Plos One
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In Philadelphia, 66% of new HIV infections are among African Americans and 2% of African Americans are living with HIV. The city of Philadelphia has among the largest numbers of faith institutions of any city in the country. Although faith-based institutions play an important role in the African American community, their response to the AIDS epidemic has historically been lacking. ⋯ Leaders suggested the faith community should: promote HIV testing, including during or after worship services and in clinical settings; integrate HIV/AIDS topics into health messaging and sermons; couch HIV/AIDS in social justice, human rights and public health language rather than in sexual risk behavior terms; embrace diverse approaches to HIV prevention in their houses of worship; conduct community outreach and host educational sessions for youth; and collaborate on a citywide, interfaith HIV testing and prevention campaign to combat stigma and raise awareness about the African American epidemic. Many African American faith-based leaders are poised to address racial disparities in HIV infection. HIV prevention campaigns should integrate leaders' recommendations for tailoring HIV prevention for a faith-based audience.
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Clinical Trial
Primary sensory and motor cortex excitability are co-modulated in response to peripheral electrical nerve stimulation.
Peripheral electrical stimulation (PES) is a common clinical technique known to induce changes in corticomotor excitability; PES applied to induce a tetanic motor contraction increases, and PES at sub-motor threshold (sensory) intensities decreases, corticomotor excitability. Understanding of the mechanisms underlying these opposite changes in corticomotor excitability remains elusive. Modulation of primary sensory cortex (S1) excitability could underlie altered corticomotor excitability with PES. ⋯ Sensory PES also increased the sub-cortical P(14)-N(20) SEP component. These findings provide evidence that PES results in co-modulation of S1 and M1 excitability, possibly due to cortico-cortical projections between S1 and M1. This mechanism may underpin changes in corticomotor excitability in response to afferent input generated by PES.
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Neuroglobin (Ngb), a neuron-specific oxygen-binding globin with an unknown function, has been proposed to play a key role in neuronal survival. We have previously shown Ngb to be highly expressed in the rat suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). The present study addresses the effect of Ngb deficiency on circadian behavior. ⋯ Ngb expressing neurons which co-stored Gastrin Releasing Peptide (GRP) and were innervated from the eye and the geniculo-hypothalamic tract expressed FOS after light stimulation. No PER1 expression was observed in Ngb-positive neurons. The present study demonstrates for the first time that the genetic elimination of Ngb does not affect core clock function but evokes an increased behavioural response to light concomitant with increased Per1 gene expression in the SCN at early night.
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Saliva is a useful biofluid for the early detection of disease, but how distal tumors communicate with the oral cavity and create disease-specific salivary biomarkers remains unclear. Using an in vitro breast cancer model, we demonstrated that breast cancer-derived exosome-like microvesicles are capable of interacting with salivary gland cells, altering the composition of their secreted exosome-like microvesicles. ⋯ We also showed that the interaction with breast cancer-derived exosome-like microvesicles communicated and activated the transcriptional machinery of the salivary gland cells. Thus, the interaction altered the composition of the salivary gland cell-derived exosome-like microvesicles on both the transcriptomically and proteomically.
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Multicenter Study
Clinical patterns and treatment outcome in patients with melancholic, atypical and non-melancholic depressions.
To assess sociodemographic, clinical and treatment factors as well as depression outcome in a large representative clinical sample of psychiatric depressive outpatients and to determine if melancholic and atypical depression can be differentiated from residual non-melancholic depressive conditions. ⋯ Our study supports a different clinical pattern and treatment outcome for melancholic and atypical depression subtypes.