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Biomedical subjects

R Bhatt

Publications and source records attributed to R Bhatt.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1996

Combining specialist and primary health care teams for HIV positive patients: retrospective and prospective studies.

OBJECTIVE: To develop and evaluate a model of health care for HIV positive patients involving specialist, hospital based teams and primary health care teams. DESIGN: One year retrospective and a 2 1/2 year prospective study. SETTING: Two hospitals in West London and 88 general practitioners in 72 general hospitals. SUBJECTS: 209 adults with HIV infection. INTERVENTION: General practitioners enrolled in the project were faxed structured outpatient clinic summaries. When hospital inpatients were discharged, a brief discharge summary was faxed. General practitioners had access to consultant physicians skilled in HIV medicine through a 24 hour mobile telephone service. An HIV/AIDS management and treatment guide containing relevant local information was produced. Quarterly discussion forums for general practitioners were held, and a regular newsletter was produced. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Hospital attendance and general practitioner consultations; perceived benefits and problems of patients and general practitioners. RESULTS: The average length of a hospital inpatient stay was halved for those patients who had participated in the project for two years, and the average number of visits to the outpatient clinic per month fell for patients with AIDS. There was a substantial increase in the number of visits to general practitioners by patients with AIDS and symptomatic HIV infection. Patients and general practitioners both felt that the standard of health care provided had improved. CONCLUSIONS: This model of health care efficiently and effectively utilised existing teams of hospital and primary health care professionals to provide care for HIV positive patients. Simple, prompt, and regular communication systems which provided information relevant to the needs of general practitioners were central to its success.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Serum magnesium levels in idiopathic epilepsy.

Fifty cases of idiopathic epilepsy and 25 age and sex matched normal healthy controls were studied. There was a significant fall in serum magnesium levels in idiopathic epilepsy on day one and 4 of the seizures (P < 0.01) as compared to controls, and was not decreased significantly on day 7 of the seizures (P < 0.05). The fall was maximum in status epilepticus and severe epilepsy than in mild and moderate epilepsy. Serum magnesium took less time to come back to normal in mild and moderate epilepsy than in other types. This shows that serum magnesium does have a prognostic significance. Lesser the fall in the magnesium levels, less frequent were the convulsions and vice versa. It is concluded that serum magnesium continues to be a sensitive early diagnostic index of idiopathic epilepsy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Dendritic cells are potent antigen-presenting cells for microbial superantigen.

Dendritic cells (DC) were found to be more efficient than macrophages (MO) in activating T cell responses to Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) using the hanging drop techniques and DC as antigen presenting cells (APC). When superantigen was presented via DC, the activation of T cells was not dependent on antigen processing and MHC class II molecules IA and IE were involved.

Animals↗
PubMed1993

Photoperiodism in Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) with special reference to relative refractoriness.

Cloacal gland (an androgen dependent sex accessory) of Japanese quail exhibits full breeding condition as long as these were maintained under long days (LD 16:8). When shifted to short daylength (LD 6:18), scotosensitivity (cloacal gland regression) was observed up to 5 weeks, followed by scotorefractoriness (cloacal gland development). There was a regression in cloacal gland volume of the birds when shifted to intermediate daylength (LD 13.5:10.5 and 13:11) after 12 weeks of exposure to long days (relative refractoriness) but no regression when shifted to relatively short days (< 14 hr) after 3 weeks of exposure to long daylength. Birds maintained under constant short photoperiod (LD 6:18) exhibited cyclicity. Shift experiments (quail reared and maintained under continuous light; LL, were shifted to LD 16:8, 13:11 and 8:16, similarly quail maintained under LD 16:8 were shifted to rest three photoperiods and so on) made to compare the cloacal gland responses indicated that if the difference between two photoperiods (previous and shifted one) was more the percentage of difference in cloacal gland response was also high. Short daylength (LD 8:16) was always gonadoinhibitory for the quail previously exposed to any daylength (13L, 16L or 24L) and 16L and 24L were always stimulatory for the quail previously exposed to other daylength (8L, 13L, 16L). But, when the birds were shifted to 13L, photoresponses cannot be generalized and it depends on the photoperiod to which quail were exposed previously (i.e. photoperiodic history).

Animals↗
PubMed1992

Textons, visual pop-out effects, and object recognition in infancy.

Five experiments were conducted to determine whether primitive perceptual features, or textons, which Julesz (1984) identified in studies of texture segregation with adults, also affect object recognition early in development. Three-month-old infants discriminated Ts and Ls composed of overlapping line segments from +s but not from each other in a delayed-recognition test after 24 hr; however, Ts and Ls were discriminated from each other after only 1 hr. In a priming paradigm, Ts, Ls, and +s were discriminated from one another after 2 weeks. In succeeding experiments, infants exhibited adultlike visual pop-out effects in both delayed recognition and priming paradigms, detecting an L in the midst of 6 +s and vice versa; these effects were symmetrical. The pop-out effects apparently resulted from parallel search: Infants failed to detect 3 Ls among 4 +s. Clearly, some of the same primitive units that have been identified as the building blocks of adult visual perception underlie object recognition early in infancy.

