conclusions our data showed that inhalation of diazinon during pregnancy increased the hepatocyte area and hepatocyte apoptosis while it decreased the sinusoid area of the fetal liver. materials and methods twenty-five pregnant balb/c mice (25 - 30 gr) were divided into five equal groups in the animal lab of baqiyatallah university of medical sciences, tehran, iran. the normal group was without...

During the last month of intra-uterine life, the steroidogenic response of the ovine fetal adrenal glands to ACTH increases and becomes maximal at the time of birth. This development involves modifications at different steps of the adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) action mechanism. It has been shown that the enhanced capacity of the cells to produce cAMP is related to at least three factors: ...

The fetal Doppler Ultrasound (DUS) is commonly used for monitoring fetal heart rate and can also be used for identifying the event timings of fetal cardiac valve motions. In early-stage fetuses, the detected Doppler signal suffers from noise and signal loss due to the fetal movements and changing fetal location during the measurement procedure. The fetal cardiac intervals, which can be estimate...

Experience with more than 150 pregnancies of women with systemic lupus erythematosus demonstrates that: many conventional measures of lupus activity, including complement, platelet count and urinary protein, are invalid during pregnancy; pregnancy does not cause lupus exacerbation; anti-phospholipid antibody is common and is closely associated with fetal loss, but is not the sole determinant fa...

The mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) signalling pathway functions as a nutrient sensor, both in individual cells and, more globally, in organs such as the fat body in Drosophila and the hypothalamus in the rat. The activity of placental amino acid transporters is decreased in IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction), and recent experimental evidence suggests that these changes contribute dire...

To investigate the maternal-fetal transfer of tobramycin (TBM) and its distribution in the fetus, a single dose of 2 mg/kg was administered intramuscularly to 35 pregnant patients (13 first trimester, 22 second trimester) 0.5 to 34 h before hysterectomy. TBM concentration was assayed microbiologically in maternal serum, fetal tissues (placenta, brain, lung, liver, and kidney), and fluids (amnio...

Fetal baroreflex responsiveness increases in late gestation. An important modulator of baroreflex activity is the generation of nitric oxide in the brainstem nuclei that integrate afferent and efferent reflex activity. The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that nitric oxide synthase (NOS) isoforms are expressed in the fetal brainstem and that the expression of one or more of the...

An assay procedure was developed in which phosphatidyl[2-(3)H]inositol was employed as substrate for the measurement of phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C activity. Employing this assay, phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C activity in human fetal membranes and uterine decidua was identified and characterized. The specific activity of this enzyme in amnion (4.4 mumol x mg(-1...

Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), an enzyme involved in the catabolism of tryptophan, is expressed by a variety of cells and tissues such as macrophages, dendritic cells, cells of the endocrine system and by the placenta. IFN- γ is the main inducer of this enzyme. IDO acts as an important defense mechanism of innate immunity against pathogens. It also has tumor suppressive activity and prolong...

background: fetal heart rate (fhr) extracted from abdominal electrocardiogram (ecg) is a powerful non-invasive method in appropriately assessing the fetus well-being during pregnancy. despite significant advances in the field of electrocardiography, the analysis of fetal ecg (fecg) signal is considered a challenging issue which is mainly due to low signal to noise ratio (snr) of fecg. objective...