The Reaction of the Blood to the Ingestion of Protein in the Psychoses

1924 ◽  
Vol 70 (291) ◽  
pp. 554-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. R. Martin

The symptoms dealt with in psychological medicine are largely those of faulty adaptation to environment. Certification has as its basis abnormal reaction to stimuli requiring the more complicated responses of the organism. For many years pathological investigation of the psychoses was chiefly confined to post-mortem examination of the brain, but the activity of the brain is dependent on the functioning of the rest of the body, and of recent years research has been conducted on a wider basis.

1928 ◽  
Vol 74 (307) ◽  
pp. 647-652
Author(s):  
B. A. McSwiney

An invitation to address a gathering of medical psychologists is, to the physiologist, a great temptation, and on such occasions he is apt to leap into the whirlpools of psychology in an attempt to explain the workings of the brain by hypotheses based, alas, on insufficient evidence. The paucity of information on cerebral function in physiological text-books has an explanation. Our lack of knowledge is due to the absence of available methods for investigating the normal activity of the higher nerve centres. Explanations are too often advanced without a due appreciation of the function of the lower nervous system in bringing about the exquisite co-ordination and relationship that exists between the different areas and organs of the body. This function is well exemplified in the reciprocal innervation of which we have evidence with every normal voluntary contraction. The difficulties of investigation have their root in the complexity of the reactions of an animal endowed with a well-developed cerebral cortex, compared with those seen in the lower types of life, or in the spinal animal. It must be clear that if our knowledge of the physiological factors controlling mental activity is to advance, the physiologist must continue to make measurements, accurate, quantitative measurements, if possible, on structures which he can control, and on preparations in which he is able to isolate the disturbing factors, and from these results and conclusions to construct by slow degrees a knowledge and understanding of the nervous system.


Author(s):  
Michał Kaliszan ◽  
Wojciech Dalewski ◽  
Joanna Dawidowska ◽  
Tomasz Gos ◽  
Zbigniew Jankowski

Abstract The paper presents a case of a forensic autopsy of a young woman who was murdered and her dismembered body was hidden in soil and water. In the skull of the deceased, in the temporal and occipital regions, the autopsy revealed 3 round, almost identical holes, which looked like small caliber gunshot wounds. Doubts about the cause of these injuries were raised by the fact that despite the decomposition of the body, the continuity of the dura at the site of these holes remained undamaged and the absence of any trace of a bullet’s wound track in the brain, the absence of a foreign body in the cranial cavity, as well as the absence of wounds on the opposite side of the skull that could be exit wounds. A thorough analysis of the investigation and the activities carried out during the search for the missing body allowed to adopt and finally confirm the hypothesis that the above mentioned skull damage occurred during the search for the cut-off head of the deceased in shallow water by means of special tapered conical steel probes used by the rescue/search teams. Due to the structure of such a spike, i.e., a sharp end and then a wide cone, only a superficial puncture of the steel probe tip three times into the skull had taken place, which caused regular, rounded bone damage without damaging the dura and brain. The presented case indicates that sometimes post-mortem artifacts may suggest a completely different origin of wounds, which emphasizes the need for a comprehensive analysis of all possible causes of their occurrence, particularly data concerning the handling of the corpse before it is delivered to the morgue, so as not to make a diagnostic error during autopsy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-576
Author(s):  
Carlo Tappero ◽  
Michael J. Thali ◽  
Wolf Schweitzer

