Plos One
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It is not known why survival differs between men and women in oxygen-dependent chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The present study evaluates differences in comorbidity between men and women, and tests the hypothesis that comorbidity contributes to sex-related differences in mortality in oxygen-dependent COPD. ⋯ Comorbidity is different in men and women, but does not explain the sex-related difference in mortality in oxygen-dependent COPD.
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Oxidative stress is known to play an important role in the pathology of traumatic brain injury. Mitochondria are thought to be the major source of the damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS) following TBI. However, recent work has revealed that the membrane, via the enzyme NADPH oxidase can also generate the superoxide radical (O(2)(-)), and thereby potentially contribute to the oxidative stress following TBI. The current study thus addressed the potential role of NADPH oxidase in TBI. ⋯ As a whole, the study demonstrates that NADPH oxidase activity and superoxide production exhibit a biphasic elevation in the hippocampus and cortex following TBI, which contributes significantly to the pathology of TBI via mediation of oxidative stress damage, microglial activation, and AD protein induction in the brain following TBI.
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Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a common and potentially fatal disease that is still underdiagnosed. The objective of our study was to reappraise the clinical presentation of PE with emphasis on the identification of the symptoms and signs that prompt the patients to seek medical attention. ⋯ Most patients with PE feature at least one of four symptoms which, in decreasing order of frequency, are sudden onset dyspnea, chest pain, fainting (or syncope), and hemoptysis. The occurrence of such symptoms, if not explained otherwise, should alert the clinicians to consider PE in differential diagnosis, and order the appropriate objective test.
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A network measure called knotty-centrality is defined that quantifies the extent to which a given subset of a graph's nodes constitutes a densely intra-connected topologically central connective core. Using this measure, the knotty centre of a network is defined as a sub-graph with maximal knotty-centrality. A heuristic algorithm for finding subsets of a network with high knotty-centrality is presented, and this is applied to previously published brain structural connectivity data for the cat and the human, as well as to a number of other networks. The cognitive implications of possessing a connective core with high knotty-centrality are briefly discussed.
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Behavioral models of cold responses are important tools for exploring the molecular mechanisms of cold sensation. To complement the currently cold behavioral assays and allow further studies of these mechanisms, we have developed a new technique to measure the cold response threshold, the cold plantar assay. ⋯ The latency to withdrawal from the cooled glass is used as a measure of the cold response threshold of the rodents, and the dry ice pellet provides a ramping cold stimulus on the glass that allows the correlation of withdrawal latency values to rough estimates of the cold response threshold temperature. The assay is highly sensitive to manipulations including morphine-induced analgesia, Complete Freund's Adjuvant-induced inflammatory allodynia, and Spinal Nerve Ligation-induced neuropathic allodynia.