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PubMed1997

Role of bile salts in colchicine-induced hepatotoxicity. Implications for hepatocellular integrity and function.

Colchicine, a microtubule-disrupting agent, induces hepatotoxicity in experimental animals at the doses commonly employed to explore vesicular transport in the liver. The effect of manipulations of the bile salt pool on colchicine-induced hepatotoxicity was studied in rats to determine the role of bile salts in this phenomenon. Leakage of enzyme markers of liver-cell damage into plasma and bile induced by colchicine pre-treatment displayed a sigmoidal log dose-effect curve, the half-maximal effect being reached at 0.12 micromol per 100 g body wt. Lumicolchicine, instead, showed no harmful effect. Maximal increment of biliary LDH discharge induced by colchicine was reduced from 950 +/- 124% to 216 +/- 29% by bile diversion leading to a marked reduction in bile salt output, and this parameter was further decreased to 100 +/- 13% and 157 +/- 39% by subsequent repletion of the bile salt pool with the hydrophilic bile salts taurodehydrocholate and tauroursodeoxycholate, respectively. Conversely, infusion of taurocholate into non-bile salt depleted, colchicine-treated rats led to cholestasis and massive discharge of enzymes into both blood and bile. Our data show conclusively that colchicine-induced hepatotoxicity depends on the magnitude and composition of the bile salt flux traversing the liver. They also support the view that functional integrity of vesicular mechanisms presumably involved in membrane repair are indispensable to protect the hepatocytes from the damaging effect of bile salts during normal bile formation.

Alkaline Phosphatase↗
PubMed1997

Psychometric functions and temporal integration in electric hearing.

Temporal-integration functions and psychometric functions for detection were obtained in eight users of the Nucleus 22-electrode cochlear implant. Stimuli were 100-Hz, 200-microseconds/phase trains of biphasic pulses with durations ranging from 0.44 to 630.4 ms (1 to 64 pulses). Temporal-integration functions were measured for 21 electrodes. Slopes of these functions were considerably shallower than the 2.5 dB/doubling slopes typically observed in acoustic hearing. They varied widely across subjects and for different electrodes in a given subject, ranging from 0.06 to 1.94 dB/doubling of stimulus pulses, with a mean [standard deviation (s.d.)] value of 0.42 (0.38). Psychometric functions were measured for 11 of the same 21 electrodes. Slopes of psychometric functions also varied across subjects and electrodes, and were 2-20 times steeper than those reported by other investigators for normal-hearing and cochlear-impaired acoustic listeners. Slopes of individual psychometric functions for 1-, 2-, 4-, and 8-pulse stimuli ranged from 0.20 to 1.84 log d'/dB with a mean (s.d.) value of 0.77 (0.45). Psychometric-function slopes did not vary systematically with stimulus duration in most cases. A clear inverse relation between slopes of psychometric functions and slopes of temporal-integration functions was observed. This relation was reasonably well described by a hyperbolic function predicted by the multiple-looks model of temporal integration [Viemeister and Wakefield, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90, 858-865 (1991)]. Psychometric-function slopes tended to increase with absolute threshold and were inversely correlated with dynamic range, suggesting that observed differences in psychometric-function slopes across subjects and electrodes may reflect underlying differences in neural survival.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Singular and nonsingular three-body integrals for exponential wave functions.

Integrals which are individually singular, but which may be combined to yield convergent expressions, are needed for computations of relativistic effects and various properties of atomic and quasiatomic systems. As computations become more detailed and precise, more such integrals are required. This paper presents general formulas for the radial parts of the singular and nonsingular (regular) integrals that occur when three-body systems are described using wave functions that include exponentials in all three interparticle coordinates. Our results are compared with those found in the literature for some of the integrals, and are also shown to be consistent with previously reported results for Hylleraas functions (a limiting case in which one of the exponential parameters is set to zero).

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Reproducibility and feasibility of neurophysiological assessment of the sensory trigeminal system for future application to paroxysmal headaches.

