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Biomedical subjects

Brian J Pollard

Publications and source records attributed to Brian J Pollard.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

The vagus nerve as a conduit for neuroinvasion, a diagnostic tool, and a therapeutic pathway for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, including variant Creutzfeld Jacob disease.

It is hypothesised that the vagus nerve (cranial nerve X) is an important conduit for infective neuroinvasion during the incubation of certain transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) including scrapie in sheep, variant Creutzfeld Jacob disease in humans, chronic wasting disease in deer, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle. Presence of infection in the brainstem will disrupt normal function of this important region responsible for autonomic control of visceral function via the vagus nerve. It is proposed that physiological study of disrupted vagal function using techniques such as heart rate variability will indicate early, and ongoing, functional signs of infection even before levels of abnormal prion protein reach the thresholds currently used in tests for the presence of TSEs. It is further suggested that repeated measures of vagal function during treatment with experimental therapies will give a non-invasive, repeated measures index of drug efficacy. In addition, pharmaceutical interventions directed via the vagus nerve will bypass the blood brain barrier and take an anatomical route appropriate to the treatment of TSEs.

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PubMed2006

Research audit and publication.

The ethics of research, audit and publication have developed mainly within the last fifty years. The Declaration of Helsinki is the universally accepted code of conduct for researchers worldwide. All research has to be approved by an ethics committee, all of which are governed by a centralised structure which is the Central Office for Research Ethics Committees (COREC) in the UK. This standardised system has been developed to oversee all research activity across the whole of Europe and every European county will have an equivalent organisation. The committees concern themselves with research but the differences between audit and research are difficult to discern in many places. If there is any doubt then the advice of the local research ethics committee should be sought. Only the individual him/herself can give consent. This may produce difficulties in cases of certain groups especially unconscious patients and children. The outcome of every study should be published whatever the results and the ongoing development of centralised (national) research trial databases will promote this philosophy. Publication of results thought to be of lesser importance may prove difficult, however, and so there is a temptation to falsify or modify data to make it more attractive. This, together with other activities such as the fabrication of data, plagiarism, dual publication, salami publication, conflicts of interest and irregularities in authorship, have given Editors of journals a number of problems. Many of these issues around publication ethics may prove difficult to detect but the fear of sanctions from employers and professional organisations is a useful deterrent.

Authorship↗