human African Trypanosomiasis. The sleep-wake cycle followed an ultradian pattern which was more pronounced in patients with more severe symptoms. The EEG trace was consistently interrupted by numerous cyclic activation patterns with K complexes, rapid low amplitude elements and slow high voltage elements.

Comparison of the Oxygen Exchange between Photosynthetic Cell Suspensions and Detached Leaves of Euphorbia characias L.

Using a mass-spectrometric (16)O(2)/(18)O(2)-isotope technique, we compared the nature and the relative importance of oxygen exchange in photomixotrophic (PM) and photoautotrophic (PA) suspensions of Euphorbia characias L. with those in intact leaves of the same species. Young and mature leaves, dividing and nondividing cell suspensions were characterized in short-term experiments.

Microalgae production: technical and economic evaluations.

A review of the various literature data for large-scale algae production costs is described. Costs were updated and recomputed in order to compare the different schemes. Total production costs of a nonprocessed biomass range from US$0.

Mass spectrometric determination of the inorganic carbon species assimilated by photoautotrophic cells of Euphorbia characias L.

The chemical forms of inorganic carbon, CO2 or HCO3-, incorporated during photosynthesis in photoautotrophic Euphorbia characias cell suspension cultures were determined in experiments using 13CO2 and a mass spectrometry technique. From the equations of the CO2 hydration reaction, a kinetic model was first developed, and the effect of photosynthesis on the external CO2 concentration was simulated. It was predicted from this model that CO2 and HCO3- uptakes could be differentiated by recording only the CO2 variation rate in the external medium, successively in absence then in presence of an exogenous carbonic anhydrase activity.

[Early auditory evoked potentials in normal sheep and in sheep with trypanosomiasis].

In human and animal clinics, the early auditory potential has been used for a long time in the detection of lesions through the internal auditory way in the cerebral trunk. The aim of this work tries to determine if this non invasive test is apt to show up and to follow the evolution of lesions at the level of auditory way in the cerebral trunk of sheep with trypanosomiasis. According to the human technic, the list of the early auditory potential was realized against ten healthy sheep and ten sheep with trypanosomiasis (Trypanosoma brucei brucei) at the nervous phase.

[Early brain stem auditory evoked potentials in brain death].

Brain-stem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) are realized after the first flat EEG in 50 patients. BAEPs were absent in 70% of the patients. In 22% of the patients, one- or two-sided peak I persists.

[Pulsatile echography (ultrasonic cerebral tomosphygmography) in carotid and vertebral pathology. Surgical applications].

Ultrasonographic cerebral tomosphygmography (U.C.T.