As the distribution of pain in primary headaches suggests involvement of the trigeminal sensory pathways, trigeminal somatosensory evoked potentials (TSEP) and blink reflexes (BR) may provide important information about their functional integrity. Functional differences between symptomatic and non-symptomatic sides and between measurements during and outside attacks may be particularly informative. These tests should therefore be reproducible and should require a suitable number of patients for future studies in patients with primary, paroxysmal headaches. We performed TSEP and BR twice in 22 healthy volunteers, in order to calculate sample sizes based on reproducibility data. This is, to our knowledge, the first study investigating the reproducibility of TSEP and BR measurements. Latencies of TSEP and BR are appropriate for future studies, as their reproducibility allows practical sample sizes (less than 25 subjects). Duration, amplitude and area parameters of the BR responses were less appropriate for longitudinal studies.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Ego functions in epilepsy.

Two groups of epilepsy patients (28 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and 15 patients with primary generalized epilepsy) entered a study of personality traits related to epilepsy, based on a modification of Bellak's semistructured interview for assessment of ego strength. Two groups of subjects served as controls: 15 patients with a non-neurological but relapsing disorder, psoriasis, and 15 healthy volunteers. Compared with the group of healthy volunteers, a decreased adaptive level of ego functioning was found in the epilepsy groups, regardless of seizure types and EEG findings, and, to a lesser extent, compared with the psoriasis group. Areas of ego functioning most affected were "reality testing", "cognitive functioning", "integrative functioning" and "regulation and control of drives". Patients with more than one type of seizure were the most affected, as were patients who were younger than 15 years when the disease began. The number of anticonvulsants administered did not influence the results. No difference on adaptive level of ego functioning was found between the group with primary generalized epilepsy and the group with temporal lobe epilepsy. Similarly, the temporal lobe epilepsy group with predominantly right-sided and left-sided EEG changes, respectively, showed similar adaptive levels of ego functioning.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

A comparative study of rectal dose histograms in prostate brachytherapy: some analytic and numerical results.

A cumulative dose histogram is the graph of an integral function integrated over a domain VCR3 and is dubbed the dose-volume histogram (DVH), the dose-surface histogram (DSH) or the dose-wall histogram (DWH), depending on the dimension and structure of the region V. This paper presents a comparative study of the three rectal dose histograms for sixty patients as well as for a cylindrical model of the rectum; in particular, the DSH and DVH for the cylindrical model with one point source are computed analytically in terms of elliptic integrals. The difference among the three relative dose histograms, averaged over the sixty patients, is less than 5%, whereas that between DVH and DWH for various wall-thickness can be as large as 3-12 cm3 in the range 60-100 Gy. The paper also contains an error analysis using two simple models of the rectum, for which the true DSH and DWH can be computed via numerical integration, to evaluate the effect of digitization. The digitized computation agrees quite well with the pre-digitization numerical integration, within 1% or 0.2 cm3, because of the low dose-gradient effect near the rectum in prostate brachytherapy.

Body Burden↗
PubMed2002

RS1 element of Vibrio cholerae can propagate horizontally as a filamentous phage exploiting the morphogenesis genes of CTXphi.

