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At least 937 records · Page 52Linked to original sources
PubMed2002

Sensory inputs stimulate progenitor cell proliferation in an adult insect brain.

Although most brain neurons are produced during embryonic and early postnatal development, recent studies clearly demonstrated in a wide range of species from invertebrates to humans that new neurons are added to specific brain structures throughout adult life. Hormones, neurotransmitters, and growth factors as well as environmental conditions modulate this neurogenesis. In this study, we address the role of sensory inputs in the regulation of adult neural progenitor cell proliferation in an insect model. In some insect species, adult neurogenesis occurs in the mushroom bodies, the main sensory integrative centers of the brain, receiving multimodal information and often considered as the analog of the vertebrate hippocampus. We recently showed that rearing adult crickets in enriched sensory and social conditions enhanced neuroblast proliferation in the mushroom bodies. Here, by manipulating hormonal levels and affecting olfactory and/or visual inputs, we show that environmental regulation of neurogenesis is in direct response to olfactory and visual stimuli rather than being mediated via hormonal control. Experiments of unilateral sensory deprivation reveal that neuroblast proliferation can be inhibited in one brain hemisphere only. These results, obtained in a relatively simple brain, emphasize the role of sensory inputs on stem cell division.

Animals↗
PubMed1993

Black-white differences in injury. Race or social class?

In the United States injuries are the leading cause of years of potential life lost and the leading cause of death for persons less than 45 years of age. Minority groups, particularly African-Americans, are disproportionately represented among those persons who die as a result of injury. Homicides account for much of this racial disparity; however, other forms of injury also contribute significantly to the differential. This paper examines death rates due to four types of injuries that contribute most to the black/white mortality gap. Our examination of death rates from 1984 to 1988 reveals no major reduction in the racial gap during the period, despite the initiation of some prevention efforts. We suggest that socioeconomic status rather than race is perhaps the major correlate of the social conditions and lifestyle choices which contribute to these injuries. We propose that injury prevention efforts must target both the causes and the consequences of socioeconomic inequality.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2005

The effects of prenatal social stress on behaviour: mechanisms and function.

In this review, we summarise experimental animal studies on the effects of the social environment during pregnancy on the offsprings' behaviour, brain, and neuroendocrine function. We show that in non-human mammals the stability of the social environment in which the pregnant females live is critical for the offsprings' social and sexual behaviour later in life as well as for reproductive functioning, endocrine state and androgen and estrogen receptor distribution in specific parts of the brain. Based on these findings, we discuss different neuroendocrine mechanisms mediating the influence of the social environment during pregnancy on the offsprings' behaviour. We conclude that maternal steroids play a decisive role in shaping foetal brain development. However, a pituitary adrenocortical pathway need not always be involved. At least in some cases an involvement of the sympathetic adrenomedullary system seems to be possible. Concerning function, we favour the hypothesis that the behavioural effects of prenatal social stress are not necessarily the 'pathological' consequences of adverse social conditions (non-adaptive explanation). Contrarily, mothers could be adjusting their offspring to the environment in which they live during pregnancy in an efficient way (adaptive explanation).

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Importance of social volunteering for elderly and aged women].

Volunteering is not an unproblematic perspective for elderly women. Practical experience as well as scientific research point to the ambiguity of this type of work. On one hand, the gender-typed division of labour is continued; access to social or political voluntary work reflects the unequality of chances. On the other hand, volunteering can open up approaches and perspectives to improve one's individual life situation, particularly through social integration, giving a meaning to life, and thus gaining better health and psychosocial status. Especially in biographical phases, which are marked by losses of life-guiding functions and contacts, volunteering may become important. But there are a lot of women, who does not have the material and social conditions to manage this work. Should volunteering be shaped to fit many elderly women, it needs to be listed on the agenda on ageing topic of the ageing and women's policy.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1987

The bureaucratic context of international health: a social scientist's view.

Using primary care as an example, this paper examines how the bureaucratic structures and culture of the international health agencies have affected the planning and delivery of health programs. Many primary health care programs were ineffective, as research undertaken in Nepal has shown, because they reflected the perspective and needs of the health bureaucracies involved rather than those of the local villages receiving services. Similarly, work in other South and Southeast Asian countries reveals that primary health care was interpreted differently in different bureaucratic settings and adapted to bureaucratic needs, but not necessarily adapted to village cultures and conditions. Social scientists, who are trained to analyze and articulate different cultural contexts, can play a key role in helping international health bureaucracies become more sensitive to the rural village cultures they serve.

Asia, Southeastern↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Future trends in international migration.

