Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

J Mitchell

Publications and source records attributed to J Mitchell.

At least 469 records · Page 26Linked to original sources
PubMed1966

The presence of ergothioneine in the central nervous system and its probable identity with the cerebellar factor.

1. Ergothioneine has been detected and quantitatively estimated in the brains of mice, rats, guinea-pigs, rabbits, cats and sheep. It is present in the cerebellum in amounts ranging from about 3.0 mug/g in the cat to 10 mug/g in the guinea-pig. Amounts in the cerebral hemispheres are much smaller, ranging from < 0.1 mug/g in the cat to 1.6 mug/g in the guinea-pig.2. Large amounts of ergothioneine (about 30 mug/g) were found in the optic nerves of the rabbit. None was detected in the dorsal columns of the spinal cord of the same species.3. Ergothioneine has an excitatory action on the electrical activity of the cerebellum of the decerebrate rabbit and the excitatory actions of cerebellar extracts on this preparation are completely accounted for by their contained ergothioneine.4. It is concluded that the cerebellar factor of Crossland & Mitchell (1956) is identical with ergothioneine.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Ketorolac versus aspirin for postpartum uterine pain.

Ketorolac tromethamine, a new nonsteroidal antiinflammatory analgesic, was evaluated for relative efficacy, safety and time course of analgesia in a stratified, randomized, parallel, double-blind trial. The study involved 120 hospitalized women (4 groups of 30) with moderate or severe postpartum uterine pain treated with single oral doses of ketorolac 5 mg and 10 mg, aspirin 650 mg or placebo. At regular interviews for 6 hours patients rated pain intensity, pain relief and side effects. Significant differences (p less than or equal to 0.05, two-tailed) occurred among the 4 treatments for various measurements of summed and peak analgesia. Ketorolac 10 mg was significantly superior to placebo in 5 of 5 major efficacy measurements, and aspirin was significantly superior in 3 of 5. Ketorolac 10 mg gave the highest mean rating for summed pain intensity differences (13.6, p = 0.0002 versus placebo), followed by aspirin (11.9, p = 0.012), ketorolac 5 mg (10.9, p = 0.072) and placebo (8.6). With ketorolac 10 mg and 5 mg and aspirin, analgesia lasted 6 hours, with peak efficacy at 3 hours. Side effects were not significant. Our results suggested a positive dose-response relationship for ketorolac. Compared to aspirin, ketorolac 10 mg induced equal or more analgesia, whereas ketorolac 5 mg was near the minimum effective dose and seemed less effective than aspirin.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Psychopathology in subgroups of obese women with and without binge eating disorder.

The examination of psychopathology in subgroups of obese patients is a new area of research in psychiatry. This project studied rates and types of psychopathology among obese subjects meeting the proposed DSM-IV criteria of binge eating disorder (BED) and obese subjects without BED. One hundred obese women with a mean age of 39.2 years and a mean body mass index (BMI) of 35.9 kg/m2 were evaluated using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID-Modified Version) and a self-rating personality inventory, Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-Revised (PDQ-R), before entering a treatment study for weight reduction. Those subjects meeting proposed DSM-IV criteria for BED had significantly higher lifetime rates for an axis I diagnosis compared with those that did not meet criteria for BED. Subjects with BED showed higher rates of lifetime affective disorder and bulimia nervosa, but did not differ on any other axis I diagnoses. Axis II cluster B and cluster C diagnoses were found more frequently among BED subjects. The specific diagnoses of histrionic, borderline, and avoidant personality disorders were found significantly more often among BED subjects. The results support the idea that binge eating may identify a distinct subgroup among the obese population who have significantly higher rates of certain forms of psychopathology on both Axis I and Axis II. The findings of increased rates of depression are consistent with other studies and suggest that our treatment modalities need to address this problem.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The effects of life-long food restriction on spatial memory in young and aged Fischer 344 rats measured in the eight-arm radial and the Morris water mazes.

The effect of life-long 60% ad lib food restriction on performance in two tasks involving spatial memory, the eight-arm radial maze and the Morris water maze, was studied in young and aged Fischer 344 rats. Restricted (R) and ad lib (AL) feeding groups were compared at 8, 16, and 24 months of age on both tasks. A 30-month-old R group was also tested in the Morris water maze. In the eight-arm maze, although 24-month-old animals performed more poorly than 8- and 16-month-old animals during the first week of testing, overall accuracy of performance did not vary significantly as a function of age. Twenty-four-month-old animals took longer to make 10 choices than did younger animals, and there was a significant interaction between feeding regimen and age, reflecting the fact that at the two younger ages, R groups performed more quickly than the AL groups. In the Morris water maze, both distance swum and time to find the platform increased with age. Life-long food restriction led to small but significant improvements in performance in the water maze in aged rats. R groups showed evidence for better retention over 24-hour intervals than did AL groups. By 30 months of age, however, R animals showed impaired performance relative to younger R groups. These differential findings on the two tasks, as they were used here, suggest that there was greater impairment with age on the spatial memory task requiring retention of information over long intervals than there was on the task primarily involving working memory within a trial.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Aging↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Pore surface exploration by NMR.