In toxigenic Vibrio cholerae, cholera toxin is encoded by the CTX prophage, which consists of a core region carrying ctxAB genes and genes required for CTXPhi morphogenesis, and an RS2 region encoding regulation, replication, and integration functions. Integrated CTXPhi is often flanked by another genetic element known as RS1 which carries all open reading frames (ORFs) found in RS2 and an additional ORF designated rstC. We identified a single-stranded circularized form of the RS1 element, in addition to the CTXPhi genome, in nucleic acids extracted from phage preparations of 32 out of 83 (38.5%) RS1-positive toxigenic V. cholerae strains analyzed. Subsequently, the corresponding double-stranded replicative form (RF) of the RS1 element was isolated from a representative strain and marked with a kanamycin resistance (Km(r)) marker in an intergenic site to construct pRS1-Km. Restriction and PCR analysis of pRS1-Km and sequencing of a 300-bp region confirmed that this RF DNA was the excised RS1 element which formed a novel junction between ig1 and rstC. Introduction of pRS1-Km into a V. cholerae O1 classical biotype strain, O395, led to the production of extracellular Km(r) transducing particles, which carried a single-stranded form of pRS1-Km, thus resembling the genome of a filamentous phage (RS1-KmPhi). Analysis of V. cholerae strains for susceptibility to RS1-KmPhi showed that classical biotype strains were more susceptible to the phage compared to El Tor and O139 strains. Nontoxigenic (CTX(-)) O1 and O139 strains which carried genes encoding the CTXPhi receptor toxin-coregulated pilus (TCP) were also more susceptible (>1,000-fold) to the phage compared to toxigenic El Tor or O139 strains. Like CTXPhi, the RS1Phi genome also integrated into the host chromosomes by using the attRS sequence. However, only transductants of RS1-KmPhi which also harbored the CTXPhi genome produced a detectable level of extracellular RS1-KmPhi. This suggested that the core genes of CTXPhi are also required for the morphogenesis of RS1Phi. The results of this study showed for the first time that RS1 element, which encodes a site-specific recombination system in V. cholerae, can propagate horizontally as a filamentous phage, exploiting the morphogenesis genes of CTXPhi.

Bacterial Proteins↗
PubMed2001

Functional testing: Approaches and injury management integration.

Functional Capacity Evaluations (FCEs) have become the standard for identifying an individual's physical abilities and/or limitations following injury or illness. While philosophies and approaches differ, the focus of most FCE systems is to identify the individual's maximum capabilities. This article will discuss the usefulness of the FCE information and how FCEs are impacted by multiple factors including APTA guidelines, machine based testing, therapist expertise, medical legal credibility and court testimony, IMEs and FCE, and return to work/return to function.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Integration of new neurons into functional neural networks.

Although it is established that new granule cells can be born and can survive in the adult mammalian hippocampus, there remains some question concerning the functional integration of these neurons into behaviorally relevant neural networks. By using high-resolution confocal microscopy, we have applied a new strategy to address the question of functional integration of newborn neurons into networks that mediate spatial information processing and memory formation. Exploration-induced expression of the immediate-early gene Arc in hippocampal cells has been linked to cellular activity observed in electrophysiological recordings under the same behavioral conditions. We investigated whether mature (5-month-old), newborn granule cells express Arc in response to a discrete spatial experience by detecting the expression of Arc in combination with NeuN (neuron-specific nuclear protein)-positive and bromodeoxyuridine-positive cells. We found that mature new granule cells do indeed express Arc in response to an exploration experience, supporting the idea that these cells are well integrated into hippocampal circuits. The proportion of mature newborn neurons that expressed Arc in response to exploration, however, was significantly higher (approximately 2.8%) than the proportion of cells that expressed Arc in the already existing population of granule cells (approximately 1.6%; p < 0.01). This finding extends previous data suggesting that the cellular physiology of newborn granule neurons differs from that of the existing population by indicating that these properties are retained in mature adult-generated neurons. Thus, these data have interesting implications for network models of spatial information processing and the role of hippocampal circuits in memory, indicating that mature new neurons are selectively recruited into hippocampal cell assemblies in higher proportions than older cells.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2005

[Doppler effect on width of characteristic line in plasma induced by pulsed laser ablating Al].