The author evaluates projections by the World Bank that show a significant decline in international migration over the next decade. "This projection not only assumes a narrowing of the welfare gap between industrialised and developing countries. It also sets out from the premise that potential migrants react to changes in the economic and social conditions in their home countries with more or less constant (negative) migration elasticities. The following article shows that there is reason to question the validity of this assumption."

Demography↗
PubMed2005

A comparison of the cost-effectiveness of hospital-based home care with that of a conventional outpatient follow-up for patients with mental illness.

The purpose of this study was to compare the outcomes of a hospital-based home-care model with those of a conventional outpatient follow-up for mentally ill patients in Taiwan by means of cost-effectiveness analysis. The study design was a two group posthoc design. We interviewed 40 mentally ill patients who were followed up in the psychiatric outpatient department. Another 40 mentally ill patients who participated in a hospital based home care program were also interviewed. The outcome measures we used for interviews were disease maintenance behavior, psychotic symptoms, social function, service satisfaction, and cost. The cost for each patient was the sum of costs for all direct mental health services. The cost-effectiveness ratio showed that the costs of the hospital-based home care model (4.3) were lower than those of conventional outpatient follow-up (13.5) and that over a one-year period, the hospital-based home care model was associated with improvements in mental conditions, social functional outcomes, and service satisfaction. The improved outcomes and the lower costs in the hospital-based home care program support the view that it is the most cost-effective of the two. Policy makers may consider this analysis as they allocate resources and develop policy for the care of mentally ill patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

[Sex differences among clients attending the outpatient clinic for alcoholics in the County of Vejle].

A questionnaire investigation was undertaken in the four outpatient clinics for alcoholics in the County of Vejle in 1989. A total of 246 clients participated. The object was to illustrate differences and similarities between the sexes and aspects of the abuse. No differences were found as regards the frequency of unemployment and retirement or the housing conditions but the women were more frequently unemployed for 36 months or more. Where both sexes were concerned, the clients most frequently lived alone. The male clients had more frequently lost their employment, experienced failure of partnership, lost their driving licences or had been in detention on account of the abuse. Women were more frequently untrained, their incomes were lower, they had more frequently received public assistance and belonged most frequently to social group V. Women had more frequently children under the age of 16 years in the home and were more frequently alone with their children. Women had more frequently a partner who was addicted. Only women had children who had been placed under care. Women sought treatment earlier than men. The female clients thus appear to require particular attention and support because their social conditions, including those of their families, were, in general, worse than those of the male clients.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Socioeconomic position in childhood and early adult life and risk of mortality: a prospective study of the mothers of the 1958 British birth cohort.

OBJECTIVES: We sought to establish whether women's childhood socioeconomic position influenced their risk of mortality separately from the effects of adult socioeconomic position. METHODS: We examined 11855 British women aged 14 to 49 years, with mortality follow-up over a 45-year period. RESULTS: Trends according to childhood social class were observed for all-cause mortality, circulatory disease, coronary heart disease, respiratory disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, lung cancer, and stomach cancer, with higher death rates among members of unskilled manual groups. Associations attenuated after adjustment for adult social class, smoking, and body mass index. No trend was seen for breast cancer or accidents and violence. Adverse social conditions in both childhood and adulthood were associated with higher death rates from coronary heart disease and respiratory disease. Stomach cancer was influenced primarily by childhood conditions and lung cancer by factors in adult life. CONCLUSIONS: Socioeconomic position in childhood was associated with adult mortality in a large sample of British women.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

[Some emotional repercussions of adolescent pregnancy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1999-2001)].

This study analyzed the association between early pregnancy and negative emotional repercussions for adolescents, according to socio-demographic and psychosocial variables. The study interviewed 1,228 adolescents in maternity hospitals in the City of Rio de Janeiro. Emotional repercussions were evaluated with negative self-assessment variables, showing little or no expectation towards the future, as well as psychological distress. The chi2 test and odds ratio were used to analyze the data. Adolescents who reported a negative reaction by the family felt less valued (OR 1.8), with little expectation towards the future (OR 2.3), and presented major psychological distress (OR 1.5). Those not enrolled in school when they became pregnant also showed worse self-esteem (OR 1.9) and fewer expectations towards the future (OR 2.2). Greater psychological distress was inversely related to frequency of prenatal care (0.7). The article concludes that family support, regardless of original social conditions, was identified as the principal factor for minimizing negative emotional repercussions of pregnancy during adolescence.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Accumulated labour market disadvantage and limiting long-term illness: data from the 1971-1991 Office for National Statistics' Longitudinal Study.

