Current Issue : July - September Volume : 2014 Issue Number : 3 Articles : 6 Articles
Background: There is biological evidence that the brain opioidergic system plays a critical role in the addictive\nproperties of nicotine. The purpose of the present study was to examine the associations of single nucleotide\npolymorphisms (SNPs) in the genes encoding mu-opioid receptor (MOR) and the MOR-interacting proteins (including\nOPRM1, ARRB2, and HINT1) with smoking behaviors in Chinese men.\nMethods: A total of 284 subjects (including current and ex-smokers) were recruited. Special questionnaires were used\nto assess smoking behaviors including age of smoking initiation, daily cigarette consumption, and Fagerstr�¶m test for\nnicotine dependence (FTND) score. Participant samples were genotyped for six SNPs in the opioid pathway genes:\nrs1799971 in OPRM1, rs1045280, rs2036657 and rs3786047 in ARRB2, rs3852209 and rs2278060 in HINT1. Linear and logistic\nregression models were used to determine single-locus and haplotype-based association analyses.\nResults: There was no significant association between any of SNPs analyzed and smoking behaviors. Logistic regression\nanalyses under dominant, recessive, and additive models showed no significant associations of the six SNPs with smoking\nstatus (current vs. ex-smokers). After adjustment for age at enrollment and smoking initiation age, HINT1 rs3852209 was\nsignificantly associated with smoking status with an OR of 0.54 (95% CI, 0.31-0.95; P = 0.03) under dominant inheritance\nmodel. No haplotypes in ARRB2 or HINT1 were related to smoking status.\nConclusions: The present study indicates no significant association between common genetic variations in MOR and\nMOR-interacting proteins and smoking behaviors in Chinese men, and gives suggestive evidence that HINT1 rs3852209\nmay be related to smoking status. The findings require confirmation from further studies in additional larger samples....
Background: Patients with Alzheimer�s disease (AD) often present with apathy symptoms resembling the decreased\nmotivation observed in depressed patients. Therefore, differentiating the initial phase of AD from late life depression\nmay be difficult in some cases. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a functional neuroimaging modality that uses\nnear-infrared light to measure changes in hemoglobin concentration on the cortical surface during activation tasks.\nThe objective of this study was to investigate differences in brain activation associated with late life depression and\nwith AD by means of NIRS.\nMethods: NIRS was performed in 30 patients with depression, 28 patients with AD, and 33 healthy controls, all aged\n60 years or older. During two tasks, a verbal fluency task and a visuospatial task, changes in oxygenated hemoglobin\nconcentration in the frontal and parietal cortices were investigated.\nResults: In the visuospatial task, cortical activation was lower in the depressed group than in the AD group, and\nsignificant differences were observed in the parietal cortex.\nConclusions: NIRS can detect differences in brain activation between patients with late life depression and those\nwith AD. NIRS is a promising tool for the differential diagnosis of late life depression and AD....
Background: Human decision-making is often affected by prior selections and their outcomes, even in situations\nwhere decisions are independent and outcomes are unpredictable.\nMethods: In this study, we created a task that simulated real-life non-strategic gambling to examine the effect of\nprior outcomes on subsequent decisions in a group of male college students.\nResults: Behavioral performance showed that participants needed more time to react after continuous losses\n(LOSS) than continuous wins (WIN) and discontinuous outcomes (CONTROL). In addition, participants were more\nlikely to repeat their selections in both WIN and LOSS conditions. Functional MRI data revealed that decisions in\nWINs were associated with increased activation in the mesolimbic pathway, but decreased activation in the inferior\nfrontal gyrus relative to LOSS. Increased prefrontal cortical activation was observed during LOSS relative to WIN and\nCONTROL conditions.\nConclusion: Taken together, the behavioral and neuroimaging findings suggest that participants tended to repeat\nprevious selections during LOSS trials, a pattern resembling the gamblerââ?¬â?¢s fallacy. However, during WIN trials,\nparticipants tended to follow their previous lucky decisions, like the ââ?¬Ë?hot handââ?¬â?¢ fallacy....
Abstract\nBackground: In daily life, we are continuously exposed to temporally regular and irregular sounds. Previous studies\nhave demonstrated that the temporal regularity of sound sequences influences neural activity. However, it remains\nunresolved how temporal regularity affects neural activity in noisy environments, when attention of the listener is\nnot focused on the sound input.\nMethods: In the present study, using magnetoencephalography we investigated the effects of temporal regularity\nin sound signal sequencing (regular vs. irregular) in silent versus noisy environments during distracted listening.\nResults: The results demonstrated that temporal regularity differentially affected the auditory-evoked N1m response\ndepending on the background acoustic environment: the N1m amplitudes elicited by the temporally regular\nsounds were smaller in silence and larger in noise than those elicited by the temporally irregular sounds.\nConclusions: Our results indicate that the human auditory system is able to involuntarily utilize temporal regularity\nin sound signals to modulate the neural activity in the auditory cortex in accordance with the surrounding acoustic\nenvironment....
Background: Previous research on serum total cholesterol and suicidality has yielded conflicting results. Several\nstudies have reported a link between low serum total cholesterol and suicidality, whereas others have failed to\nreplicate these findings, particularly in patients with major affective disorders. These discordant findings may reflect\nthe fact that studies often do not distinguish between patients with bipolar and unipolar depression; moreover,\ndefinitions and classification schemes for suicide attempts in the literature vary widely.\nMethods: Subjects were patients with one of the three major psychiatric disorders commonly associated with\nsuicide: schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder, and major depressive disorder (MDD). We compared serum lipid\nlevels in patients who died by suicide (82 schizophrenia, 23 bipolar affective disorder, and 67 MDD) and non-suicide\ncontrols (200 schizophrenia, 49 bipolar affective disorder, and 175 MDD).\nResults: Serum lipid profiles did not differ between patients who died by suicide and control patients in any\ndiagnostic group.\nConclusions: Our results do not support the use of biological indicators such as serum total cholesterol to predict\nsuicide risk among patients with a major psychiatric disorder....
Every year millions of children and adults are exposed to at least one traumatic event such as war, motor vehicle accidents, natural/human-made disasters, sexual assault, domestic violence or community violence, etc and the number is going to rise day by day. Lot of literature has been published during the past decade and is still going on. The main objective of the present review is to make physicians, other health care professionals and students understand the disorder – including signs and symptoms, epidemiology, risk factors, diagnosis, various types of therapy, education to patient and family members etc, with results of latest publications included in every category. Medline, medscape, science daily, various journal and textbook articles have been searched with special focus on the works published in recent days. This review provides an overview of PTSD stuffed with essential updates which are mandatory for every health care professional to know....
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