All posts; Tags Include "Clinical Research"
- September 29, 2014
- 10:32 AM
- 711 views
Family Attachment and the Brain Cingulate Cortex
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Healthy family attachment provides a key element for social support and successful interpersonal relationships.Several brain regions as well as hormonal factors appear to modulate positive emotional responses to family members.I have previously reviewed several studies involving the prosocial effects of the hormone oxytocin and the related hormone vasopressin.Nicolas Rusch from the Department of Psychiatry at Ulm University in Germany along with colleagues in Brazil and London recently published........ Read more »
Rüsch N, Bado P, Zahn R, Bramati IE, de Oliveira-Souza R, & Moll J. (2014) You and your kin: Neural signatures of family-based group perception in the subgenual cortex. Social neuroscience, 9(4), 326-31. PMID: 24802255
- September 24, 2014
- 12:37 PM
- 604 views
Why Women Give Better Gifts
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Consumer spending on gifts for birthdays and holidays is a multi-billion dollar big business.Despite this large economic impact, little research examines factors associated with gift recipient satisfaction.Selecting good gifts for others involves a complex social decision-making process related to judging the value hierarchy of others.A study from the Netherlands recently published in the journal PLOS One featured three experiments on gift selection in a series of men and women.The design of the........ Read more »
Pollmann MM, & van Beest I. (2013) Women are better at selecting gifts than men. PloS one, 8(12). PMID: 24386082
- September 24, 2014
- 11:42 AM
- 812 views
Genetics "Experts" Surveyed on Returning Incidental Findings
by Daniel Koboldt in Massgenomics
In my last post, I wrote about the return of results from next-gen sequencing, specifically a recent paper in AJHG about secondary findings in ~6500 ESP exomes. Today we’ll delve into another paper in the same issue on the attitudes of genetics professionals on return of incidental findings from whole genome sequencing (WGS) and exome sequencing […]... Read more »
Yu JH, Harrell TM, Jamal SM, Tabor HK, & Bamshad MJ. (2014) Attitudes of genetics professionals toward the return of incidental results from exome and whole-genome sequencing. American journal of human genetics, 95(1), 77-84. PMID: 24975944
- September 18, 2014
- 11:11 AM
- 669 views
Genetics of Social Skills: Oxytocin Receptor Gene
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Social neuroscience is an emerging emphasis in the field of neuroscience research.Social cognition is the subset of cognitive functions related to social processes and includes factors such as facial recognition, social memory and ability to form friendships and other social bonds.Impairment in social cognition is a known feature in autism, schizophrenia and other mental disorders. This type of impairment can produce significant problems in life adjustment, employment and human attachment.Geneti........ Read more »
Skuse DH, Lori A, Cubells JF, Lee I, Conneely KN, Puura K, Lehtimäki T, Binder EB, & Young LJ. (2014) Common polymorphism in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is associated with human social recognition skills. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(5), 1987-92. PMID: 24367110
- September 17, 2014
- 11:28 AM
- 579 views
Antidepressants Modulate Memory in the Healthy Brain
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
The mechanism of antidepressant drug response is not well understood.One theory posits antidepressant effects are only seen in those with clinical depression leaving the healthy brain unchanged.In a previous post, I outlined a study demonstrating effects of antidepressants on brain connectivity measures in the healthy brain.A recent fMRI study extends our understanding of the potential mechanisms for antidepressant drugs.CT Cerqueira and colleagues from Brazil studied the effects of the antidepr........ Read more »
Cerqueira CT, Sato JR, de Almeida JR, Amaro E Jr, Leite CC, Gorenstein C, Gentil V, & Busatto GF. (2014) Healthy individuals treated with clomipramine: an fMRI study of brain activity during autobiographical recall of emotions. Translational psychiatry. PMID: 24984192
- September 16, 2014
- 11:01 AM
- 557 views
Cannabis-induced Paranoia: Cognitive Mechanisms
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Some individuals appear vulnerable to paranoia induced by exposure to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in cannabis.The mechanism for this effect is poorly understood.Daniel Freeman from University of Oxford along with colleagues in England and Switzerland recently conducted an interventional research study on this issue.In this study, 121 subjects were recruited to receive injections of THC in a laboratory setting.These subjects were required to have taken cannabis at least once before participation i........ Read more »
Freeman D, Dunn G, Murray RM, Evans N, Lister R, Antley A, Slater M, Godlewska B, Cornish R, Williams J.... (2014) How Cannabis Causes Paranoia: Using the Intravenous Administration of ∆9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to Identify Key Cognitive Mechanisms Leading to Paranoia. Schizophrenia bulletin. PMID: 25031222
- September 10, 2014
- 06:00 PM
- 104,326 views
Anecdotes and the Appearance of Improvement
by Rogue Medic in Rogue Medic
We like to give treatments that produce results that we can see and logically attribute to the treatments we gave.
