Reduced P300 amplitude during retrieval on a spatial working memory task in a community sample of adolescents who report psychotic symptoms.

Background: Deficits in working memory are widely reported in schizophrenia and are considered a trait marker for the disorder. Event-related potentials (ERPs) and imaging data suggest that these differences in working memory performance may be due to aberrant functioning in the prefrontal and parietal cortices. Research suggests that many of the same risk factors for schizophrenia are shared with individuals from the general population who report psychotic symptoms.

Reduced duration mismatch negativity in adolescents with psychotic symptoms: further evidence for mismatch negativity as a possible biomarker for vulnerability to psychosis.

Background: Deficits in the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a components are the most reliable and robust findings in schizophrenia. These abnormalities have also been recently documented in individuals clinically at risk for psychosis, indicating that the MMN may be a potential biomarker for psychosis. However, the at risk samples included in MMN studies are characterised by pre-existing clinical symptomatology and significant functional decline which are related to MMN amplitude.

Effect of centrifugation and washing on adipose graft viability: a new method to improve graft efficiency.

Background: Adipose tissue grafting is a promising method in the field of surgical filling. We studied the effect of centrifugation on fat grafts, and we propose an optimised protocol for the improvement of adipose tissue viability.

Methods: Adipose tissue was subjected to different centrifugations, and the volumes of interstitial liquid and oil released were measured to choose the optimal condition.

Fatty acids do not pay the toll: effect of SFA and PUFA on human adipose tissue and mature adipocytes inflammation.

Background: On the basis that high fat diet induces inflammation in adipose tissue, we wanted to test the effect of dietary saturated and polysunsaturated fatty acids on human adipose tissue and adipocytes inflammation. Moreover we wanted to determine if TLR2 and TLR4 are involved in this pathway.

Methods: Human adipose tissue and adipocytes primary cultures were treated with endotoxin-free BSA conjugated with SFA (lauric acid and palmitic acid--LA and PA) and PUFA (eicosapentaeneic acid, docosahexaenoic acid and oleic acid--EPA, DHA and OA) with or without LPS.

New insights into lidocaine and adrenaline effects on human adipose stem cells.

Background: Adipose stem cells have gained great interest in plastic and reconstructive surgery with their ability to improve engraftment after fat transfer for soft tissue filling. It is therefore essential to know the effect of the drugs commonly used during the lipoaspiration procedure, such as lidocaine and adrenaline. Indeed, these drugs are infiltrated at the fat donor site for local anesthesia and for reduction of bleeding.

Incidence of occupational exposures in a tertiary health care center.

Introduction: Occupational exposure to Hepatitis B virus (HBV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a cause of concern to all health care workers (HCWs), especially those, in hospitals. Among the HCWs, nurses, interns, technicians, resident doctors and housekeeping staff have the highest incidence of occupational exposure.

Aims: To analyze the cases of needle stick injuries and other exposures to patient's blood or body fluids among health care workers.

Subtle memory and attentional deficits revealed in an Irish stroke patient sample using domain-specific cognitive tasks.

Stroke disrupts motor, sensory, and cognitive systems in survivors. Unlike in physical impairments, assessment of cognitive function is often inadequate, as no standardized procedure to monitor cognitive recovery post stroke exists. We evaluated a number of novel task-orientated tools designed to assess subtle cognitive deficits (including memory, attention, and executive functioning) in a sample of stroke patients.

Parent's perceptions of health care providers actions around child ICU death: what helped, what did not.

Purpose: To describe parents' perspectives of health care provider actions that helped or did not around the time of infant/child's intensive care unit (ICU) death. Semistructured interviews with 63 parents (Black, White, and Hispanic) 7 months post infant/child death were audio-recorded, transcribed, analyzed, and themes identified.

Findings: What helped most: compassionate, sensitive staff; understandable explanations of infant's/child's condition; experienced, competent nurses; providers did everything to help infant/child; and parents' involvement in care decisions.

Facial emotion recognition in adolescents with psychotic-like experiences: a school-based sample from the general population.

Background: Psychotic symptoms, also termed psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in the absence of psychotic disorder, are common in adolescents and are associated with increased risk of schizophrenia-spectrum illness in adulthood. At the same time, schizophrenia is associated with deficits in social cognition, with deficits particularly documented in facial emotion recognition (FER). However, little is known about the relationship between PLEs and FER abilities, with only one previous prospective study examining the association between these abilities in childhood and reported PLEs in adolescence.

Language processing abnormalities in adolescents with psychotic-like experiences: an event related potential study.

Language impairments are a well established finding in patients with schizophrenia and in individuals at-risk for psychosis. A growing body of research has revealed shared risk factors between individuals with psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) from the general population and patients with schizophrenia. In particular, adolescents with PLEs have been shown to be at an increased risk for later psychosis.

Ozone and aging up-regulate type II metacaspase gene expression and global metacaspase activity in the leaves of field-grown maize (Zea mays L.) plants.

Maize plants (Zea mays L. cv. NK Perform) were exposed to O(3)-enriched air, using a new field fumigation system.

Probing the high momentum component of the deuteron at high Q2.

The (2)H(e,e'p)n cross section at a momentum transfer of 3.5 (GeV/c)(2) was measured over a kinematical range that made it possible to study this reaction for a set of fixed missing momenta as a function of the neutron recoil angle θ(nq) and to extract missing momentum distributions for fixed values of θ(nq) up to 0.55  GeV/c.

Surfactant-promoted Prussian Blue-modified carbon electrodes: enhancement of electro-deposition step, stabilization, electrochemical properties and application to lactate microbiosensors for the neurosciences.

