Sir, I read with interest the recent report of acute myopia induced by topiramate used for migraine prophylaxis. I would like to make certain observations. Firstly, Bhattacharyya et al used two medications (flunarizine and topiramate) as the initial preventive treatment of migraine. However, the guidelines recommend usage of a single drug. The drug should be considered a failure only after an a...

Insufficient clinical trial data were available to prove the efficacy of acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis. A multicenter, double-dummy, single-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trial was conducted at the outpatient departments of acupuncture at 5 hospitals in China to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture. A total of 140 patients with migraine without aura were recruited and assig...

Endocytosis of synaptic vesicles follows exocytosis, and both processes require external Ca(2+). However, it is not known whether Ca(2+) influx through one route initiates both processes. At larval Drosophila neuromuscular junctions, we separately measured exocytosis and endocytosis using FM1-43. In a temperature-sensitive Ca(2+) channel mutant, cacophony(TS2), exocytosis induced by high K(+) d...

Evidence has accumulated suggesting that the presence of calcium is critical for development of hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP). However, there is a paucity of information about whether calcium's role in LTP is pre- or postsynaptic. In the present study, we examined the effectiveness of nitrendipine, verapamil, flunarizine and the benzodiazepine diazepam in: blocking voltage-dependent ...

The growth of new lymphatic vessels (lymphangiogenesis) in tumors is an integral step in the metastatic spread of tumor cells, first to the sentinel lymph nodes that surround the tumor and then elsewhere in the body. Currently, no selective agents designed to prevent lymphatic vessel growth have been approved for clinical use, and there is an important potential clinical niche for antilymphangi...

Cytochrome P450 (CYP) 2J2 is one of the human CYPs involved in phase I xenobiotics metabolism. It is mainly expressed in extrahepatic tissues, including intestine and cardiovascular systems. The general role of CYP2J2 in drug metabolism is not yet fully understood, and the recent discovery that CYP2J2 can metabolize a wide range of structurally diverse drugs and its primary distribution in the ...

By fura-2 fluorometry, we investigated the direct effects of Ca2+ antagonists including a new benzothiazepine, clentiazem, on the high-K(+)-evoked increase in the concentration of cytosolic free Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) in rat cerebral synaptosomes and cultured hippocampal neurons. In both preparations, metal ions inhibited the high-K(+)-induced increase in [Ca2+]i, in the following order: La3+ greater t...

The inhibitory effects of calcium antagonists on high-potassium or glutamate (Glu) enhanced intracellular calcium ion ([Ca2+]i) levels were studied in cultured cerebellar granule cells. Dosages between 0.5 and 10 microM of flunarizine, nicardipine, SM6586 and SM12565 reduced the rise in [Ca2+]i induced by 50 mM KCl in a dose-dependent manner, although diltiazem, verapamil and nifedipine showed ...