The offspring of nonagenarian siblings suffer less from age related conditions and have a lower risk of mortality compared to their partners. Fibroblast strains derived from such offspring in middle age show different in vitro responses to stress, more stress-induced apoptosis and less senescence when compared to strains of their partners. Aiming to find differences in cellular metabolism in vi...

OBJECTIVE Animal studies have indicated that maternal androgen levels influence the intrauterine environment and development of the offspring. Human data are missing. We therefore investigated the possible association between maternal androgens and offspring size at birth in humans. DESIGN A random sample of parous Caucasian women (n=147) was followed prospectively through pregnancy. METHOD...

Parental care results in increased hippocampal volumes through adaptive stress responses in developing animals. However, human studies have not yet provided consistent findings analogous to the animal literature, possibly because parental care in humans is likely intermingled with parental overprotection, as suggested by the optimal parenting theory. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the effe...

Background:   H2-EB1 molecule which is the homolog of Human HLA-DRB1 is proposed to be associated with allergic rhinitis (AR). Construction of   H2-Eb1 knockout animal models provides a tool to elucidate the role of H2-EB1 and AR pathogenesis. Objective:   To establish the H2-Eb1 knockout model and investigate the H2-EB1 functions in   H2-Eb1 knockout mice as a model of AR. Methods: The Cre/Lox...

Background & Aims: Today, due to the modern industrial life of human beings, stress has become prevalent among them and they will suffer from its complications. Exposure to stress during pregnancy can change many babies' normal physiological processes. The separate and combined effects of three common types of prenatal stress were investigated on motor learning of male offspring of rats. Method...

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is associated with nervous system alterations in both human and animal models. This study was done to determine the effect of gestational diabetes on the Purkinje and granular cells in the cerebellum of rat offspring.  Methods: 10 Wistar rats Dams were randomly allocated in control and diabetic group. The experimental group received 40 mg/kg/body wei...

Interbreeding between wild fish and escaped farmed fish (or deliberate releases in enhancement/ranching) could result in genetic changes in the wild populations that reduce overall fitness and productivity (Utter et al. 1993; Utter 1998). Although this problem has been discussed for a long time (e.g. Hindar et al. 1990; Skaala et al. 1990) experimental evidence of harmful effects from interbree...

The paper presents an optimization algorithm that falls in the category of genetic, or evolutionary algorithms. While the bit exchange is the basis of most of the Genetic Algorithms (GA) in research and applications in America, some alternatives, also in the category of evolutionary algorithms, but use a direct, geometrical approach have gained popularity in Europe and Asia. The Bell-Curve Base...

Introduction: - Significant increase in usage of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in consumer products, has increased its exposures to human and animals. Although there are some reports regarding the effects of AgNPs on complex organisms, no report was found as to its effects on neurobehavioral ontogeny. Methods: To investigate the effects of maternal exposure to AgNPs on development of neu...

With lenses from multiple disciplines, contributors to this volume examine culture and parenting effects on child development and individual and cultural wellbeing. The contributions examine in more detail what might be considered baselines for social mammalian and human development. The volume includes examinations of specific cultures, reviews of hunter-gatherer cultures on particular topics,...