We report here for the first time a comparison of the beneficial effects of different cationic surfactants - cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), benzethonium chloride (BZT) and cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) - for the electrochemical synthesis of Prussian Blue (PB) films, using cyclic voltammetry (CV), on screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs). Their electrochemical properties were investigated, paying special attention to parameters such as the amount of PB deposited, film thickness, charge transfer rate, permeability, reversibility, stability and sensitivity to hydrogen peroxide detection. All surfactant-enhanced PB-modified SPCEs displayed a significant improvement in their electrochemical properties compared with PB-modified SPCEs formed in the absence of surfactants.

An optimised radiolabel procedure to prepare (99m)Tc-colloidal rhenium sulphide to improve radiochemical purity.

Background: More than 25% of 99mTc colloidal rhenium sulphide preparations have been reported to have a radiochemical purity of <95% in 11 radiopharmacies.

Objectives: To identify the key parameters involved in radiochemical purity, different preparation procedures were analysed to develop an optimised preparation method.

Methods: In the first part of this study, various data such as the Nanocis kit batch number, the eluate volume, the time between the two final elutions, the temperature and duration of heating were collected and analysed to determine the critical parameters that significantly decrease radiochemical purity.

Behavioural and electrophysiological effects of visual paired associate context manipulations during encoding and recognition in younger adults, older adults and older cognitively declined adults.

The current study examined the EEG of young, old and old declined adults performing a visual paired associate task. In order to examine the effects of encoding context and stimulus repetition, target pairs were presented on either detailed or white backgrounds and were repeatedly presented during both early and late phases of encoding. Results indicated an increase in P300 amplitude in the right parietal cortex from early to late stages of encoding in older declined adults, whereas both younger adults and older controls showed a reduction in P300 amplitude in this same area from early to late phase encoding.

Effect of the Cannabinoid Receptor-1 antagonist SR141716A on human adipocyte inflammatory profile and differentiation.

Background: Obesity is characterized by inflammation, caused by increase in proinflammatory cytokines, a key factor for the development of insulin resistance. SR141716A, a cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) antagonist, shows significant improvement in clinical status of obese/diabetic patients. Therefore, we studied the effect of SR141716A on human adipocyte inflammatory profile and differentiation.

Physiological and histological changes in skeletal muscle following in vivo gene transfer by electroporation.

Electroporation (EP) is used to transfect skeletal muscle fibers in vivo, but its effects on the structure and function of skeletal muscle tissue have not yet been documented in detail. We studied the changes in contractile function and histology after EP and the influence of the individual steps involved to determine the mechanism of recovery, the extent of myofiber damage, and the efficiency of expression of a green fluorescent protein (GFP) transgene in the tibialis anterior (TA) muscle of adult male C57Bl/6J mice. Immediately after EP, contractile torque decreased by ∼80% from pre-EP levels.

Simultaneous measurements of glucose, oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin in exposed rat cortex.

The present work addresses the simultaneous monitoring of hemoglobin and glucose consumption in rat somatosensory cortex in vivo. We propose a method which combines two techniques: 2-dimensional optical imaging and an amperometric microbiosensor. The mounted setup optimizes the space in the cranial window so that three micro-electrodes can be inserted: glucose microbiosensor, sentinel and stimulating electrode as well as the holder to manipulate the optical fiber.

Auditory and visual information do not affect self-paced bilateral finger tapping in children with DCD.

Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) are more variable in timing their fingers to an external cue. In this study, we investigated the intrinsic coordination properties of self-selected anti-phase finger tapping with and without vision and audition in children with and without DCD and compared their performance to that of adults. Ten children with DCD (Mean age=7.

Exposure to an organometal compound stimulates adipokine and cytokine expression in white adipose tissue.

Objective: White adipose tissue (WAT) is now considered a defined tissue capable of interactions with other organ systems. WAT role in elevating the level of systemic chronic inflammation suggests that alterations in this tissue as the result of disease or environmental factors may influence the development and progression of various obesity-related pathologies. This study investigated WAT cell-specific responses to an organometal compound, trimethyltin (TMT), to determine possible contribution to induced inflammation.

Microbiosensors for glucose based on Prussian Blue modified carbon fiber electrodes for in vivo monitoring in the central nervous system.

Carbon fiber electrodes (CFEs) were used to develop microbiosensors for glucose as an alternative to the classical Pt and Pt-Ir transducers. Their low dimensions (∼250 μm CFE length and ∼10 μm diameter) are important factors for measurements in physiological environments. An electrocatalytic Prussian Blue (PB) film facilitated detection of enzyme-generated hydrogen peroxide at a low applied potential (∼0.

Effect of apoA-I on cholesterol release and apoE secretion in human mature adipocytes.

Background: The risk of cardiovascular disease is inversely correlated to level of plasma HDL-c. Moreover, reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) from peripheral tissues to the liver is the most widely accepted mechanism linked to the anti-atherosclerotic activity of HDL. The apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I) and the ABC transporters play a key role in this process.

High-resolution spectroscopy of Lambda16N by electroproduction.

An experimental study of the (16)O(e,e'K(+))(Lambda)(16)N reaction has been performed at Jefferson Lab. A thin film of falling water was used as a target. This permitted a simultaneous measurement of the p(e,e'K(+))Lambda, Sigma(0) exclusive reactions and a precise calibration of the energy scale.

Signaling pathways involved in LPS induced TNFalpha production in human adipocytes.

Background: The development of obesity has been linked to an inflammatory process, and the role of adipose tissue in the secretion of pro-inflammatory molecules such as IL-6 or TNFalpha has now been largely confirmed. Although TNFalpha secretion by adipose cells is probably induced, most notably by TLR ligands, the activation and secretion pathways of this cytokine are not yet entirely understood. Moreover, given that macrophagic infiltration is a characteristic of obesity, it is difficult to clearly establish the level of involvement of the different cellular types present within the adipose tissue during inflammation.