The identification of the brain morphological alterations that play important roles in neurodegenerative/neurological diseases will contribute to our understanding of the causes of these diseases. Various automated software programs are designed to provide an automatic framework to detect brain morphological changes in structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. A voxel-based morphometry ...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has seriously impacted the health of individuals and populations. In this study, proton nuclear magnetic resonance ((1)H NMR)-based metabonomics combined with multivariate pattern recognition analysis was applied to investigate the metabolic signatures of patients with COPD. Serum and urine samples were collected from COPD patients (n = 32) and healt...

The goal of the current study was to further investigate the late neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia by examining cross-sectional, age-related changes in cognitive function among young adult: 1) siblings of individuals with schizophrenia (N = 66); (2) healthy control participants (N = 77); and (3) the siblings of healthy controls (N = 77). All subjects participated in a battery of t...

OBJECTIVE Metals such as copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), iron (Fe) are essential for human beings. Chronic metabolic disturbances may result from an excess or deficiency of these metals. Ca and Mg are also nutrient elements and play an important role in biological systems. Thus, it is very important to check regularly trace elements concentration in the body. The purpose of this study was to measure th...

Background: CD163-expressing macrophages are involved in the inflammatory response in asthma. Objective: To assess sputum and serum soluble CD163 (sCD163) and cytokine levels in patients with asthma. Further discussed was the difference between sCD163 and other classic inflammatory mediators. Methods: Sputum was successfully induced in asthma patients (n=85) and healthy controls (n=21). Interle...

OBJECTIVE Chronic cough (CC) and paradoxical vocal fold movement (PVFM) may be associated with voice problems. Objective acoustic and electroglottographic (EGG) measures have the capacity to delineate these vocal characteristics. This study investigated acoustic and EGG voice features of CC and PVFM. PATIENTS AND METHODS Acoustic and EGG findings were compared among 5 groups of participants. ...

BACKGROUND HLA-B*27 is strongly associated with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). It represents a family of alleles that differ among ethnic groups. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine the distribution of HLA-B*27 alleles in AS patients and healthy controls in Isfahan (Iran). METHODS Sixty AS patients and 430 healthy blood donors were selected. All subjects were HLA-B*27 positive by...

Sixty three bronchial mucosal biopsies were collected from 12 patients recovering from respiratory infections with influenza virus (n = 8) and Mycoplasma (n = 4). The bronchoscopy was performed within 1-6 wks from the onset of symptoms. Of the 63 biopsies prepared for light microscopy, 27 biopsies from the influenza patients and 10 from the Mycoplasia patients were further analysed at the light...