Suchergebnisse

This collection of articles on oxidative stress in clinical practice surveys essential current research in what is a rapidly evolving field. As well as giving the reader a mechanistic overview of how oxidative stress affects cardiovascular disease, it analyzes the potential of a number of therapeutic options that target these pathways. Understanding the complexity of the cellular redox system could lead to the development of better targeted interventions that facilitate patient recovery. Even as large-scale clinical trials of so-called 'simple' antioxidant approaches such as vitamins C and E show that significant benefits for cardiovascular patients remain elusive, Studies on Cardiovascular Disorders demonstrates that such approaches are too simplistic. Beginning with a summary of redox signaling models that could induce the progression of redox-associated cardiovascular disorders, the volume moves on to examine redox-mediated protein modification under physiological and pathophysiological conditions. It provides an outline of the signaling pathways in cardiovascular development during embryogenesis, and what impact these might have in the differentiation process of resident cardiac and blastocyst derived stem cells. Further chapters detail our current knowledge of the influence the sensory nervous system exerts on the cardiovascular system, and the paradoxical role of mitochondria-derived ROS in cardiac protection. In all, almost 30 contributions cover issues as diverse as the antioxidant properties of statins in the heart and the oxidative risk factors for cardiovascular disease in women. A range of medical practitioners will find the contents of Studies on Cardiovascular Disorders provides illuminating insight into the Janus-faced role of ROS in the cardiovascular system.

INTRODUCTION: Although schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) share elements of pathology, their neural underpinnings are still under investigation. Here, structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data collected from a large sample of BD and SCZ patients and healthy controls (HC) were analyzed in terms of gray matter volume (GMV) using both voxel based morphometry (VBM) and a region of interest (ROI) approach. METHODS: The analysis was conducted on two datasets, Dataset1 (802 subjects: 243 SCZ, 176 BD, 383 HC) and Dataset2, a homogeneous subset of Dataset1 (301 subjects: 107 HC, 85 BD and 109 SCZ). General Linear Model analyses were performed 1) at the voxel-level in the whole brain (VBM study), 2) at the regional level in the anatomical regions emerged from the VBM study (ROI study). The GMV comparison across groups was integrated with the analysis of GMV correlates of different clinical dimensions. RESULTS: The VBM results of Dataset1 showed 1) in BD compared to HC, GMV deficits in right cingulate, superior temporal and calcarine cortices, 2) in SCZ compared to HC, GMV deficits in widespread cortical and subcortical areas, 3) in SCZ compared to BD, GMV deficits in insula and thalamus (p<0.05, cluster family wise error corrected). The regions showing GMV deficits in the BD group were mostly included in the SCZ ones. The ROI analyses confirmed the VBM results at the regional level in most of the clusters from the SCZ vs. HC comparison (p<0.05, Bonferroni corrected). The VBM and ROI analyses of Dataset2 provided further evidence for the enhanced GMV deficits characterizing SCZ. Based on the clinical-neuroanatomical analyses, we cannot exclude possible confounding effects due to 1) age of onset and medication in BD patients, 2) symptoms severity in SCZ patients. CONCLUSION: Our study reported both shared and specific neuroanatomical characteristics between the two disorders, suggesting more severe and generalized GMV deficits in SCZ, with a specific role for insula and thalamus. ; Funding: PB was partially funded by grants from the Ministry of Health (RF-2011-02352308). Grant support of EM was provided by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 602450 (IMAGEMEND Project). Part of the present study was conducted at the Hospital Universitario MarqueÂs de Valdecilla, University of Cantabria (Santander, Spain), under the following grant support: Carlos III Health Institute PI020499, PI050427, PI060507, Plan Nacional de Drugs Research Grant 2005- Orden sco/3246/2004, SENY Fundacio Research Grant CI 2005-0308007 and FundacioÂn MarqueÂs de Valdecilla API07/011. We wish to acknowledge IDIVAL Neuroimaging Unit for imaging acquirement and analysis. Part of the study was conducted at the Ospedale San Raffaele, Milano, supported by the European Union EU-FP7-HEALTH-F2-2008-222963 "MOODINFLAME" and by the Italian Ministry of Health RF-2011-02350980 projects. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.