Aluminum (Al) plasma was induced with a pulsed Nd: YAG laser beam ablating Al target in Ar. Time-resolved information of the plasma radiation was taken with time-resolved technique, and the spectra of the radiation were recorded with an optical multi-path analyzer (OMA III ), whereupon, time-resolved spectra of the plasma radiation induced by pulsed laser were acquired. Based on the experiment data, Al resonant double lines, Al I 396.15 nm, Al I 394.40 nm, were respectively fitted with Lorentz, Gauss and their linear integrated function (abbr. Integrated function), whereupon, Lorentz and Gauss elements were separated from the experiment data profile curve. By contrasting Lorentz with Gauss curve separated, it was found that the experiment curve mainly consisted of Lorentz element, a with little Gauss. By contrasting Lorentz with Integrated fitting curve for experiment data, a visual picture of the characteristic lines broadened by Doppler effect was exhibited. According to the visual picture, the increase of full half-high width of the characteristic line broadened by Doppler effect was estimated. It was about 2 x 10(-)3 -8 x 10(-3) nm, approximating the theoretical value 6.7 x 10(-)3 nm. As a result, Doppler effect on the width of characteristic lines in the plasma could be reasonably explained by curve fitting analysis and theoretical calculation.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1996

[Rest-activity cycle in man].

An actigraph (ZAK company) is a small device that can be worn on the wrist like a watch. We carried out a study to compare sleep efficiency and total sleep time as determined by actigraphy and polysomnography. The number of body movements per minute is a density function. The integrated function shows a virtually constant gradient in the wake state and a different constant gradient during sleep. The body movement density function per hour provides a useful threshold for correctly differentiating between wake and sleep states. This threshold is defined as the minimum between the two maxima of the bimodal logarithmic body movement density distribution. In the second step we computed a rank scale of the different gradients and approximated the integrated function for every scale element using linear graphs. The points of intersection of the straight lines define the time points for sleep onset and end of sleep. Sleep efficiency is given by SE = 100 (TST-sleep interruption time)/TST. Total sleep time is the interval between sleep onset and end of sleep. Actigraphy is a suitable semi-objective method for estimating sleep efficiency and total sleep time, and--for cost reasons--should be used for screening before approaching a sleep laboratory. Actigraphy carried out over several days shows only small differences in comparison with polysomnography. The estimation of parameters is more accurate the longer the patient wears the actigraph, and a minimum of five days is recommended. Spectral analysis of the intregrated body movement density provides important information for detecting subclinical sleep disorders.

Circadian Rhythm↗
PubMed2004

Anal sphincter function and integrity after primary repair of third-degree tear: uncontrolled prospective analysis.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the present paper was to determine the anatomical integrity and functional effect of a tear to the anal sphincter in women after vaginal delivery. METHODS: A prospective review of third- and fourth-degree vaginal tears over a 3 year period at Lyell McEwin and Queen Elizabeth Hospitals, Adelaide. Obstetric details were obtained from the records. All were counselled by a continence advisor and offered consultation with a colorectal surgeon. The integrity of the anal sphincter was assessed by endoanal ultrasound. RESULTS: During the study period there were 6875 vaginal deliveries. There were 89 women (1.3%) who had a third- or fourth-degree tear. Fifty-one (57%) agreed to participate. Primiparity (67%), episiotomy (49%), forceps delivery (29%) and instrumental delivery were common in women sustaining a tear. Symptoms of anal incontinence (mild) or faecal urgency were described in 23 women (45%). Except for three women with an anovaginal fistula none required surgery for the management of faecal incontinence. A sphincter defect was seen in 27 women (53%) on endoanal ultrasound. The presence or absence of a sphincter defect was not significantly associated with symptoms but a trend was suggested (chi2=3.21; P=0.07). CONCLUSIONS: Third-degree tear after vaginal delivery was a significant intrapartum event, yet associated only with minimal symptoms (excluding patients with anovaginal fistula) even in the presence of a sphincter defect on anal ultrasound.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

'Water-test': a simple method to assess sperm-membrane integrity.