We like to give IV (IntaVenous) furosemide (Lasix – frusemide in Commonwealth countries) for CHF (Congestive Heart Failure).
1. The patient had CHF.
2. I gave IV furosemide.
3. The patient produced urine.... Read more »
Figueras J, & Weil MH. (1978) Blood volume prior to and following treatment of acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema. Circulation, 57(2), 349-55. PMID: 618625
Francis GS, Siegel RM, Goldsmith SR, Olivari MT, Levine TB, & Cohn JN. (1985) Acute vasoconstrictor response to intravenous furosemide in patients with chronic congestive heart failure. Activation of the neurohumoral axis. Annals of internal medicine, 103(1), 1-6. PMID: 2860833
Hoffman JR, & Reynolds S. (1987) Comparison of nitroglycerin, morphine and furosemide in treatment of presumed pre-hospital pulmonary edema. Chest, 92(4), 586-93. PMID: 3115687
- September 10, 2014
- 08:00 AM
- 771 views
Return of Results from Next-gen Sequencing
by Daniel Koboldt in Massgenomics
The rapid adoption of next-gen exome and genome sequencing for clinical use (i.e. with patient DNA) raises some difficult questions about the return of results to patients and their families. In contrast to traditional genetic testing, which usually checks for variants in specific genes, high-throughput sequencing has the potential to reveal a number of secondary […]... Read more »
Tabor HK, Auer PL, Jamal SM, Chong JX, Yu JH, Gordon AS, Graubert TA, O'Donnell CJ, Rich SS, Nickerson DA.... (2014) Pathogenic variants for mendelian and complex traits in exomes of 6,517 European and african americans: implications for the return of incidental results. American journal of human genetics, 95(2), 183-93. PMID: 25087612
- September 1, 2014
- 08:28 AM
- 780 views
Tracking the Daily Microbiome
by Stephanie Swift in mmmbitesizescience
Humans are essentially 90% bacteria. These bacteria pepper our skin and hang out in our digestive tracts, helping to break down complex carbohydrates and keeping bad bugs in check. We know how the human microbiome (our collection of bacteria) gets … Continue reading →... Read more »
David LA, Materna AC, Friedman J, Campos-Baptista MI, Blackburn MC, Perrotta A, Erdman SE, & Alm EJ. (2014) Host lifestyle affects human microbiota on daily timescales. Genome biology, 15(7). PMID: 25146375
- August 28, 2014
- 11:40 AM
- 724 views
Gambler Sub-types: Three Distinct Profiles
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
One method to advance understanding of a disorder is to use statistical modeling for sub-type or class analysis.Lia Nower and colleagues recently published the results of such an analysis from the large general population data-set known as the U.S. National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC).In this sample, 851 adults 18 years and older were identified with disordered gambling.This group then underwent a type of latent class statistical analysis known as the Pathways........ Read more »
Nower L, Martins SS, Lin KH, & Blanco C. (2013) Subtypes of disordered gamblers: results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Addiction (Abingdon, England), 108(4), 789-98. PMID: 23072599
- August 27, 2014
- 10:58 AM
- 664 views
Diagnostic Profile in Pathological Gamblers
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Behavioral disorders like pathological gambling (PG) rarely occur alone as a single uncomplicated disorder.In a previous post, I noted the overlap of PG with personality disorder, anxiety disorder, depression, bipolar disorder and substance abuse.A recent study from Germany adds to our knowledge of the general diagnostic profile in the PG population.Erbas and Buchner reviewed German national data sources and other German studies to come up with a series of findings:Twelve month prevalence rates ........ Read more »
Erbas B, & Buchner UG. (2012) Pathological gambling: prevalence, diagnosis, comorbidity, and intervention in Germany. Deutsches Arzteblatt international, 109(10), 173-9. PMID: 22470406
- August 24, 2014
- 09:38 AM
- 917 views
This Month in Blastocystis Research (AUG 2014)
by Christen Rune Stensvold in Blastocystis Parasite Blog
August 2014 saw interesting data emerging on Blastocystis in the background population, mRNA polyadnylation in the Blastocystis nuclear genome which calls for genome reannotation, and a large focus on Blastocystis in the ICOPA 2014 Congress in Mexico City.... Read more »
