The ocular dominance (OD) shift that occurs in visual cortex after brief monocular deprivation (MD) is a classic model of experience-dependent cortical plasticity. It has been suggested that OD plasticity in layer 2/3 of visual cortex precedes and is necessary for plasticity in the thalamocortical input layer 4. Here, we show in mouse visual cortex that rapid OD plasticity occurs simultaneously...

Ocular dominance (OD) columns, alternating regions of left and right eye input in the visual cortex of higher mammals, have long been thought to develop from an initially intermingled state by an activity-dependent process. While indirect evidence points to potential alternative mechanisms based on molecular cues, direct proof for a molecular difference between left- and right eye columns is mi...

PURPOSE: Opioid dependence (OD) is a serious and growing clinical condition with increasing social costs that requires expanding treatment beyond opioid agonist substitution. The opioid antagonist naltrexone has displayed a remarkable association of theoretical effectiveness and poor clinical utility in treating OD due to noncompliant behavior and low acceptability among patients, only partly m...

Proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) are the drugs of choice for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Esomeprazole is the latest PPI and was developed as the S-isomer of omeprazole as an attempt to improve its pharmacokinetic properties. Esomeprazole has been reported to have a somewhat higher potency in acid inhibition than other PPIs. Despite some controversy, data from clinical ...

Aim: The purpose of this study was to quantify the usage of rubber dam (RD) among general and specialty dental practitioners during composite restorative procedures in Saudi Arabia. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted from March to April 2012 in association with Saudi Dental Society on 306 general dental practitioners (GP), dentists specialized in op...

Ocular dominance (OD) plasticity in the mouse primary visual cortex (V1) declines during aging and is absent beyond postnatal day (P) 110 when mice are raised in standard cages (SCs; Lehmann and Löwel, 2008). In contrast, raising mice in an enriched environment (EE) preserved a juvenile-like OD plasticity into late adulthood (Greifzu et al., 2014). EE raising provides the mice with more social ...

Optical density (OD) of the crystalline lens has been shown in non-diabetics to increase linearly with age over the first five decades and at an increased rate thereafter; in insulin dependent diabetic (IDDM) patients, lens OD increases with age and with duration of diabetes at a rate similar to that in non-diabetics over the age of 60 years. Recently, it has been established that colour discri...

Glaucoma detection system analyses the retinal images. This system gives vital information about presence of Glaucoma, the second largest cause of blindness. Usually the Glaucoma patients have large Cup-to-Disc ratio (CDR), inspection of CDR of Optic Disc is crucial of any Glaucoma detection system. Therefore accurate segmentation Optic Disc (OD) and Cup are critical in the formulation of CDR. ...

Determination of the lecithin-sphingomyelin (L/S) ratio to predict fetal lung maturation requires rather complicated laboratory techniques which are not always available on a 24-hour basis in all hospitals. For that reason more simple tests have been developed. One of these tests, the determination of amniotic fluid optical density at 650 nm (OD 650), was initially reported to correlate well wi...

OBJECTIVE To systematically review the efficacy and safety of once-daily (OD) mesalamine for the treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC) compared with multiple-daily (MD) mesalamine. METHODS Electronic databases up to July 2011 were searched for related studies evaluating the efficacy of OD vs MD for treatment of UC. Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were considered eligible. Remission ra...