fink gr

Previous studies have shown that guinea-pigs handled daily from birth exhibit on exposure to the elevated plus maze similar behaviour to rats and increased cortical extracellular 5-HT determined by in vivo microdialysis. The present study investigates the effects of a non-selective 5-HT(1) agonist 5-carboxamidotryptamine (5-CT) and the 5-HT(1D) antagonist GR 127935 on behaviour and the release of cortical extracellular 5-HT both in a familiar environment and on exposure to the elevated plus maze. In the familiar environment of the home cage GR 127935 (0...

Oestradiol-17ß, in its positive feedback mode, as well as stimulating the release of luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone. (LHRH), also stimulates LHRH mRNA synthesis in medial preoptic neurons. Our aim was to determine whether the action of oestradiol might be mediated in part by inhibiting arcuate proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons which terminate on LHRH neurons. Female rats were ovariectomized at about 1000 h of dioestrus, given a subcutaneous injection of oil or oestradiol benzoate and killed at 1600 h the same day (presumptive dioestrus), presumptive pro-oestrus and oestrus and at 1000 h of presumptive pro-oestrus...

Deoxynivalenol (DON, vomitoxin) is a secondary metabolite and mycotoxin produced by Fusarium species that occurs with a high prevalence in cereals and grains intended for human and animal consumption. Pigs are considered to be the most sensitive animal species and exposure to DON results in reduced feed intake, reduced performance and cause alterations in the expression of markers of inflammation and cell cycle regulation. The objective of this study was to determine how DON possibly affects the oocyte developmental potential in vitro at concentrations which correspond to those observed in practice...

The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of estradiol-17beta, in its positive feedback mode for the release of prolactin and luteinizing hormone (LH), on gene expression of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) and dopamine receptors. Gene expression was determined by measurement of the levels of receptor mRNA by in situ hybridization in brain sections from adult female rats. The animals were ovariectomized under halothane anesthesia on the morning of diestrus, given a sc injection of either estradiol benzoate (EB) or oil (vehicle), and killed between 1600-1700 h of the next day, presumptive proestrus...

Recent experimental studies suggest that the mature GFP has an unconventional landscape composed of an early folding event with a typical funneled landscape, followed by a very slow search and rearrangement step into the locked, active chromophore-containing structure. As we have shown previously, the substantial difference in time scales is what generates the observed hysteresis in thermodynamic folding. The interconversion between locked and the soft folding structures at intermediate denaturant concentrations is so slow that it is not observed under the typical experimental observation time...

We have systematically enumerated graph representations of scaffold topologies for up to eight-ring molecules and four-valence atoms, thus providing coverage of the lower portion of the chemical space of small molecules (Pollock et al. J. Chem. Inf. Model., this issue). Here, we examine scaffold topology distributions for several databases: ChemNavigator and PubChem for commercially available chemicals, the Dictionary of Natural Products, a set of 2742 launched drugs, WOMBAT, a database of medicinal chemistry compounds, and two subsets of PubChem, "actives" and DSSTox comprising toxic substances...

In the absence of experimental assignments, the empirical charge/hydropathy correlation for the prediction of natively unfolded protein sequences (Uversky, V. N.; Gillespie, J. R.; Fink, A. L. Proteins: Struct., Funct., Genet. 2000, 41, 415-427) provides perhaps the most intuitive description of gross polypeptide conformation. The success of this correlation rests on an essential chain length independence of the boundary line between expanded and compact conformations, conversely stabilized by highly charged/weakly hydrophobic residues or weakly charged/highly hydrophobic residues, respectively...

It is pointed out that speckle noise can be reduced through the use of incoherent processing techniques. The theoretical limit for the SNR improvement when incoherent processing techniques are used is studied. The study leads to the concept of information grains. A simple technique for incoherent processing that is easy to implement and that allows a good physical understanding of the limitations of incoherent processing of pulse-echo signals is also studied. This technique does not require the division of the receiving aperture into many small coherent subelements, the scanning of the field as in spatial compounding, or the use of low-sensitivity CdS transducers...

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate a new alcohol-related risk score for research use. DESIGN: Using data from a previously reported trial of a screening and education system for older adults (Computerized Alcohol-Related Problems Survey), secondary analyses were conducted comparing the ability of two different measures of risk to detect post-intervention group differences: the original categorical outcome measure and a new, finely grained quantitative risk score based on the same research-based risk factors...

Anatomical studies in the macaque cortex and functional imaging studies in humans have demonstrated the existence of different cortical areas within the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Such functional segregation, however, does not correlate with presently available architectonic maps of the human brain. This is particularly true for the classical Brodmann map, which is still widely used as an anatomical reference in functional imaging studies. The aim of this cytoarchitectonic mapping study was to use previously defined algorithms to determine whether consistent regions and borders can be found within the cortex of the anterior IPS in a population of 10 post-mortem human brains...

