- Insights in to infertility and modern therapies -

Insights into role of microRNAs in cardiac development, cardiac diseases, and developing novel therapies

Objective(s): MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a subfamily of small noncoding RNAs that play a variety of roles in regulating gene expression in nearly all organisms. They affect different biological pathways by post-transcriptionally regulating mRNAs. Aside from miRNAs’  role in maintaining cellular homeostasis, their perturbation is related to several pathologic states and dis...

Hyperprolactinemia and infertility: new insights.

Clinical vignette: A 29-year-old woman is referred for management of infertility. After menarche at age 12, menses occurred irregularly for a year and then became regular. She initiated use of oral contraceptive pills at the age of 18, then stopped at age 27 to try to conceive. Evaluation revealed hyperprolactinemia with serum prolactin of 90 ng/ml; pituitary MRI showed a 6-mm microadenoma. Oth...

Modern Psychiatry: From Genes to Therapies

The end of the 20 century has witnessed the 'coming of age' of psychiatry. After a history of scientific obscurity, during which an almost complete lack of functional insights into mental illnesses caused psychiatry to drift towards psychoanalysis and community or social psychiatry, the field has changed fundamentally. Epidemiological findings, twin studies, studies on the genetics of mental di...

Male Infertility: Genetics, Mechanism, and Therapies.

From clinical insights to new therapies.

THERE WAS A VERY POSITIVE RESPONSE to the special call, Metabolic Syndrome, appearing in this issue of the American Journal of Physiology–Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. This is an opportunity to look back at the important studies related to this topic that have appeared in this journal over the recent years. The metabolic syndrome was referred to as syndrome X by Reaven in ...

New insights and new therapies in vitiligo.

VITILIGO IS A RELATIVELY COMmon, acquired pigmentary disorder characterized by areas of depigmented skin resulting from loss of epidermal melanocytes. The prevalence of this disease varies from 0.1% to 2% in various global populations. Onset may occur at any age, but the incidence usually peaks in the second and third decades of life. Patterns of distribution of the disease include the generali...