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Biomedical subjects

C Mader

Publications and source records attributed to C Mader.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Family factors related to alexithymia characteristics.

There is little empirical research on the familial and parental correlates of alexithymia. A two-part study explored how the affective and cognitive characteristics of alexithymia are related to family dysfunction and maternal alexithymia. In Part I, 127 young adults were evaluated for alexithymia with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20), for impaired imagination with the Scored Archetypal Test with Nine Elements, and for family dysfunction with the McMaster Family Assessment Device. In Part II, 80 of their mothers completed the TAS-20 about themselves, and maternal alexithymia characteristics were correlated with those of their offspring. In Part I, general family pathology was associated with alexithymia. In particular, difficulty identifying feelings was related to dysfunctional family affective involvement, externally oriented thinking was related to deficient family behavior control, and impaired imagination was related to inadequate family problem solving; these relationships were independent of general family pathology and subjects' positive and negative affect. In Part II, maternal alexithymia characteristics were correlated significantly with the offsprings', controlling for both respondents' positive and negative affect. These findings implicate disturbed family functioning and maternal alexithymia in the development of alexithymia characteristics in children.

Adolescent↗

Microcalorimetric study on the phase behaviour of S-layer coated liposomes.

Isolated S-layer subunits from Bacillus coagulans E38-66/v1 were recrystallized on positively charged, unilamellar liposomes composed of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine, cholesterol and hexadecylamine. The thermotropic phase behaviour of S-layer coated and uncoated liposomes was characterized by differential scanning microcalorimetry indicating for both preparations a broad transition around 50 degrees C due to the chain-melting from a liquid-ordered gel-like to a liquid-ordered fluid phase as described for phosphatidylcholine/cholesterol mixtures. The slightly higher phase transition temperature for the S-layer coated liposomes were explained by increased intermolecular order. Cross-linking the S-layer subunits covalently to hexadecylamine with glutaraldehyde induced phase separation within the liposomes. Based on deconvolution of the normalized excess heat capacity functions it was proposed that the different lipid domains arise from phospholipids representing different degrees of mobility.

Bacillus↗