Neuroendocrinol Lett
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Neuroendocrinol Lett · Jan 2009
Case ReportsSelf-harm in adolescence: a girl who swallowed needles.
Self-harm represents a serious and pathological behavior that occurs most notably during adolescent years and currently seems to be a problem that is on the increase. Self-harm is a self destructive behavior which most frequently takes the form of cutting and burning. ⋯ However, in cases of self-harm the risk of suicidal behavior cannot be ignored. This presentation is a case study of a girl who engaged in an unusual form of self-harm, by swallowing needles.
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Neuroendocrinol Lett · Dec 2008
Comparative StudyPreemptive levetiracetam decreases postoperative pain in rats.
Preemptive versus therapeutic effects of levetiracetam were investigated in a model of postoperative incisional pain in rats. ⋯ The present results suggest that levetiracetam might possess preemptive analgesic activity.
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The fetus reacts to nociceptive stimulations through different motor, autonomic, vegetative, hormonal, and metabolic changes relatively early in the gestation period. With respect to the fact that the modulatory system does not yet exist, the first reactions are purely reflexive and without connection to the type of stimulus. ⋯ Harmful (painful) stimuli, especially in fetuses have an adverse effect on the development of humans regardless of the processes in brain. Moreover, pain activates a number of subcortical mechanisms and a wide spectrum of stress responses influence the maturation of thalamocortical pathways and other cortical activation which are very important in pain processing.
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An explanation of consciousness is one of the major unsolved problems of modern science. The modern view of consciousness arose in the nineteenth century; the view presumed that mental activity correlates with distinct physical states. Is the problem of consciousness real? Crick and Koch made a tentative assumption that all different aspects of consciousness (pain, seeing, thinking, emotion, self-consciousness) are connected by a basic common mechanism. ⋯ The introduction of safe general anaesthesia represents one of the most important, although under-appreciated, advances in modern surgery. There is some difficulty in defining the term "consciousness" in relation to the anaesthetic state. The difference in brain activity between those under anaesthesia and those not under any such influence.
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Neuroendocrinol Lett · Nov 2008
Review Historical ArticlePsychosurgery: the past and present of ablation procedures.
Surgical intervention to the brain has a long history, but contemporary psychosurgery started in the mid-1930s. The first psychosurgical operation was a prefrontal leucotomy. ⋯ In recent years, the introduction of neuromodulation techniques seemed to produce a qualitative progress in modern psychosurgery. However, the controversies about these surgical interventions to the brain among psychiatrists still restrict the indications for psychosurgery to highly selected cases.