Fayer R, Elsasser T, Gould R, Solano G, Urban J Jr, & Santin M. (2014) Blastocystis tropism in the pig intestine. Parasitology research, 113(4), 1465-72. PMID: 24535732
Klimeš V, Gentekaki E, Roger AJ, & Eliáš M. (2014) A large number of nuclear genes in the human parasite blastocystis require mRNA polyadenylation to create functional termination codons. Genome biology and evolution, 6(8), 1956-61. PMID: 25015079
Hanage, W. (2014) Microbiology: Microbiome science needs a healthy dose of scepticism. Nature, 512(7514), 247-248. DOI: 10.1038/512247a
Scanlan PD, Stensvold CR, Rajilić-Stojanović M, Heilig HG, De Vos WM, O'Toole PW, & Cotter PD. (2014) The microbial eukaryote Blastocystis is a prevalent and diverse member of the healthy human gut microbiota. FEMS microbiology ecology. PMID: 25077936
Venton, D. (2014) Highlight: Not Like a Textbook--Nuclear Genes in Blastocystis Use mRNA Polyadenylation for Stop Codons. Genome Biology and Evolution, 6(8), 1962-1963. DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evu167
Wang W, Bielefeldt-Ohmann H, Traub RJ, Cuttell L, & Owen H. (2014) Location and pathogenic potential of blastocystis in the porcine intestine. PloS one, 9(8). PMID: 25093578
- August 19, 2014
- 10:15 PM
- 1,197 views
Dextrose 10% in the Treatment of Out-of-Hospital Hypoglycemia
by Rogue Medic in Rogue Medic
Is 50% dextrose as good as 10% dextrose for treating symptomatic hypoglycemia?
If the patient is disoriented, but becomes oriented before the full dose of dextrose is given, is it appropriate to continue to treat the patient as if the patient were still disoriented? If your protocols require you to keep giving dextrose, do the same protocols require you to keep giving opioids after the pain is relieved? Is there really any difference?
50% dextrose has problems.... Read more »
Kiefer MV, Gene Hern H, Alter HJ, & Barger JB. (2014) Dextrose 10% in the treatment of out-of-hospital hypoglycemia. Prehospital and disaster medicine, 29(2), 190-4. PMID: 24735872
Levy SB, & Rosh AJ. (2006) Images in emergency medicine. Dextrose extravasation causing skin necrosis. Annals of emergency medicine, 48(3). PMID: 16934641
- August 18, 2014
- 10:16 AM
- 641 views
Guidelines for Treatment of Problem Gambling
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Despite the prevalence and impact of problem gambling, few summaries or guidelines address treatment.Searching the guideline.gov website shows no recent additions to the guideline literature.A guideline was published by the Singapore Ministry of Health in 2011. This guideline is still relevant and highlights some of the key elements of a problem gambling treatment program.I will summarize some of these key elements from this source titled: "Management of gambling disorders". In their summa........ Read more »
Lee KM, Chan HN, Cheah B, Gentica GF, Guo S, Lim HK, Lim YC, Noorul F, Tan HS, Teo P.... (2011) Ministry of Health clinical practice guidelines: management of gambling disorders. Singapore medical journal, 52(6), 456. PMID: 21732000
- August 14, 2014
- 11:17 AM
- 707 views
FDA Approves Novel Insomnia Drug Suvorexant (Belsomra)
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Regular readers of this blog had a heads up last year on the development of orexin receptor antagonists for the treatment of insomnia.I posted a review of an Italian clinical drug trial in humans with insomnia paired with polysomnography. This study used three different doses of a orexin receptor antagonist (10 mg 30 mg and 60 mg).In a second post, I reviewed a sleep lab study of the effects of an orexin antagonist drug compared to zolpidem (Ambien) on sleep architecture.This second study found ........ Read more »
Michelson D, Snyder E, Paradis E, Chengan-Liu M, Snavely DB, Hutzelmann J, Walsh JK, Krystal AD, Benca RM, Cohn M.... (2014) Safety and efficacy of suvorexant during 1-year treatment of insomnia with subsequent abrupt treatment discontinuation: a phase 3 randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Lancet neurology, 13(5), 461-71. PMID: 24680372