A carefully chosen set of experimental techniques applied to porous media characterization provides results that can be much greater than the sum of the individual parts. The inter-relation and complementarity of a number of techniques will be considered. NMR cryoporometry provides a valuable method of pore size measurement. An NMR method that is more widely used to assess pore dimensions relies on relaxation time analysis of a liquid that fills the pores and the enhanced relaxation that occurs in a liquid at the solid/liquid interface. Thermoporometry, a method based on the application of Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), is closely related to cryoporometry, but employs a different set of assumptions to evaluate pore size distributions. Comparison of the results obtained on the same samples using all these methods together with gas adsorption serves to validate the methods and provide significantly more information about surface-fluid interaction and the behavior of nano-scale material within pores than each method employed in isolation. Technique developments will be discussed and applications of these methods to ideal silicas will be used to illustrate their power, particularly in combination.

Adsorption↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Secondary sexual development of 'Cape Coloured' girls following kwashiorkor.

This report describes the secondary sexual development of 45 'Cape Coloured' female ex-kwashiorkor patients and 43 female controls. All patients were originally seen between five months and four years four months of age, treated and then followed up for 15 years after discharge. Age at menarche was available on 42 ex-patients and 33 controls, and age at peak height velocity (PHV) was available for 30 ex-patients and 15 controls. Maximum likelihood estimates of the mean age at entry to each pubertal stage were made, age at menarche was obtained directly from the subject records and age at PHV was obtained by fitting a non-linear growth function to the data for each subject. All subjects passed through the sequence of pubertal events in the normal order, i.e., no reversals were observed. Ex-patients were generally delayed in relation to controls but there were no significant differences for ages at entry to any of the pubertal stages. The subjects were combined for comparison to equivalent data on British girls. The South African girls were significantly delayed in the development of pubic hair and menarche but showed no significant differences for age at entry or duration of breast development and PHV. It is suggested that lack of delay in breast development may have selective advantages to females living in situations of chronic malnutrition.

Female↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Secondary sexual development of Cape coloured boys following kwashiorkor.

This report describes the secondary sexual development of 78 Cape Coloured male ex-kwashiorkor patients and 53 male controls. All patients were originally seen between 5 months and 4 years 4 months of age, treated and then followed up for 15 years after discharge. Age at peak height velocity (PHV) was available for 23 ex-patients and 15 controls. Maximum likelihood estimates of the mean age at entry to each pubertal stage were made and age at PHV was obtained by fitting a non-linear growth function to the data for each subject with appropriate serial height records. No significant differences were observed between ex-patients and controls for either the sequence of pubertal events or for the age of entry to each stage. When compared to a sample of normal British boys the Cape Coloured sample exhibited significant delay for ages at entry to all pubertal stages with differences ranging from 0.84 years for PH2 to 1.94 years for PH5. It is suggested that adrenal androgens play a major role in delaying secondary sexual development during chronic malnutrition and that the anterior pituitary's response to such conditions is to selectively delay pubertal status.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Two-stage evaluation of exposure to mercury and biomarkers of neurotoxicity at a hazardous waste site.

Communities surrounding the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (RMA), a Superfund site in Colorado, were studied in order to determine whether exposures to mercury were greater among persons who resided there than among residents of a comparison area 12-15 miles distant. From a census-based stratified random sample, 469 persons were interviewed and urine samples were obtained for biomonitoring. Mercury was detected in urine from 32 (6.8%) of the 469 persons sample at a detection limit of 5 ppb. Trace levels of mercury (detectable, but nonquantifiable) were found in 80 (17.1%) of the persons sampled. Neither the frequency of detection, the arithmetic mean, nor the geometric mean value for urine mercury was found to be statistically different when persons living near the site were compared to persons from the more distant comparison area. The risk of mercury exposure associated with demographic variables, residence, occupation, hobbies, dietary habits, water supply, housing, and activity patterns was evaluated. In the second stage of the evaluation, the Neurobehavioral Core Test Battery (NCTB) is being used to assess individual functional deficits and nervous system disorders associated with exposure to mercury and other neurotoxic chemicals.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Promoting the advancement of minority women faculty in academic medicine: the National Centers of Excellence in Women's Health.

Minority physicians provide care in a manner that promotes patient satisfaction and meets the needs of an increasingly diverse U.S. population. In addition, minority medical school faculty bring diverse perspectives to research and teach cross-cultural care. However, men and women of color remain underrepresented among medical school faculty, particularly in the higher ranks. National data show that although the numbers of women in medicine have increased, minority representation remains essentially static. Studying minority women faculty as a group may help to improve our understanding of barriers to diversification. Six National Centers of Excellence in Women's Health used a variety of approaches in addressing the needs of this group. Recommendations for other academic institutions include development of key diversity indicators with national benchmarks, creation of guidelines for mentoring and faculty development programs, and support for career development opportunities.

Career Mobility↗