Bile acids and their respective conjugates elicit different responses in neonatal cardiomyocytes: role of Gi protein, muscarinic receptors and TGR5.

Bile acids are recognised as bioactive signalling molecules. While they are known to influence arrhythmia susceptibility in cholestasis, there is limited knowledge about the underlying mechanisms. To delineate mechanisms underlying fetal heart rhythm disturbances in cholestatic pregnancy, we used FRET microscopy to monitor cAMP release and contraction measurements in isolated rodent neonatal cardiomyocytes.

Sham surgery trial controls: perspectives of patients and their relatives.

This study reports on qualitative research conducted in the UK with people with Parkinson's Disease and their relatives on the subject of "sham surgery." It explores attitudes toward sham surgery and reasoning about hypothetical participation in a sham-controlled trial. Results showed that attitudes toward sham surgery may not necessarily predict trial participation behavior.

The ethics of sham surgery in Parkinson's disease: back to the future?

Despite intense academic debate in the recent past over the use of 'sham surgery' control groups in research, there has been a recent resurgence in their use in the field of neurodegenerative disease. Yet the primacy of ethical arguments in favour of sham surgery controls is not yet established. Preliminary empirical research shows an asymmetry between the views of neurosurgical researchers and patients on the subject, while different ethical guidelines and regulations support conflicting interpretations.

Differences between research ethics committees.

Objectives: To examine differences in the ethical judgments made by Research Ethics Committees (RECs) or Institutional Review Boards (IRBs).

Methods: We did a review of the literature and included any study that attempted to compare the ethical judgments made by different RECs or IRBs when reviewing one or more protocol.

Results: There were twenty-six articles reporting such discrepancies across Europe, within the United Kingdom, Spain, and United States.

The ethics of placebo-controlled trials: a comparison of inert and active placebo controls.

Because of the recent and controversial example of sham surgery for the evaluation of fetal tissue transplants for Parkinson's disease, there is renewed interest in the ethics of using "active" placebos in surgical trials, where otherwise there are no inert procedures available, and in pharmacological trials, where there are inert substances, but where patients may guess to which arm they have been allocated. This paper seeks to clarify the ethical arguments surrounding the use of active placebos in trials, and to set up a notation for assessing the ethics of trials more generally. We first establish an framework by which ethics committees can analyze such trials.

Using expert patients' narratives as an educational resource.

In this article, we examine the topic of patient participation in health care and report on how we have drawn on the concept of patient expertise to produce a new kind of information booklet for chronic arthritis patients. The booklet is patient-generated and contains the illness narratives of patients with three kinds of arthritis. The booklet draws upon the knowledge of patients who feel they are flourishing despite their condition.

Living well through chronic illness: the relevance of virtue theory to patients with chronic osteoarthritis.

Objective: Virtues and vices possessed by patients may affect their quality of life and how well they cope with disease. The objective of this study is to assess the relevance of the concept of virtue and vice to patients with chronic arthritis.

Methods: Aristotle's theory of virtue and vice was used to construct a guide for in-depth interviews, carried out with 5 patients with chronic osteoarthritis.