Bennett T, Bray D, & Neville MW. (2014) Suvorexant, a dual orexin receptor antagonist for the management of insomnia. P , 39(4), 264-6. PMID: 24757363
- August 13, 2014
- 11:35 PM
- 842 views
The Controversy of Admitting 'We Do Not Know What Works'
by Rogue Medic in Rogue Medic
There are several news articles today criticizing a study because the patients might be deprived of a drug that has not been adequately studied in humans. This criticism is coming from journalists – the people who publicized the fraudulent vaccines research by Andrew Wakefield, who was trying to sell his competing vaccine and was being paid to produce negative research by lawyers suing the vaccine companies.[1]
The real controversy is that this untested drug became the standard of care ........ Read more »
Larabee TM, Liu KY, Campbell JA, & Little CM. (2012) Vasopressors in cardiac arrest: a systematic review. Resuscitation, 83(8), 932-9. PMID: 22425731
Woodhouse SP, Cox S, Boyd P, Case C, & Weber M. (1995) High dose and standard dose adrenaline do not alter survival, compared with placebo, in cardiac arrest. Resuscitation, 30(3), 243-9. PMID: 8867714
Herlitz J, Ekström L, Wennerblom B, Axelsson A, Bång A, & Holmberg S. (1995) Adrenaline in out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation. Does it make any difference?. Resuscitation, 29(3), 195-201. PMID: 7667549
Ong ME, Tan EH, Ng FS, Panchalingham A, Lim SH, Manning PG, Ong VY, Lim SH, Yap S, Tham LP.... (2007) Survival outcomes with the introduction of intravenous epinephrine in the management of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Annals of emergency medicine, 50(6), 635-42. PMID: 17509730
Olasveengen, T., Sunde, K., Brunborg, C., Thowsen, J., Steen, P., & Wik, L. (2009) Intravenous Drug Administration During Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: A Randomized Trial. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 302(20), 2222-2229. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2009.1729
Olasveengen TM, Wik L, Sunde K, & Steen PA. (2011) Outcome when adrenaline (epinephrine) was actually given vs. not given - post hoc analysis of a randomized clinical trial. Resuscitation. PMID: 22115931
Jacobs IG, Finn JC, Jelinek GA, Oxer HF, & Thompson PL. (2011) Effect of adrenaline on survival in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Resuscitation, 82(9), 1138-43. PMID: 21745533
Hagihara A, Hasegawa M, Abe T, Nagata T, Wakata Y, & Miyazaki S. (2012) Prehospital epinephrine use and survival among patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association, 307(11), 1161-8. PMID: 22436956
Hayashi Y, Iwami T, Kitamura T, Nishiuchi T, Kajino K, Sakai T, Nishiyama C, Nitta M, Hiraide A, & Kai T. (2012) Impact of early intravenous epinephrine administration on outcomes following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Circulation journal : official journal of the Japanese Circulation Society, 76(7), 1639-45. PMID: 22481099
Glover BM, Brown SP, Morrison L, Davis D, Kudenchuk PJ, Van Ottingham L, Vaillancourt C, Cheskes S, Atkins DL, Dorian P.... (2012) Wide variability in drug use in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A report from the resuscitation outcomes consortium. Resuscitation. PMID: 22858552
Donnino, M., Salciccioli, J., Howell, M., Cocchi, M., Giberson, B., Berg, K., Gautam, S., Callaway, C., & , . (2014) Time to administration of epinephrine and outcome after in-hospital cardiac arrest with non-shockable rhythms: retrospective analysis of large in-hospital data registry. BMJ, 348(may20 2). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.g3028
Callaham M, Madsen CD, Barton CW, Saunders CE, & Pointer J. (1992) A randomized clinical trial of high-dose epinephrine and norepinephrine vs standard-dose epinephrine in prehospital cardiac arrest. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association, 268(19), 2667-72. PMID: 1433686
Brown CG, Martin DR, Pepe PE, Stueven H, Cummins RO, Gonzalez E, & Jastremski M. (1992) A comparison of standard-dose and high-dose epinephrine in cardiac arrest outside the hospital. The Multicenter High-Dose Epinephrine Study Group. The New England journal of medicine, 327(15), 1051-5. PMID: 1522841
Choux C, Gueugniaud PY, Barbieux A, Pham E, Lae C, Dubien PY, & Petit P. (1995) Standard doses versus repeated high doses of epinephrine in cardiac arrest outside the hospital. Resuscitation, 29(1), 3-9. PMID: 7784720
