BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Odors can elicit a range of behaviors and emotions. Our purpose was to identify regional activation of the human cerebral cortex in response to pleasant (positive hedonic value) and unpleasant (negative hedonic value) odors. METHODS Thirteen neurologically normal adults underwent functional MR imaging of frontal and anterior temporal brain regions with a gradient-echo e...

Objective. To determine the correlation between maternal bile acid (BA) level and fetal pulmonary surfactant in rats and study the effects of BA on fetal lung in rat model of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy. Methods. Forty pregnant rats were treated with (A) 5.5 mg/kg BA, (B) 1.4 mg/kg BA, and (C) 1 ml physiological saline. Levels of total bile acid (TBA), ALT, AST, TBIL, DBIL, and SP-A w...

Abnormalities in the P300 ERP, elicited by the oddball task and measured using EEG, have been found in a number of central nervous system disorders including schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, and alcohol dependence. While electrophysiological studies provide high temporal resolution, localizing the P300 deficit has been particularly difficult because the measurements are collected from the sc...

Selection (28 generations, G) in a Large White-Landrace composite population for traits aimed at increasing live pigs born per litter (BA), with additional selection for increased 180-d weight (WT180) and longissimus muscle area (LMA) and decreased back fat (BF10) in the last 8 generations, was practiced. Objectives herein were to estimate genetic and phenotypic responses and genetic parameters...

Adequate rest is essential to avoid fatigue and disruption of homeostasis. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the decision to rest are not well understood. In the present study, we aimed to clarify the neural mechanisms of this decision-making process using magnetoencephalography. Fifteen healthy volunteers participated in decision and control experiments performed in a cross-over fashio...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship among coronary atherosclerosis and functional, morphologic, and mechanical parameters assessed noninvasively within the brachial artery (BA). BACKGROUND Flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) of the BA, intima-media thickness (IMT) of the carotid artery, and distensibility of the aorta have been correlated with the presence of c...

Bronchial asthma (BA) is a chronic inflammatory condition with increasing incidence and prevalence worldwide. BA is currently the most prevalent chronic disease in pediatric patients. The majority of BA patients are therapeutically well controlled with guideline based anti-inflammatory therapies; however, there is also a clinically recognized proportion of patients who do not benefit from curre...

BACKGROUND Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae, able to infect large numbers of people. This work is relevant to Juazeiro-BA, a hyper-endemic area for leprosy, since unravel the behavior of the disease in the area, may suggest the decision making for sectors of surveillance, establishing strategies, organizing and evaluating programs and services. OBJECTIVES To ana...

Over the last decade, many neuroimaging studies have assessed the human brain networks underlying action observation and imitation using a variety of tasks and paradigms. Nevertheless, questions concerning which areas consistently contribute to these networks irrespective of the particular experimental design and how such processing may be lateralized remain unresolved. The current study aimed ...

The aim of this study was to understand the effects of projective bone area (BA) size of the spine on bone density and the diagnosis of osteoporosis. Measurements of BA, bone mineral content (BMC), areal bone density (aBMD) and volumetric bone density (vBMD) at the posteroanterior (PA) lumbar spine (vertebrae L2-L4) followed by a paired PA/lateral spine (L2-L4) were made using a dual-energy X-r...