The degree of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation in depressed patients with schizoaffective disorder was compared to that seen in patients with major depressive disorder with and without delusional features. The frequency of nonsuppression to dexamethasone was similar for all three diagnostic groups. Maximum postdexamethasone plasma cortisol was greater for delusional depre...

An intact hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis with effective intracellular glucocorticoid anti-inflammatory activity is essential for host survival following exposure to an infectious agent. Glucocorticoids play a major role in regulating the activity of nuclear factor-kappa- B, which has a crucial and generalized role in inducing cytokine gene transcription after exposure to an invading ...

Background: The valgus cut angle (VCA) of the distal femur in Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) is measured preoperativelyon three-joint alignment radiographs. The anatomical axis of the femur can be described as the anatomical axis of thefull length of the femur or as the anatomical axis of the distal half of the femur, which may result in different anglesin some cases. During TKA, the anatomical ...

Depression is a mental disorder that results from changes in the central nervous system (CNS) that may result from immunological abnormalities. According to the World Health Organization, major depression will become the leading cause of disability worldwide. Accumulating evidence has indicated the existence of reciprocal communication pathways between nervous, endocrine and immune systems. The...

We examine the implications for the distribution of extrasolar planets based on the null results from two of the largest direct imaging surveys published to date. Combining the measured contrast curves from 23 of the stars observed with the VLT NACO adaptive optics system by Masciadri et al. (2005), and 47 of the stars observed with the VLT NACO SDI and MMT SDI devices by Biller et al. (2007) (...

It is well known that abnormality of neuroendocrine function plays an important role in the occurrence of depression. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is one of the important neuroendocrine axes, and enhanced activity of this axis is considered a key neurobiological alteration in major depression. Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), the major physiological regulator of the HPA sy...

mRNA localization is a powerful mechanism for targeting factors to different regions of the cell and is used in Drosophila to pattern the early embryo. During oogenesis of the wasp Nasonia, mRNA localization is used extensively to replace the function of the Drosophila bicoid gene for the initiation of patterning along the antero-posterior axis. Nasonia localizes both caudal and nanos to the po...