Zearalenone (ZEA) is a mycoestrogen found in diverse food and feed materials, particularly in corn and small grains. Following ingestion, the parent zearalenone is converted predominantly into alpha-zearalenol (alpha-ZOL) and beta-zearalenol (beta-ZOL) by hepatic hydroxy steroid dehydrogenases (HSD). The present study demonstrated by standard RT-PCR the expression of 3alpha- and 3beta-HSD also in porcine cumulus oocyte complexes (COCs) and granulosa cells isolated form cumulus oocyte complexes. Analysis of the rate of bioconversion of zearalenone (ZEA) by the cultured granulose cells showed the extra-hepatic production of both hydroxy metabolites of ZEA with alpha-ZOL being the dominating metabolites as previously observed in incubations with liver microsomes...

The steroid compound cyproterone acetate was identified in a high-throughput screen for glucocorticoid receptor (GR) binding compounds. Cyproterone (Schering AG) is clinically used as an antiandrogen for inoperable prostate cancer, virilizing syndromes in women, and the inhibition of sex drive in men. Despite its progestin properties, cyproterone shares a similar pharmacological profile with the antiprogestin mifepristone (RU486; Roussel Uclaf SA). The binding affinities of cyproterone and RU486 for the GR and progesterone receptor were similar (K(d), 15-70 nM)...

In this paper, we are interested in detecting and imaging defects in samples of cylindrical geometry with large speckle noise due to the microstructure. The time reversal process is an appropriate technique for detecting flaws in such heterogeneous media as titanium billets. Furthermore, time reversal can be iterated to select the defect with the strongest reflectivity and to reduce the contribution of speckle noise. The DORT (the French acronym for Decomposition of the Time Reversal Operator) method derives from the mathematical analysis of the time reversal process...

We present experimental results on the reversibility of ultrasound in a multiple scattering medium. An ultrasonic pulsed wave is transmitted from a point source to a 128-element receiving array through 2D samples with various thickness. The samples consist of random collections of parallel steel rods immersed in water. The scattered waves are recorded, time reversed and sent back into the medium. The time-reversed waves are converging back to their source and the quality of spatial and temporal focusing on the source is related to the second-order moments of the scattered wave (correlation) in time and in space...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of providing free health care services to low-income adults. METHODS: We measured access to primary care services by enrollees with 4 chronic medical conditions in the General Relief Health Care Program (GRHCP), a program designed for adults receiving General Relief (GR). Implemented by the Los Angeles County Health Department in October 1995, the GRHCP is composed of private and public health care facilities. As adults registered for GR, they were asked to complete a baseline health survey, were enrolled in the GRHCP, and assigned a health care provider...

A set of ultrasonic experimental methods was developed to characterize a multiple scattering medium in terms of l(s), l*, l(a), respectively, the elastic, transport, and absorption mean free paths and D the diffusion constant. Actually, these quantities are the key parameters for a wave propagating in a disordered medium. Although they are widely used in optics, they are less common in acoustics. The underlying model is based on the expansion of the average solution for the heterogeneous Green's function equation...

The aim of the study was determination of the influence of heart infarction on the blood serum level of type I procollagen carboxyterminal peptide (PICP) and its covariability with concentration of hydroxyproline (HP) and hydroxylysine (HL) as well as activity of creatine kinase (CK) and aspartate transferase (AspAT). The investigations were carried out in 30 patients with a heart infarction with Q wave (group I) and in 20 subjects with a heart infarction without Q wave. The control group comprised 30 healthy subjects...

Excessive glucocorticoid levels increase the metabolic vulnerability of hippocampal neurons to a wide variety of insults. Since glucocorticoid hypersecretion occurs in Alzheimer's-type dementia it has been proposed that a primary reduction in hippocampal glucocorticoid receptor expression leads to failure of feedback, hypercortisolemia and hence further neuronal loss. However, we have recently found that lesions of the cholinergic innervation of the hippocampus--known to be severely affected in Alzheimer's disease--increase corticosteroid receptor gene expression in the rat hippocampus...

The actions of dopamine are mediated by specific, high-affinity, G protein-coupled receptors. Multiple subtypes of dopamine receptors have been characterized, including the D2 subtype (D2R). Cells within the dorsal root and petrosal ganglia of the rat express D2R messenger RNA (mRNA) consistent with D2R expression by primary sensory neurons. We hypothesized that neurons of the trigeminal ganglion express D2R mRNA. Total cellular RNA from rat trigeminal ganglia was analyzed on Northern blots under high stringency conditions...

Projections from the cerebellar and dorsal column nuclei to the midbrain and thalamus of the rhesus monkey were traced with anterograde autoradiographic techniques, or, in a few cases, with the Fink-Heimer method. The cerebellar nuclei give rise to a massive projection to the contralateral midbrain and thalamus via the ascending limb of the superior cerebellar peduncle. Cerebellar efferent fibers terminate contralaterally in both divisions of the red nucleus, and bilaterally in the interstitial nucleus of Cajal, the nucleus of Darkschewitsch, the oculomotor nucleus, and the central gray...