Among the wide range of symptoms neglected or resistant to conventional treatments in clinical practice, itch is emerging gradually as a theme to be studied. Itch complaints and the negative effects in the quality of life are observed in several medical fields. Although the partially obscure pathophysiology, some researchers decided to check and test the use of psychotropic drugs in resistant i...

Pruritus is an individual unpleasant sensation of human sensory nervous system. In the physiological condition it excerts a self-protective mechanism to protect the skin against external harmful agents. Pruritoceptive itch is also a major symptom of skin diseases and a common reason for consulting a dermatologist in clinic. It has been well known that both histamine-dependent and histamine-inde...

Alopecia areata (AA) is commonly characterized by patchy areas of hair loss on the scalp. AA has been considered as a tissue-specific and T cell-mediated autoimmune disease of the hair follicles with a genetic predisposition to hair loss (1, 2). Patients with AA sometimes report experiencing itch on the scalp at the same time as an increase in hair loss activity. However, the relationship betwe...

Miniature inverted repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are thought to be a driving force for genome evolution. Although numerous MITEs are found associated with genes, little is known about their function in gene regulation. Whereas the rice ubiquitin2 (rubq2) promoter in rice (Oryza sativa) line IR24 contains two nested MITEs (Kiddo and MDM1), that in line T309 has lost Kiddo, providing an op...

Itch (pruritus) is one of the most often seen sensory phenomena in clinical practice. Recent neurophysiological findings proposed the existence of a novel pruriceptive system which includes a multitude of pruritogenic (itch-inducing) peripheral mediators, itch-selective pruriceptors, sensory afferent networks, spinal cord neurons, and certain central nervous system regions. In this review, we f...

Chronic itch could be a presenting sign of malignancy. Pruritus of lymphoma is the common prototype of paraneoplastic itch and can precede other clinical signs by weeks and months. Paraneoplastic pruritus has also been associated with solid tumors and is an important clinical symptom in paraneoplastic skin diseases such as erythroderma, Grovers disease, malignant acanthosis nigricans, generaliz...

BACKGROUND Molecular characterization of Demodex mites is being used to identify mite species in dogs. This technique is now being applied to cat Demodex species, allowing for better characterization of the mites. HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES Molecular diagnostics will clarify the existence of diverse Demodex mites identified morphologically. ANIMALS A cat with generalized demodicosis secondary to...

Several studies show that itch and scratching cannot only be induced by pruritogens like histamine or cowhage, but also by the presentation of certain (audio-) visual stimuli like pictures on crawling insects or videos showing other people scratching. This phenomenon is coined "Contagious itch" (CI). Due to the fact that CI is more profound in patients with the chronic itchy skin disease atopic...

Dr Itch is evaluating a young man named Sam who has pruritic papules on his hands and genitals. A mineral oil preparation confirms scabies. Dr Itch recommends treatment with permethrin cream. Sam reveals that he lives with his girlfriend and brother, both of whom have developed symptoms suggestive of scabies. Neither Sam’s girlfriend nor his brother is a patient of Dr Itch. In fact, Sam confide...