BACKGROUND: Both social class and unemployment have been shown in many studies to be related to ill health. Recent work in social epidemiology has demonstrated the importance of examining the accumulation of disadvantage over the life course. This paper therefore uses a large longitudinal data set to examine the accumulation of both disadvantaged class and unemployment over a 20-year period in a representative sample of the male working population of England and Wales. METHODS: Logistic regression. RESULTS: Both membership of semi- or unskilled social class and unemployment in 1971 were related to limiting long-term illness (LLTI) in 1991 independently of each other, and of subsequent social class and unemployment. Any occurrence of disadvantaged social class or of unemployment added significantly to the risk of LLTI. A labour market disadvantage score comprising the number of occasions on which a study member had been either in a disadvantaged social class or unemployed showed a clear and graded relationship to illness, with odds of 4 to 1 in the worst-scoring group. CONCLUSION: The experiences of disadvantaged social class or unemployment at any time during this period contributed independently to an increased risk of chronic limiting illness up to 20 years later in the life course. Whereas improvements in social conditions at any one time will lessen the long-term combined impact of accumulated labour market disadvantage on health, it may not prove easy to obtain short term improvements in health inequality.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Ecdysteroid titer and reproduction in queens and workers of the honey bee and of a stingless bee: loss of ecdysteroid function at increasing levels of sociality?

Evidence from field wasps and bumblebees appoints the endocrine system as a mediator between dominance status and ovarian activity in primitively social Hymenoptera. In this comparative study on ecdysteroid titers in the highly social honey bee, Apis mellifera, and a stingless bee, Melipona quadrifasciata, we focussed on the relationship between the ecdysteroid titer, social conditions (presence or absence of the queen), and ovary activity. In contrast to bumblebees, ecdysteroid titers in honey bee and stingless bee workers were either not altered, or dropped to even lower levels after the queen was removed. We also did not detect differences between virgin queens and mated, egg laying queens. These results suggest that ecdysteroids may have lost most of their reproductive functions - yet gained functions in larval caste differentiation - as higher levels of social organization were attained in the evolution of social insects. The observation that ecdysteroid titers are transiently elevated in young workers adds a new, yet functionally still speculative facet to hormonal regulation in insect societies.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Peculiar response of adolescent mice to acute and chronic stress and to amphetamine: evidence of sex differences.

Although final brain size and the number of available neurons and axons appear to be established early in infancy, plasticity of the brain continues during adolescence through an integrated process of overproduction and elimination of synapses and receptors. In addition, hormonal levels change dramatically during this period, as a result of the onset of puberty. This age-specific condition has been suggested to serve as a permissive factor for the emergence of a number of early-onset neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and perhaps substance abuse. However, relatively few investigations have focused on animal models of this developmental phase. The periadolescent rodent (similar30-45-day-old), has been proposed as a useful model. Periadolescent rats and mice are generally associated with a peculiar behavioral profile, consisting of basal hyperactivity, high attraction towards novel stimuli and a marked involvement in affiliative and playful behaviors. Moreover, a unique profile of psychopharmacological responsivity characterizes rodents around this age. Recent experiments by our group investigated age-related discontinuities in the response of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) to both stress and psychostimulants. The latter are often administered as therapeutic drugs to children with ADHD, which have been also associated with an impaired response to stress and abnormalities in HPA axis function. Indeed, an altered functioning of the HPA axis has been proposed as a possible risk factor and a potential marker for such a behavioral vulnerability. Animals were studied at adulthood (> pnd 70) or during periadolescence. Experiment I characterized basal corticosterone (CORT) levels in naive mice kept undisturbed in standard social conditions from weaning to sacrifice. Periadolescent male mice showed higher basal CORT levels than adult subjects, suggesting that the set up of the HPA axis is physiologically elevated during adolescence. In experiment II, we investigated age-related differences in the response to both acute and chronic stress conditions. Periadolescent and adult mice were housed either in a standard (three animals per cage) or in a crowding condition (nine animals per cage). The latter has been indeed reported to potentiate the subsequent reaction to acute stress in adult rodents. At the end of this period and following 24 h individual housing, mice were injected with either saline (SAL) or a standard amphetamine (AMPH) dose (2 mg/kg), and faced with a mild acute psychological stress, namely removal of sawdust from the home cage. Important sex differences emerged in animals of the two ages. Periadolescent females showed a reduced CORT response to acute stress. Within the adult male group, the chronic crowding condition produced a prominent potentiation of CORT response to the acute stress challenge. Conversely, this profile was not evidenced in periadolescents. These results indicate a strong role for gender and social variables in the response of periadolescent subjects to the various aspects of stress. As for AMPH effects, in the absence of significant changes in adult subjects, the drug produced a marked CORT release in periadolescent mice. A better understanding of neuroendocrine-related AMPH effects as a function of social and environmental risk factors during adolescence, might deepen our knowledge on the neurobiological bases of genetically determined neuropsichiatric disorders and possibly improve the therapeutical efficacy of psychostimulant drugs.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1995

[Humans and plague in history].