AbstractThis paper aims to demonstrate that post-mortem CT (PMCT) can locate intracranial hemorrhages, even in decomposed cases. This is of relevance in that post-mortem decomposition is particularly damaging to the brain tissue’s consistency, resulting in great difficulties to reliably diagnose and locate intracranial hemorrhages. We searched our case database of the last 11 years to find cases with decomposition of the body, where PMCT and an autopsy had been performed. We identified eleven cases according to these criteria. Postmortem interval ranged from 2 days to 2 weeks, and post-mortem radiological alteration index (RAI) was at or above 49. Eight out of eleven cases showed an intraparenchymal hemorrhage whereas the hemorrhage was extra-axial in the remaining three cases. Autopsy validated the presence of intracranial hemorrhage in all eleven cases, but location could not be confirmed due to liquid state of the brain. PMCT identified and localized intracranial hemorrhages in decomposed bodies, and in all of these cases, autopsy validated their presence. The actual cause of the hemorrhage (e.g. tumor, metastasis, vascular malformation, hypertensive hemorrhage) remained obscure. From this case series, it can be concluded that PMCT may add relevant information pertaining to localization of intracranial hemorrhages in decomposed bodies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-214
Author(s):  
Paul Schlett ◽  
Soheil Mottaghi ◽  
Oliver Buchholz ◽  
Ulrich G. Hofmann

AbstractGlioblastoma, an aggressive malign tumor of the brain, is one of the most shattering diagnoses due to its very poor prognosis and limited treatment options. These options mainly consist of surgical or radiation therapeutic removal of as much tumor mass as possible, which unfortunately is almost always incomplete. Even worse, chemotherapy is of little use, as the special setup of the brain′s vessels severely limits the transit into the parenchyma of elsewhere efficient cytostatica. This Blood-Brain-Barrier (BBB) is for quite some time the target of sophisticated and nano-particle based transport mechanisms, however it is reported, that a boost of permeability for most of the brain can be achieved based on moderate temperature increase. One means to locally and reversibly increase the brain′s temperature and thus potentially opening the BBB may be achieved by illuminating the skull with infrared laser light, thus causing punctual heating and heat diffusion into the cortex. In extension of the common laser light guiding by glass fibres, we use a micro-positioned simple optics to focus a 1470 nm laser beam of approximately 500 µm in diameter on the skull. The apparent opening of the BBB is evidenced by the localized spread of Evans Blue injected into the tail vein of said rat, binding to Albumin (64,6 kDa) in the body. This marker molecule is usually blocked from passing through the intact BBB, but under IR illumination for half a minute, it appeared in post mortem visible blobs. Temperature profiles and potential tissue damage are now under investigation by high speed thermal camera and post mortem histology.


1989 ◽  
Vol 28 (03) ◽  
pp. 88-91
Author(s):  
J. Schröder ◽  
H. Henningsen ◽  
H. Sauer ◽  
P. Georgi ◽  
K.-R. Wilhelm

18 psychopharmacologically treated patients (7 schizophrenics, 5 schizoaffectives, 6 depressives) were studied using 99mTc-HMPAO-SPECT of the brain. The regional cerebral blood flow was measured in three transversal sections (infra-/supraventricular, ventricular) within 6 regions of interest (ROI) respectively (one frontal, one parietal and one occipital in each hemisphere). Corresponding ROIs of the same section in each hemisphere were compared. In the schizophrenics there was a significantly reduced perfusion in the left frontal region of the infraventricular and ventricular section (p < 0.02) compared with the data of the depressives. The schizoaffectives took an intermediate place. Since the patients were treated with psychopharmaca, the result must be interpreted cautiously. However, our findings seem to be in accordance with post-mortem-, CT- and PET-studies presented in the literature. Our results suggest that 99mTc-HMPAO-SPECT may be helpful in finding cerebral abnormalities in endogenous psychoses.


Author(s):  
M.P. Sutunkova ◽  
B.A. Katsnelson ◽  
L.I. Privalova ◽  
S.N. Solovjeva ◽  
V.B. Gurvich ◽  
...  