Attention↗
PubMed1992

A Drosophila CREB/ATF transcriptional activator binds to both fat body- and liver-specific regulatory elements.

We have identified a Drosophila transcription factor that binds to fat body-specific enhancers of alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh) and yolk protein genes. DNA sequence analysis of cDNA clones encoding this protein, box B-binding factor-2 (BBF-2), indicates that it is a member of the CREB/ATF family of transcriptional regulatory proteins. A number of observations suggest that BBF-2 is involved in fat body-specific expression: Mutations that disrupt BBF-2 binding to two different Adh fat body enhancers in vitro decrease the activity of these enhancers in transgenic flies. BBF-2 mRNA is present in all cell types examined, and the protein is present in cells that express ADH. Finally, BBF-2 is a transcriptional activator in Drosophila tissue culture cells. Remarkably, BBF-2 also binds specifically to regulatory elements required for liver-specific expression of the human Adh and rat tyrosine aminotransferase genes. Thus, BBF-2 and the DNA sequence to which it binds may be important components of a tissue-specific regulatory mechanism conserved between Drosophila and man.

Activating Transcription Factors↗
PubMed1991

Dopamine D1 receptor stimulation of cyclic AMP accumulation in COS-1 cells.

Dopamine is shown to stimulate cAMP accumulation in COS-1 cells via endogenously expressed dopamine D1 receptors. A dissociation of dopamine and beta-adrenoceptor responses is demonstrated by the use of selective antagonists and different desensitization patterns following exposure of the cells to dopamine or the beta-adrenoceptor agonist, isoproterenol. The dopamine response in COS-1 cells exhibits a pharmacological profile similar to that found in dopamine D1 tissues such as rat striatum and fish retina. The presence of DARPP-32 (dopamine- and cAMP-regulated phosphoprotein, Mr 32,000) immunoreactivity in COS-1 cells is shown by Western blotting and is consistent with the endogenous expression of a dopamine D1 receptor in these cells. It is concluded that a dopamine D1 receptor is expressed in COS-1 cells and the implications of this are discussed.

2,3,4,5-Tetrahydro-7,8-dihydroxy-1-phenyl-1H-3-ben↗
PubMed1991

Effect of 12 hr temporal relation of serotonin and dopamine precursor drugs (5-HTP and L-DOPA) on photosexual responses of immature Japanese quail.

To study the interaction of photoperiod and circadian neurotransmitter activity, L-DOPA L-dihydroxyphenylalanine, dopamine precursor) was administered daily, 12 hr after 5-HTP (5-hydroxy tryptophan, serotonin precursor) in sexually immature Japanese quail, raised under short photoperiod (LD8:16) since hatching. The 12 hr treatment of 5-HTP and L-DOPA was given under continuous condition of light for 11 days. After treatment the quail were transferred to intermediate day length (LD 13.5:10.5). The cloacal gland size of drug treated group increased significantly in comparison to control. The quail were then transferred to short photoperiod (LD 8:16). The cloacal gland size of both the groups started decreasing gradually but the rate was significantly low in drug treated quail in comparison to control. The results indicate that the endogenous mechanism controlling seasonality may be reset by drugs that influence serotonergic and dopaminergic activity. The 12 hr relation between the two drugs is stimulatory for gonadal growth under intermediate day length and retards the rate of regression when transferred to short days.

5-Hydroxytryptophan↗
PubMed1990

Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay for immunoglobulins G to Mycoplasma hominis.

Sera (187) from women patients attending the STD, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Family Planning Clinics were screened for the presence of the IgG class of immunoglobulins against M. hominis, using the ELISA technique. Sonicates of locally isolated M. hominis serotype (CS1) and standard PG 21 strain were used as antigens. The test was standardized using penicillinase as an enzyme. The ELISA showed 90.48 per cent sensitivity and 84.8 per cent specificity, and was also rapid (as compared to culture) and reproducible.

Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay↗
PubMed1990

Mycoplasma hominis infections in female genital tract & use of immunofluorescence for antibody detection.

A total of 325 women with genital tract infection and 108 healthy controls were screened for the presence of mycoplasmas. Of these, 325 patients, mycoplasmas were recovered in 186. Thirty five isolates were M. hominis and 151 isolates of Ureaplasma urealyticum. The fluorescent-antibody technique (FAT) has been employed for the rapid identification of mycoplasma colonies growing on agar plates. The method was found to be rapid for detection of M. hominis growing on primary isolation plates. The antibody titre of patient's serum was also detected by FAT. Patients' sera were diluted four fold from 1:4 to 1:256 dilutions. In 7 patients fluorescence was seen with 1:16 serum dilution, in 18 with 1:64 dilution and in 3 with 1:256. The immunofluorescence test gave a sensitivity of 96.66 per cent, specificity of 95.0 per cent, with percentage of false negativity and false positivity being 3.45 and 5.0 per cent respectively.

Antibodies, Bacterial↗