Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with extensive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons originating in the substantia nigra pars compacta, but neuronal loss is also found in the ventral tegmental area (VTA). The VTA projects to areas involved in cognitive and emotional processes, including hippocampus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex, and has thus been proposed to play a role

Abstract in UndeterminedSmoothing in state-space models amounts to computing the conditional distribution of the latent state trajectory, given observations, or expectations of functionals of the state trajectory with respect to this distribution. In recent years there has been an increased interest in Monte Carlo-based methods, often involving particle filters, for approximate smoothing in nonlin

To study differences in body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR), waist circumference (WC), sagittal abdominal diameter (SAD), waist-hip-height ratio (WHHR) and percent body fat in immigrants and Swedish-born men and women in two large population-based samples.

Due to the positive effects demonstrated in randomized clinical trials on cardiovascular surrogate markers and bone metabolism, a positive effect of growth hormone (GH) treatment on clinically relevant end-points seems feasible. In this review, we discuss the long-term efficacy and safety of GH treatment in adult patients with growth hormone deficiency (GHD) with emphasis on morbidity: fatal and n

AimTo reconstruct spatial and temporal patterns of European fire activity during the Holocene and to explore their potential drivers, by relating biomass burning to simulated biotic and abiotic parameters. LocationEurope. MethodsHolocene fire activity was investigated based on 156 sedimentary charcoal records from lakes and peat bogs across Europe. Charcoal data covering the last 9000 years were s

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: : According to cognitive models, negatively biased processing of the publicly observable self is an important aspect of social phobia; if this is true, effective methods for producing corrective feedback concerning the public self should be strived for. Video feedback is proven effective, but since one's voice represents another aspect of the self, audio feedback should

Context: Regulation of fat mass appears to be associated with immune functions. Studies of knockout mice show that endogenous interleukin (IL)-6 can suppress mature-onset obesity. Objective: To systematically investigate associations of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) near the IL-6 (IL6) and IL-6 receptor (IL6R) genes with body fat mass, in support for our hypothesis that variants of these

Recent reports on adult fracture epidemiology have focused mainly on the hip in elderly where increasing rates lately have changed to a decline. New reports of the preponderance of non-hip fractures in expenditure call for a wider scope. We therefore examined current overall and site-specific fracture epidemiology in adults. We ascertained all fractures diagnosed in in- and out-patient care in all

We examined how radiation dose levels in digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) differ from those used in 2-view full-field digital mammography (FFDM). Acquisition parameter settings and information on the average absorbed dose to the glandular tissues within the breasts were reviewed based on clinical studies that evaluated DBT and FFDM. Dose ratios (DDBT/DFFDM) were derived from imaging protocols, w

BACKGROUND: Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes involved in DNA repair are good candidates to be tested as phenotypic modifiers for carriers of mutations in the high-risk susceptibility genes BRCA1 and BRCA2. The base excision repair (BER) pathway could be particularly interesting given the relation of synthetic lethality that exists between one of the components of the pathway, PARP1,

Spinal muscle atrophy (SMA) is autosomal recessive and one of the most common inherited lethal diseases in childhood. The spectrum of symptoms of SMA is continuous and varies from neonatal death to progressive symmetrical muscle weakness first appearing in adulthood. The disease is produced by degeneration of spinal motor neurons and can be described in three or more categories: SMA I with onset o

A heterogeneous distribution of radionuclides emitting low-energy electrons in the testicles may result in a significant difference between an absorbed dose to the radiosensitive spermatogonia and the mean absorbed dose to the whole testis. This study focused on absorbed dose distribution in patients at a finer scale than normally available in clinical dosimetry, which was accomplished by combinin

To distinguish between natural and anthropogenic forcing, the supposedly ongoing global warming needs to be put in a longer, geological perspective. When the last ca. 20 000 yr of climate development is reviewed, including the climatically dramatic period when the Last Ice Age ended, the Last Termination, it appears that the last centuries of globally rising temperatures should be regarded as an a

The role of nurses and technicians in the treatment of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) by primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) is vital for the success of the multidisciplinary Heart Team. Several editorials have emphasised the importance of a holistic treatment which links each step of care to the next, a chain that is essential for quality and efficacy in the management o

The aim of this study is to identify loci associated with circulating levels of Interleukin 8 (IL8). We investigated the associations of 121,445 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from the Illumina 200K CardioMetabochip with IL8 levels in 1077 controls from the Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Program (SHEEP) study, using linear regression under an additive model of inheritance. Five SNPs (rs12075

Neurodegenerative diseases have been linked to inflammation, but whether altered immunomodulation plays a causative role in neurodegeneration is not clear. We show that lack of cytokine interferon-β (IFN-β) signaling causes spontaneous neurodegeneration in the absence of neurodegenerative disease-causing mutant proteins. Mice lacking Ifnb function exhibited motor and cognitive learning impairments

We studied damage accrual and factors determining development and progression of damage in an international cohort of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients.

Many nematophagous fungi use morphological structures called traps to capture nematodes by adhesion or mechanically. To better understand the cellular functions of adhesive traps, the trap cell proteome of the fungus Monacrosporium haptotylum was characterized. The trap of M. haptotylum consists of a unicellular structure called knob that develops at the apex of a hyphae. Proteins extracted from k

Gastric cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and the incidence of esophageal adenocarcinoma is rising. While some progress has been made in treatment strategies, overall survival remains very poor for patients with adenocarcinoma in the upper gastrointestinal tract. Special AT-rich sequence binding protein 1 (SATB1) is a global genome organizer that has been de