The mechanism(s) underlying stress-induced colonic hypersensitivity (SICH) are incompletely understood. Our aims were to assess the acute and delayed (24 h) effect of water avoidance (WA) stress on visceral nociception in awake male Wistar rats and to evaluate the role of two stress-related modulation systems: the substance P/neurokinin-1 receptor (SP/NK(1)R) and the corticotropin-releasing fac...

INTRODUCTION Plantar hyperhidrosis is present in 50% of patients with hyperhidrosis. Thoracic sympathectomy is an important tool for the treatment of this condition, which is successful in about 60% of patients. For the remaining patients, lumbar sympathectomy is the procedure of choice. As new minimally invasive techniques have been developed, a significant demand for this type of access has l...

Pressure Ulcers (PUs) severely impair patient quality of life and account for a high percentage of annual healthcare costs. Lumbar sympathectomy has previously been used for the treatment of chronic leg ulcers. It is still unclear, however, whether lumbar sympathectomy accelerates wound healing in sacrococcygeal skin, a high-risk area for PUs in mostly bedridden patients. Thirty-six Sprague Daw...

background: primary hyperhidrosis (ph) refers to excessive sweating, beyond normal physiological levels, in specific sites of the body for unknown reasons. it is usually bilateral and is most prominent in the palms, axillae, feet, and face. ph prevalence is estimated to be 0%-6.1% in different populations. it usually begins in childhood and is more frequent in women. in 57% of cases, there is a...

Circadian clocks are responsible for daily rhythms in a wide array of processes, including gastrointestinal (GI) function. These are vital for normal digestive rhythms and overall health. Previous studies demonstrated circadian clocks within the cells of GI tissue. The present study examines the roles played by the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), master circadian pacemaker for overt circadian rhy...

Cells of the exocrine pancreas produce digestive enzymes potentially harmful to the intestinal mucosa. Dopamine has been reported to protect against mucosal injury. In looking for the source of dopamine in the small intestine, we found that the duodenal juice contains high levels of dopamine and that the pancreas itself has a high dopamine [and dihydroxyphenylalanine (dopa)] content that does n...

The respective roles of the sympathetic nerve fibers and adrenal medulla in the regulation of blood pressure and heart rate were studied in normotensive and hypertensive rats. Chemical sympathectomy alone, by treatment with 6OH-DA, or bilateral adrenalectomy reduced blood pressure only slightly in normotensive animals. In animals made hypertensive with deoxycorticosterone (DOCA) and saline, eac...

INTRODUCTION Historically, medical students have been deployed to care for disaster victims but may not have been properly educated to do so. A previous evaluation of senior civilian medical students in Belgium revealed that they are woefully unprepared. Based on the nature of their military training, we hypothesised that military medical students were better educated and prepared than their ci...

The inherent safety, convenience, availability, nutritional content, aesthetic appeal, and variety that typify our food supplies are a hallmark of modern life, but this was not always the case. For the last 100 years we have been witnessing dramatic advances in the scientific understanding and engineering techniques that increase agricultural production and allow for the commercial-scale produc...

According to the conventional approach neural ensembles are modeled with fixed ionic concentrations in the extracellular environment. However, in some cases the extracellular concentration of potassium ions cannot be regarded as constant. Such cases represent specific chemical pathway for neurons to interact and can influence strongly the behavior of single neurons and of large ensembles. The r...