Rationale: Heart valves develop from precursor structures called cardiac cushions, an endothelial-lined cardiac jelly that resides in the inner side of the heart tube. The cushions are then invaded by cells from different sources, undergo a series of complicated and poorly understood remodeling processes, and give rise to valves. Disruption of the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling axis i...

Background and objectives: Considering the increasing prevalence of depression, many studies are launched to investigate new antidepressant treatments. The present research has shown how psilocybin as an active compound of Psilocybe cubensis (Earle) Singer extract (PCE) can change the parameters related to depression and anxiety in animal models. Both ...

the antidepressant effects of aloe vera hydro alcoholic extract at different concentrations were compared with the fluoxetine-treated and the control groups of mice using forced - swimming, fst and open box, oft tests. the mice were evaluated in five groups (control, taking aloe vera at the dosage levels of 150 mg/kg, 300 mg/kg, and 450 mg/kg, and finally fluoxetine at a dose of 10 mg/kg) by th...

The measurement of blood-plasma absolute velocity distributions with high spatial and temporal resolution in vivo is important for the investigation of embryonic heart at its early stage of development. We introduce a novel method to measure absolute blood flow velocity based on high speed spectral domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) and apply it to measure velocities across the heart out...

Dysmorphogenesis of the cardiac outflow tract (OFT) causes many congenital heart defects, including those associated with DiGeorge syndrome. Genetic manipulation in the mouse and mutational analysis in patients have shown that Tbx1, a T-box transcription factor, has a key role in the pathogenesis of this syndrome. Here, we have dissected Tbx1 function during OFT development using genetically mo...

The progress of molecular genetics has enabled us to identify the genes responsible for congenital heart malformations. However, recent studies suggest that congenital heart diseases are induced not only by mutations in certain genes, but also by abnormal maternal factors. A high concentration of maternal retinoic acid (RA), the active derivative of vitamin A, is well known as a teratogenic age...

Even though the last 30 y has witnessed a remarkable increase in worldwide efforts to understand agricultural origins (OA), Gremillion et al. (1) find fault with the vast majority of this work, which they label as “particularism” and argue that it lacks sufficient inclusion of theory in the initial formulation of OA explanations. This label of particularism is applied to a remarkably broad spec...