Comparative Effects of Repetitive Odor Identification and Odor Memory Tasks on Olfactory Engagement in Older Populations - A Pilot fMRI Study.

Objective: This study evaluated human Blood Oxygen Level-Dependent (BOLD) responses in primary and higher-order olfactory regions of older adults, using odor memory and odor identification tasks. The goal was to determine which olfactory and memory regions of interest are more strongly engaged in older populations comparing these two odor training tasks.

Methods: Twelve adults 55-75 years old (75% females) without intranasal or major neurological disorders performed repetitive odor memory and identification tasks using a 3-tesla magnetic resonance scanner.

Superwomen and Sleep: an Assessment of Black College Women Across the African Diaspora.

Background: Women and racial/ethnic minority groups in the U.S. report poor sleep health.

Waardenburg Syndrome Expression and Penetrance.

Through a combination of in silico research and reviews of previous work, mechanisms by which nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) affects the inheritance and expressivity of Waardenburg syndrome is realized. While expressivity and inheritance both relate to biochemical processes underlying a gene's function, this research explores how alternative splicing and premature termination codons (PTC's) within mRNAs mutated in the disease are either translated into deleterious proteins or decayed to minimize expression of altered proteins. Elucidation of splice variants coupled with NMD perpetuating the various symptoms and inheritance patterns of this disease represent novel findings.

Predictors of Self-Reported Family Health History of Breast Cancer.

The objective of this study was to identify predictors of self-reported family health history of breast cancer in an ethnically diverse population of women participating in a breast cancer screening program. Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire about their demography, health, breast health and family health history of breast cancer. The association between family health history of breast cancer and categorical variables were analyzed using the T test, chi square, and multi-nominal logistic regression.

Winning a won game: caffeine panacea for obesity syndemic.

Over the past decades, chronic sleep reduction and a concurrent development of obesity have been recognized as a common problem in the industrialized world. Among its numerous untoward effects, there is a possibility that insomnia is also a major contributor to obesity. This attribution poses a problem for caffeine, an inexpensive, "natural" agent that is purported to improve a number of conditions and is often indicated in a long-term pharmacotherapy in the context of weight management.

Managing the pandemic of obesity: siding with the fox or the hedgehog?

Obesity is a major public health problem of pandemic proportion. Despite its high prevalence and widespread distribution (consistent with a common underlying etiology), clinical psychologists and primary care physicians routinely approach the problem with individualized but often ineffective treatments like psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, or propose alterations to specific components of the 'toxic environment', cultural influences, and psychosocial factors purported to cause overeating. This paper presents an alternative perspective and proposes a potential framework for assisting health professionals in developing rational approaches to education about and preventive treatment of obesity based on the role of factors in early life that contribute to personality and behavior and which over time lead to obesity and its maintenance.

The 'Tyranny of choices' in the ingestion-controlling network.

Background: Currently used antiobesity remedies offer only a modest weight reduction, and have untoward effects that can complicate treatment efforts. Motivated by the needs of the pharmacotherapy of obesity, the study explored the role of neuropeptide Y, leptin, and corticotrophin-releasing hormone.

Method: The study used Ingenuity Pathway Analysis which is a tool for automated discovery and visualization of molecular interactions.

The paradox of caffeine-zolpidem interaction: a network analysis.

A widely prescribed and potent short-acting hypnotic, zolpidem has become the mainstay for the treatment of middle-of-the-night sleeplessness. It is expected to be antagonized by caffeine. Paradoxically, in some cases caffeine appears to slightly enhance zolpidem sedation.

Effects of high-carbohydrate and high-fat dietary treatments on measures of heart rate variability and sympathovagal balance.

Aims: We tested the hypothesis that respiratory quotient (RQ) determines sympathovagal balance associated with metabolism of stored and dietary energy substrates.

Main Methods: Six 18-20 year-old African-American males were studied after two control pretreatments of fasting and post-treatments of metabolizing high-fat and high-carbohydrate beverages. RQ, heart rate (HR), energy expenditure (EE) and blood pressure (BP) were recorded at rest and repeated 1 h-3 h after ingesting isocaloric high-carbohydrate and high-fat beverages.

Multitasking of neuropeptide Y through the lens of motifs.

Networks controlling ingestion-related peptides are also known to be the targets and signals for numerous other systems. Yet, their topological properties are still ill understood. The Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) was employed to represent molecules engaged in feeding as nodes, and the interactions between them as edges.

Ingenuity pathway analysis of clozapine-induced obesity.

Background: Lipid accretion is one of the major side effects of clozapine pharmacotherapy of schizophrenia that made clozapine into an interesting obesity drug model.

Method: Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) engine was used for core analysis and building the networks of weight regulation.

Results: The examination of molecules that were selected into 'clozapine neighborhood' identified them as multifunctional signals that appear to orchestrate vascular and tissue functions plausibly implicated in adiposity side effect.

Molecular network of obesity: what does it promise for pharmacotherapy?

There is growing evidence that receptors that respond to orexigenic and anorexigenic signals of respective neuropeptides are also implicated in cognitive, emotional, sensory and motor functions. How do these signals trigger a particular appetitive function while also acting in so different contexts in controlling non-appetitive behaviours? This perspective seeks an answer in their peculiar modular organization when each module planted in complex networks controlling appetite is also engaged in different domains. Network analysis may be essential in considering pharmacotherapeutic interventions and, in particular, when anticipating untoward central effects of agents explored from a therapeutic point of view.

Improved genomic blot hybridization.

For restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and other molecular biology experiments, well prepared (undamaged) genomic DNA is needed, which is then digested with restriction enzymes, transferred to nitrocellulose paper and hybridized with radioactive or nonradioactive probe. DNA damage occurs in fields such as clinical genetics and forensic medicine in the form, for example, of single stranded breaks. If these DNAs are treated with T4 DNA ligase prior to restriction endonuclease digestion, the damaged DNA is repaired.