Whether or not Lp(a) plasma levels are affected by the apoB R3500Q mutation, which causes Familial Defective apoB (FDB), is still a matter of debate. We have analyzed 300 family members of 13 unrelated Dutch index patients for the apoB mutation and the apolipoprotein(a) [apo(a)] genotype. Total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, and lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] concentrations were determined in 85 FDB het...

Self-injurious behaviour (SIB) is exhibited by individuals with a broad variety of developmental disorders and genetic abnormalities, including autism and Lesch-Nyhan, Prader-Willi and Rett syndromes. Most research has focused on environmental factors that reinforce SIB, and less is known about the biological basis of this behaviour disorder. However, animal models have been developed to study ...

Some individuals who engage in self-injurious behavior (SIB) also exhibit self-restraint. In the present study, a series of three functional analyses were conducted to determine the variables that maintained a participant's SIB, one without restraint items available, one with a preferred and effective form of self-restraint (an airplane pillow) available noncontingently, and one with this item ...

Cell lines expressing the human metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5a (hmGluR5a) and hmGluR1b were used as targets in an automated high-throughput screening (HTS) system that measures changes in intracellular Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) using fluorescence detection. This functional screen was used to identify the mGluR5-selective antagonist, SIB-1757 [6-methyl-2-(phenylazo)-3-pyridinol], which inhibite...

The formulae for computing the so-called Sib Index using codominant alleles for (1) full-sib and (2) half-sib parentage are given. Hypothesis testing is based on the distribution of conditional likelihood ratio or Bayes' factor. Thresholds for rejecting the null hypothesis and P-values were obtained in function of the number of alleles and their frequency distributions. Simulations showed that ...

Parent-offspring conflict (POC) theory is an interesting conceptual framework for understanding the dynamics of parental care. However, this theory is not easy to test empirically, as exact measures of parental investment in an experimental set-up are difficult to obtain. We have used free-ranging dogs Canis familiaris in India, to study POC in the context of extended parental care. We observed...

OBJECTIVE Radiotherapy techniques have evolved from 3D conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) to intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) where boost fields are delivered either sequentially (IMRTseq) or with a simultaneous integrated boost (IMRT+SIB). Our goal was to compare the outcomes of patients treated with IMRT+SIB to traditional standards. METHODS We analyzed the efficacy and toxicity of pati...

Self-injurious behaviour (SIB) in people with intellectual disability (ID) is an often persistent and sometimes life-threatening problem. Research suggests that body sites targeted by SIB are non-randomly distributed across the body (Symons & Thompson, 1997). Self-injury sites may also overlap with acupuncture analgesia (AA) sites, which has been linked to the opioid hypothesis of SIB. The dist...

Self-injury is a devastating, maladaptive behavior disorder that is common in developmental disabilities and is comorbid with numerous psychiatric disorders. Examples of self-injurious behavior (SIB) include head-banging, self-biting, and self-punching. The neurochemical basis of SIB is unknown; however, many different classes of drugs are prescribed (e.g., neuroleptics, atypical neuroleptics, ...

This dosimetric study investigated the impact of multileaf collimators (MLC) leaf width in volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) for head and neck cancers (HNC), either with a "standard" simultaneously integrated boost technique (S-SIB) or with a "dose painting" SIB technique (DP-SIB). HNC patients were planned either with an S-SIB comprising three dose levels, from 56 to 70 Gy (16 patients),...