We conducted a comparative assessment of the nickel oxide nanoparticles toxicity (NiO) of two sizes (11 and 25 nm) according to a number of indicators of the body state after repeated intraperitoneal injections of these particles suspensions. At equal mass doses, NiO nanoparticles have been found to cause various manifestations of systemic subchronic toxicity with a particularly pronounced effect on liver, kidney function, the body’s antioxidant system, lipid metabolism, white and red blood, redox metabolism, spleen damage, and some disorders of nervous activity allegedly related to the possibility of nickel penetration into the brain from the blood. The relationship between the diameter and toxicity of particles is ambiguous, which may be due to differences in toxicokinetics, which is controlled by both physiological mechanisms and direct penetration of nanoparticles through biological barriers and, finally, unequal solubility.


Parasitology ◽  
1941 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwendolen Rees

1. The structure of the proboscides of the larva of Dibothriorhynchus grossum (Rud.) is described. Each proboscis is provided with four sets of extrinsic muscles, and there is an anterior dorso-ventral muscle mass connected to all four proboscides.2. The musculature of the body and scolex is described.3. The nervous system consists of a brain, two lateral nerve cords, two outer and inner anterior nerves on each side, twenty-five pairs of bothridial nerves to each bothridium, four longitudinal bothridial nerves connecting these latter before their entry into the bothridia, four proboscis nerves arising from the brain, and a series of lateral nerves supplying the lateral regions of the body.4. The so-called ganglia contain no nerve cells, these are present only in the posterior median commissure which is therefore the nerve centre.


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 226
Author(s):  
Silvio De Luca ◽  
Emanuela Zanardi ◽  
Giovanni Loris Alborali ◽  
Adriana Ianieri ◽  
Sergio Ghidini

The assessment of swine welfare requires feasible, reliable, and reasonable indicators. On-farm evaluation of pig welfare can provide valuable information to veterinarians and farmers. However, such protocols can result expensive and time-consuming. With this regard, an interest in the appraisal of swine welfare at abattoir has grown over the recent years. In particular, the use of certain lesions collected directly from slaughtered animals to determine the welfare status of pigs has been evaluated by several authors. In the present review, the different methods developed to score lesions collected directly from the body and the viscera of animals slaughtered in European abattoirs (“abattoir-based measures”) are presented. The text specifically focuses on the methods currently available in the literature for the scoring of body, pluck and gastric lesions during post-mortem activities. Moreover, the strengths and weaknesses of abattoir-based measures schemes are discussed. To conclude, the future perspectives of the assessment of pig welfare at the slaughterhouse are described, appealing for a benchmarking system that can be systematically used by veterinarians and other professional figures involved in the process.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zakaria Djebbara ◽  
Lars Brorson Fich ◽  
Klaus Gramann

AbstractAction is a medium of collecting sensory information about the environment, which in turn is shaped by architectural affordances. Affordances characterize the fit between the physical structure of the body and capacities for movement and interaction with the environment, thus relying on sensorimotor processes associated with exploring the surroundings. Central to sensorimotor brain dynamics, the attentional mechanisms directing the gating function of sensory signals share neuronal resources with motor-related processes necessary to inferring the external causes of sensory signals. Such a predictive coding approach suggests that sensorimotor dynamics are sensitive to architectural affordances that support or suppress specific kinds of actions for an individual. However, how architectural affordances relate to the attentional mechanisms underlying the gating function for sensory signals remains unknown. Here we demonstrate that event-related desynchronization of alpha-band oscillations in parieto-occipital and medio-temporal regions covary with the architectural affordances. Source-level time–frequency analysis of data recorded in a motor-priming Mobile Brain/Body Imaging experiment revealed strong event-related desynchronization of the alpha band to originate from the posterior cingulate complex, the parahippocampal region as well as the occipital cortex. Our results firstly contribute to the understanding of how the brain resolves architectural affordances relevant to behaviour. Second, our results indicate that the alpha-band originating from the occipital cortex and parahippocampal region covaries with the architectural affordances before participants interact with the environment, whereas during the interaction, the posterior cingulate cortex and motor areas dynamically reflect the affordable behaviour. We conclude that the sensorimotor dynamics reflect behaviour-relevant features in the designed environment.


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