Phase II/III randomized trial of TCH346 in patients with ALS.

Background: TCH346 exerts antiapoptotic effects by binding to glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and blocking the apoptotic pathway in which GAPDH is involved. Apoptosis is considered to be a key pathogenic mechanism in neurodegenerative diseases including ALS.

Methods: Patients were randomly assigned in a double-blind fashion to receive either placebo or one of four doses of TCH346 (1.

Is caffeine a flavoring agent in cola soft drinks?

Background: Concern has been expressed about the nutrition and health impact of high rates of soft drink consumption. Caffeine is an added ingredient in approximately 70% of soft drinks consumed in the United States. The soft drink manufacturers' justification to regulatory agencies and the public for adding caffeine to soft drinks is that caffeine is a flavoring agent.

Microinfusion of cocaine into the medial preoptic area or nucleus accumbens transiently impairs maternal behavior in the rat.

Cocaine was microinfused bilaterally (50 microg/0.5 microl/side) into the medial preoptic area (MPOA) or nucleus accumbens (NA), 2 regions within the rat brain neural circuit known to mediate maternal behavior (MB). Additionally, 2 sites not involved in this neural circuit, the dorsal striatum and dorsal medial hippocampus, were used as control sites.

Plasma cocaine levels and locomotor activity after systemic injection in virgin and in lactating maternal female rats.

We have determined the temporal pattern of plasma cocaine levels and increased activity that result from acute systemic injections of cocaine to female rats in two different endocrine and behavioral states, in nonmaternal virgins and in lactating maternal dams. Plasma levels of cocaine as well as ambulatory and rearing activity were determined every 30 min for a total of 300 min after subcutaneous injections of either 10, 20, or 40 mg/kg of cocaine. Virgin females had no prior drug history, whereas lactating, maternal dams had received two cocaine injections before activity testing.

Focal necrotizing panniculitis and vascular necrosis in rats given subcutaneous injections of cocaine hydrochloride.

Subcutaneous injections of cocaine hydrochloride in sterile physiological saline were administered to rats at a dosage of 20 or 40 mg.kg-1. Resultant skin lesions included focal areas of alopecia (within 1 to 2 days) which progressed to necrosis (within 2 to 7 days).

Cocaine transiently impairs maternal behavior in the rat.

This paradigm distinguished between two hypotheses not previously directly addressed. Do repeated exposures to cocaine at critical times during pregnancy, when the neural mechanisms that support maternal behavior are being read, alter some fundamental neural underpinning of maternal behavior in rats? Alternatively, does cocaine alter maternal behavior only when circulating? During the 4 hr after cocaine injection (20 or 40 mg/kg), there were significant deficits in maternal behavior. In contrast, 16 hr after cocaine injection, drug-injected females, in which plasma cocaine had fallen to nondetectable levels, showed the normal maternal behavior of saline-injected controls.