Sleep deprivation reduces vagal tone during an inspiratory endurance task in humans.

Study Objectives: Sleep deprivation alters inspiratory endurance by reducing inspiratory motor output. Vagal tone is involved in exercise endurance. This study aimed to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on vagal tone adaptation in healthy subjects performing an inspiratory effort.

Antidepressant treatment differentially affects the phenotype of high and low stress reactive mice.

Modelling key endophenotypes can be a powerful approach to gain insight into mechanisms underlying the aetiology and pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders. Based on evidence of stress hormone system dysregulations in depression, the Stress Reactivity (SR) mouse model has been generated by a selective breeding approach for extremes in HPA axis reactivity, resulting in high (HR), intermediate (IR) and low (LR) reactive mice. The characterisation of their phenotypic alterations has highlighted many similarities of HR and LR mice with the melancholic and atypical depression, respectively.

Region-dependent and stage-specific effects of stress, environmental enrichment, and antidepressant treatment on hippocampal neurogenesis.

Chronic stress and depression are associated with decreased levels of hippocampal neurogenesis. On the other hand, antidepressants as well as environmental enrichment may rely in part on their pro-neurogenic effects to improve cognition and mood. Because a functional heterogeneity has been consistently reported along the septo-temporal axis of the hippocampus, regional changes in neurogenesis could differentially contribute to these effects and affect distinct hippocampal functions.

TSH regulates pendrin membrane abundance and enhances iodide efflux in thyroid cells.

Thyroid hormones are essential for normal development and metabolism. Their synthesis requires transport of iodide into thyroid follicles. The mechanisms involving the apical efflux of iodide into the follicular lumen are poorly elucidated.

RNA-guided complex from a bacterial immune system enhances target recognition through seed sequence interactions.

Prokaryotes have evolved multiple versions of an RNA-guided adaptive immune system that targets foreign nucleic acids. In each case, transcripts derived from clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPRs) are thought to selectively target invading phage and plasmids in a sequence-specific process involving a variable cassette of CRISPR-associated (cas) genes. The CRISPR locus in Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA14) includes four cas genes that are unique to and conserved in microorganisms harboring the Csy-type (CRISPR system yersinia) immune system.

Hypoxia increases transepithelial electrical conductance and reduces occludin at the plasma membrane in alveolar epithelial cells via PKC-ζ and PP2A pathway.

During pulmonary edema, the alveolar space is exposed to a hypoxic environment. The integrity of the alveolar epithelial barrier is required for the reabsorption of alveolar fluid. Tight junctions (TJ) maintain the integrity of this barrier.

Ambient particulate matter affects occludin distribution and increases alveolar transepithelial electrical conductance.

Background And Objective: Inhaled particulate matter (PM) causes lung inflammation and epithelial dysfunction. However, the direct effect of PM on alveolar epithelial barrier integrity is not well understood. Our aim is to determine whether PM exposure affects the alveolar epithelial cells (AEC) transepithelial electrical conductance (Gt) and tight junction (TJ) proteins.

Rubicon controls endosome maturation as a Rab7 effector.

The activation and recruitment of the small GTPase Rab7 to early endosome is a critical step for early to late endosome maturation, a process that requires the class III phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3KC3) and GTPase regulators. However, the molecular mechanism underlying Rab7 activation and endosome maturation is still poorly defined. Here we report that Rubicon, a component of the PI3KC3 complex, prevents endosome maturation through differential interactions with Rab7 and UVRAG.

Early detectors of the heart's electrical activity.

It was in Matteucci's rheoscopic frog in Pisa that evidence was first found for the electrical activity of the heart in 1844, and his results were confirmed and expanded 12 years later at Würzburg. The capillary electrometer gave a continuous record that could be photographed, and was used initially by Einthoven who, to obviate the onerous mathematical conversion of the electrometer record, developed the string galvanometer by the close of the century, and showed its clinical value in 1906.

Adolf Kussmaul (1822-1902): from youth to maturity under the influence of Virchow.