Gueugniaud PY, Mols P, Goldstein P, Pham E, Dubien PY, Deweerdt C, Vergnion M, Petit P, & Carli P. (1998) A comparison of repeated high doses and repeated standard doses of epinephrine for cardiac arrest outside the hospital. European Epinephrine Study Group. The New England journal of medicine, 339(22), 1595-601. PMID: 9828247
Vandycke C, & Martens P. (2000) High dose versus standard dose epinephrine in cardiac arrest - a meta-analysis. Resuscitation, 45(3), 161-6. PMID: 10959014
Stiell IG, Hebert PC, Weitzman BN, Wells GA, Raman S, Stark RM, Higginson LA, Ahuja J, & Dickinson GE. (1992) High-dose epinephrine in adult cardiac arrest. The New England journal of medicine, 327(15), 1045-50. PMID: 1522840
Callaway, C. (2012) Questioning the Use of Epinephrine to Treat Cardiac Arrest. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 307(11), 1198. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2012.313
- August 11, 2014
- 11:42 AM
- 550 views
Clinical Drug Trials for Pathological Gambling
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Several drug classes hold promise for reduction in pathological gambling behavior.However, there are very few published randomized and controlled clinical drug trials in gambling subjects.Searching clinical trials and gambling on PubMed yields only one small open-label proof of concept trial for the drug tolcapone within the last year.This study found evidence that this COMT inhibitor drug reduced gambling symptoms and was accompanied by fronto-parietal activation on fMRI imaging.However, on sea........ Read more »
Grant JE, Odlaug BL, Chamberlain SR, Hampshire A, Schreiber LR, & Kim SW. (2013) A proof of concept study of tolcapone for pathological gambling: relationships with COMT genotype and brain activation. European neuropsychopharmacology : the journal of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 23(11), 1587-96. PMID: 23953269
- August 6, 2014
- 12:01 PM
- 949 views
Brain Striatum and Loss-Chasing in Gambling
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Pathological gambling (PG) is a pattern of gambling characterized by loss of control and large gambling debts.The near-miss phenomenon in gambling is the gaming scenario where gamblers sense they were very close to winning.This near-miss phenomenon can be programmed into slot machines. For example, a gambler might be presented frequently with four cherries when five cherries would result in a huge payout.The response to the near-miss in PG is often a sense that a big win is just around the corne........ Read more »
van Holst RJ, Chase HW, & Clark L. (2014) Striatal connectivity changes following gambling wins and near-misses: Associations with gambling severity. NeuroImage. Clinical, 232-9. PMID: 25068112
- August 5, 2014
- 11:00 PM
- 878 views
What is the Best Way to Manage Cardiac Arrest According to the Evidence?
by Rogue Medic in Rogue Medic
There is an excellent review article by Dr. Bentley Bobrow and Dr. Gordon Ewy on the best management of sudden cardiac arrest from the bystander to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit).
They point out something that we tend to resist learning. Cardiac arrest that is not due to respiratory causes does not need respiratory treatment. A person who is unresponsive and gasping is exhibiting signs of cardiac arrest, not signs of respiratory problems.... Read more »
Ewy, G., & Bobrow, B. (2014) Cardiocerebral Resuscitation: An Approach to Improving Survival of Patients With Primary Cardiac Arrest. Journal of Intensive Care Medicine. DOI: 10.1177/0885066614544450
- August 4, 2014
- 07:29 AM
- 1,019 views
Interview: Battling HIV-treatment With Computer Simulation
by Pieter Carriere in United Academics
Prof. Mancini computationally models HIV and other viruses’ dynamics and explains its clinical relevance.... Read more »
Mancini, E., Castiglione, F., Bernaschi, M., de Luca, A., & Sloot, P. (2012) HIV Reservoirs and Immune Surveillance Evasion Cause the Failure of Structured Treatment Interruptions: A Computational Study. PLoS ONE, 7(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0036108
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