"The author tries to clarify...different aspects of the relationship between man and plague in Europe since antiquity up to the extinction of pest epidemics in the 18th century.... The article deals with the consequences of the Black Death from the mid-14th century on the European [economies] and also on contemporary social conditions. It characterizes reactions of that time [to] that disaster and, afterwards, pursues the reflex of plague in art and especially in fine arts since antiquity until the 20th century." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND RUS)

Cause of Death↗
PubMed1977

[Skin diseases and working disability in the Netherlands. II. Catamnestic study in 3 groups of patients with occupational contact eczema].

A follow-up study was performed of the medical and social condition of 164 patients with an occupational allergic contact dermatitis. A change of work did not always lead to an improvement of the dermatitis. A number of patients improved without changing their job. It is suggested that a change of occupation can only be advised to these patients if the causal allergen can be avoided completely by doing so and only by doing so; at the same time one must reckon with other aetiologic factors and the social situation after change of work. Moreover it is pointed out that patients who changed their occupation did hardly use the possibilities, created by the Dutch law, to obtain expert advice or to be retrained for another job at the expense of the community.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

[Professional and daily living activities of patients after treatment of Hodgkin's disease].

Hundred patients with diagnosed malignant granuloma were tested with the aid of a questionnaire and partially structured interview during control examination at the out-patient clinic of the Institute of Oncology, Division in Gliwice. Types and conditions of activity undertaken after therapy were assessed. An analysis included 89 patients who returned to everyday activity. Half of the patients undertaken their occupation while the remaining patients--other types of activity. Undertaken activity was usually less physically overloading than those before the disease. Patients returned to their activities mainly within the first three months and between the first and the second year after therapy. It was found also that readaptation depended on the psychophysical and social conditions.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1995

[Quality of life in patients with pacemakers].

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: On the occasion of the doctoral thesis "Epidemiologic study in pacemaker patients", the social and some health factors around the pacemaker patient has been studied. METHODS: Data were obtained by a patient verbal questionnaire and the pacemaker follow-up form. The social parameters studied are: employment aspects, change life feeling, health feeling, sporting activity and change of intensity of pharmacologic treatment. Just to get alone a quantitative social parameter, a social resulting punctuation or "social balance" has been designed. It has been used in bi-variable relation against the symptoms, electrocardiogram, complications, time from the pacemaker implantation, pacemaker type, dependence of the pacemaker and social variables between himself. Among the 108 variables considered, it has been studied which of them had more weight in the "pacemaker profitability". Greatest profitability (and vice versa): greatest profit in symptoms and in social conditions, smallest number of complications; greater time passed and worst evolution of electrocardiogram. The numerical value of the "profitability" is set up by assigning 20 points to each foregoing concepts, obtaining a greatest theoretical punctuation of 100 points and a smallest of 0 points. RESULTS: We obtained values of arithmetical mean, a frequency profile of quality life parameters, a profile of the better and worst situation in the bi-variable relation and the definition of those social factors who contributed to the segmentation of the "pacemaker profitability". CONCLUSIONS: The kind of job and the time of going out of it after the pacemaker implantation, the changing life feeling, the health feeling after the pacemaker and the transport means to the hospital are the variables which contributed to discriminate the major and the minor profitability.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Intractable epilepsy in children who develop epilepsy in the first decade of life--a prospective study.

Prospective studies on 347 children under treatment due to seizures which appeared in the first 10 years of life helped to evaluate and define the incidence of epilepsy resistant to treatment. With regard to each patient the following aspects were analysed: the kind of seizures, their etiology, accompanying neurological disorders and a type of epileptic syndrome, kind of treatment applied before admission to the clinical department as well as socioeconomic conditions of the families. Patients under study were divided into four age groups to evaluate the results. Epilepsy, which was completely resistant to treatment, was observed in 10% of the patients, partially resistant in 20%. Resistance is the outcome of the following factors: onset of epilepsy in early childhood, symptomatic etiology coexisting symptoms of CNS damage, occurrence of unfavourable epileptic syndromes such as Lennox-Gastaut, wrong selection and low dosage of drugs, inappropriate polytherapy and adverse social conditions. On the basis of the results obtained, the authors suggested point evaluation as a kind of screening in prediction of failures in treatment.

Age of Onset↗