Adolf Kussmaul (1822-1902) studied medicine at Heidelberg and Vienna, and practised in Kandern in the Black Forest until, in 1854, ill health forced him to quit country practice. Drawn by Rudolf Virchow to Wörzburg, he took his MD there in 1855, after which he held academic posts in Heidelberg, Erlangen, Freiburg and Strasburg until 1888, when he retired to Heidelberg and in his closing years composed Jugenderinnerungen, memoirs of his youth. Periarteritis (polyarteritis) nodosa, pulsus paradoxus, the paradoxical rise in jugular venous pressure on inspiration in constrictive pericarditis and the "air hunger" of diabetic ketosis are all evidence of shrewd clinical observation and interpretation associated with his name.

Gender differences in pain ratings and pupil reactions to painful pressure stimuli.

In order to investigate gender differences in pain perception, the present study employed both a psychophysical and a psychophysiological measure. In experiment 1, 20 subjects rated the painfulness of 4 different levels of tonic pressure applied to their fingers using a verbally anchored categorization procedure. In general agreement with studies of pain threshold and tolerance, female subjects reported greater pain at high levels of stimulation, with no gender difference being evident at low pressure levels.

On the "absoluteness" of category and magnitude scales of pain.

The concept of "absolute scaling" (Zwislocki & Goodman, 1980) implies that direct judgments of sensory magnitude not only reflect the relative positions of the stimuli being judged, but also permit us to assess level differences in sensation. In order to explore this notion for different scaling methods, in the present investigation we compared magnitude estimation with category partitioning, a verbally anchored categorization procedure, in scaling painful pressure stimuli covering different intensity ranges. The results indicate that when the same stimulus range was presented after 1 week, both methods appeared to be highly reliable, with category partitioning faring somewhat better than magnitude estimation.

[Detection of pulmonary hypertension in patients with local circumscribed scleroderma].

In three patients with local circumscribed sclerodermia (duration of the disorder 6 months to 3 years), a latent or manifest pulmonary hypertension of the precapillary type in the presence of otherwise unremarkable lung function, radiological and ergometric data, was observed. The pulmonary involvement in this disease would appear to have a relatively early onset.

[Exogenous allergic asthma following pectin exposure--a new occupational allergen].

In a 51-year-old male worker, workplace-related dyspnoea in the sense of bronchial asthma, was observed. On the basis of the medical history, the results of serology, inhalatory provocation and histamine release tests, despite a negative skin test, pectins were established to be the precipitating substances; in experiments on animals (Wistar rats), the instillation of pectins led to the development of bronchiolitis. An exogenous, allergic asthma following exposure to pectin may be considered to have been proven.

[Experimental pain-induction methods in the systematic study of human pain: quality criteria.].

The aim of this investigation has been to test in humans the reliability and validity of three painful stimuli, i.e, mechanical pressure, a modified submaximum-effort tourniquet technique, and the cold pressure test. Twenty-four untrained subjects (twelve females, twelve males) volunteered in the experiments and, after a trial session were presented with four runs of these three noxious stimuli within 36 h.

[Immunoprint technic: a new method for planned production of allergen-specific monoclonal antibodies].

Working on the isolation of allergens from crude pollen extracts we were looking for a simple method to produce monoclonal antibodies (mab) specific for a major allergen of cultivated rye (S. cereale) with an isoelectric point (pl) of 5.9.

[The correspondence between pain stimulus and pain sensation.].

The relationship between painful pressure stimuli and induced pain intensity was examined. For experimental pain stimulation in 26 subjects, randomized local pressure on the middle phalanxes of fingers II-IV was used (pressure area 2.56 mm(2), six different pressure levels, three different pressure times).

Analysis of rye pollen (Secale cereale) allergens using patients' IgE, immunoprint, Western Blot and monoclonal antibodies.

Rye pollen (Secale cereale) was investigated by Immunoprint and Western Blot analysis. Using Immunoprint, more than 30 proteins could be shown to be allergens in terms of their IgE binding, and 9 were determined as major allergens. In Western Blot 17 allergens were discovered, 3 of them major allergens.

[Lateral asymmetry of the human pain sensitivity.].

In repeated clinical studies a preponderance of pain syndromes on the left side of the body has frequently been observed. Experimental studies in humans revealed a lower pain threshold on the left, nondominant side. On the other hand, some studies do not confirm this lateralization.

Stabilisation of human interferon beta synthesis in Escherichia coli by zinc ions.

Human interferon beta synthesized in Escherichia coli is unstable and toxic for the bacterial cell. Zinc ions are able to stabilise interferon beta in E. coli probably by inhibiting the action of cell internal proteinase(s) which affect the half-life of this foreign protein.