OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to analyze the prevalence and clinical features of myasthenia gravis (MG) patients with and without autoimmune thyroid disease (ATD). MATERIALS AND METHODS Between 1999 and 2009, we reviewed a total of 1482 patients with MG. On the basis of thyroid evaluations, as well as neurological, clinical, and serological findings, the patients were divided into grou...

Architectural technical debt (ATD) is incurred by design decisions that intentionally or unintentionally compromise system-wide quality attributes, particularly maintainability and evolvability. ATD is harmful to the system’s long-term health, thus it needs to be identified for further management. However, existing ATD identification approaches are mainly based on source code analysis and thus ...

BACKGROUND Studies investigating the cognitive effects of serotonin depletion, using the technique of acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) by dietary means, have generally suggested that ATD impairs delayed verbal recall and recognition. In two previous studies in the elderly, this result has not been replicated and ATD impaired working memory. These results may be susceptible to type II error but ...

Cognitive reactivity (CR) is a psychological vulnerability marker of depression, whereas response to acute tryptophan depletion (ATD; a serotonergic challenge procedure) is a biological vulnerability marker. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between these markers. Thirty-nine remitted depressed patients participated in 2 ATD sessions in a double-blind crossover design. C...

A methodology was developed for predicting the human response from ATD (Anthropomorphic Test Device) tests or for improving the biofidelity of the ATD response. The ATD response and human response are considered as the output of a black box system, from which the relationship between the ATD tests and human tests was established using wavelet analysis. Based on the decompositions of both respon...

PURPOSE Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is a serious issue often leading to discontinuation of the proper regimen of antituberculosis drugs (ATD). Previous studies have suggested that antioxidant enzymes play an important role in DILI. METHODS We explored whether polymorphisms in superoxide dismutase genes, including Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD1), manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD2) an...

The Angel-Devil game is an infinite game played on an infinite chess board: In each move the Angel, a generalized chess king, jumps from his current square to some location at distance at most k, while his opponent, the Devil, blocks squares trying to strand the Angel. The Angel wins if he manages to fly on forever. It is a long-standing open question whether some Angel of sufficiently large po...

Serotonin (5-HT) is an important neurotransmitter involved in the brain-gut axis. It is possible to lower the 5-HT level in the body by means of a nutritional intervention using an amino acid mixture; the acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) method. We studied the effect of ATD on gastric emptying in healthy females, who received both ATD and placebo in a random order. Gastric emptying was measured...

A systematic endocrine investigation in dementia, depression and control subjects showed that plasma growth hormone (GH) was higher in the morning and plasma TSH concentrations were higher throughout the day in Alzheimer-type dementia (ATD) than in age-matched depressed patients (MDD), and plasma TSH concentrations were also higher throughout the day in female ATD compared with age-matched fema...

Acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) in currently depressed patients has no immediate effect on symptoms, but leads to transient symptom improvement or worsening the next day. In view of recent findings concerning the cognitive effects of serotonin manipulations, we used ATD in fourteen depressed patients to investigate whether cognitive effects following ATD predict symptom changes. We found that ...