The functional integrity of the membrane of sperm from semen samples collected from 10 fertile men (Group A) and from 50 infertile men (Group B) was assessed by studying the swelling reaction of sperm when suspended in a medium of distilled water ('Water-test'). The results were correlated with routine semen-analysis and with the results of Eosin-Y staining. The mean values for the 'Water-test' were significantly different (P less than 0.01) between Groups A and B (84.8 +/- 3.5 versus 70.9 +/- 13.3, respectively). No significant correlations were observed in either Group A or B, between values for the 'Water-test' and values for the sperm count, the percentage of sperm with normal morphology and the percentage of motile sperm. There was a good correlation in both Group A (r = 0.86, P less than 0.01) and Group B (r = 0.92, P less than 0.01) between values for the 'Water-test' and those for the Eosin-Y test. These results indicate that the 'Water-test' is a simple and reliable test for evaluating sperm membrane integrity.

Cell Membrane↗
PubMed2000

Structural and functional brain integrity of fetal alcohol syndrome in nonretarded cases.

PURPOSE: To determine the structural and functional integrity of the brain in a sample of nonretarded individuals diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome. SUBJECTS: The sample consisted of nineteen individuals who met the diagnostic criteria for fetal alcohol syndrome. METHODS: Intellectual function was assessed using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised. Structural integrity of the brain was assessed using magnetic resonance imaging whereas functional integrity was assessed using positron emission tomography and (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose. RESULTS: The mean Full Scale IQ was 80. 2 (range: 66-92). Only 1 magnetic resonance imaging was found to be abnormal. This abnormality was found for the subject with the lowest IQ. Decreases in relative regional cerebral metabolic rates were found in 5 brain regions comprising the thalamus and basal ganglia. CONCLUSION: These results when coupled with previous findings suggest a continuum of neuropathology in fetal alcohol syndrome. For cases with relatively mild intellectual deficits, the cause of the deficit is at a micro-level rather than a macro-level.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

The influence of hospital integration on hospital financial performance.

A clinical and functional integration strategy has a positive influence on increasing hospital revenue, and a solely functional integration strategy has a negative influence on increasing hospital expenses. Functional integration and clinical/functional integration strategies have a positive influence on hospital profit and the overall operations of the hospital. The mechanism of influence differs, however, based on the strategy used. Clinical/functional strategy has an impact on increasing hospital revenue, while functional integration strategy has an impact on reducing hospital expenses. Overall, the study shows that a functional integration strategy is more profitable than a clinical/functional integration strategy.

Delivery of Health Care, Integrated↗
PubMed2005

Functional connectivity: integrating behavioral, diffusion tensor imaging, and functional magnetic resonance imaging data sets.

In the present study, we combined 2 types of magnetic resonance technology to explore individual differences on a task that required the recognition of objects presented from unusual viewpoints. This task was chosen based on previous work that has established the necessity of information transfer from the right parietal cortex to the left inferior cortex for its successful completion. We used reaction times (RTs) to localize regions of cortical activity in the superior parietal and inferior frontal regions (blood oxygen level-dependent [BOLD] response) that were more active with longer response times. These regions were then sampled, and their signal change used to predict individual differences in structural integrity of white matter in the corpus callosum (using diffusion tensor imaging). Results show that shorter RTs (and associated increases in BOLD response) are associated with increased organization in the splenium of the corpus callosum, whereas longer RTs are associated with increased organization in the genu.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Evolution of morphological integration. I. Functional units channel stress-induced variation in shrew mandibles.

Stress-induced deviations from normal development are often assumed to be random, yet their accumulation and expression can be influenced by patterns of morphological integration within an organism. We studied within-individual developmental variation (fluctuating asymmetry) in the mandible of four shrew species raised under normal and extreme environments. Patterns of among-individual variation and fluctuating asymmetry were strongly concordant in traits that were involved in the attachment of the same muscles (i.e., functionally integrated traits), and fluctuating asymmetry was closely integrated among these traits, implying direct developmental interactions among traits involved in the same function. Stress-induced variation was largely confined to the directions delimited by functionally integrated groups of traits in the pattern that was concordant with species divergence--species differed most in the same traits that were most sensitive to stress within each species. These results reveal a strong effect of functional complexes on directing and incorporating stress-induced variation during development and might explain the historical persistence of sets of traits involved in the same function in shrew jaws despite their high sensitivity to environmental variation.

Animals↗