The effect of the removal of the epiphysis on the antidepressive properties of paradoxical sleep deprivation in rats]

After REM sleep deprivation antidepressant shifts in forced swimming with increase of time of immobility and decrease of rhythmical index of depression were observed. Pinealectomy did not remove, but attenuated these behavioural changes.     

The antidepressive properties of anaprilin]

After chronic administration of propranolol (1 and 5 mg/kg, 14 days) to rats time-course of forced swimming changed with the decrease of rhythmical index of depression. The drug attenuated depressogenic properties of reserpine and clonidine. Propranolol antidepressive activity is attributed to blockade cerebral adrenoreceptors.     

The effect of the deprivation of the paradoxical sleep stage on the temporal dynamics of swimming in rats with antidepressive and depressant exposures]

After REM sleep deprivation the time-course of the forced swimming was reorganized. As shown, reduction of rhythmical index of depression, such effect has an antidepressive nature. In this model potentiation of specific activity of antidepressant imipramine and attenuation of depressive properties of clonidine were observed. These results suggest that shifts in sleep phase structure may be a source of restriction of circadian desynchronosis, upon which depression is based.     

A biorhythmologic approach to evaluating forced swimming as an experimental model of a "depressive" state

Rhythmical structure of forced swimming was studied on rats. Reserpine (1 mg/kg, 24 h before testing), clonidine (150 mkg/kg) and prolonged repeated striatal stimulation induced behavioural depression with reorganization of swimming rhythm and increase of short cycles (less than 6 s) of immobility. After chronic administration of antidepressants (imipramine, amitriptyline, niamid, 10 mg/kg/day, during 14 days), on the contrary, the number of these cycles diminished, while the number of active swimming cycles increased. Chrono-biological "index of depression" is suggested to express more exactly behavioural depression and specific activity of antidepressants than usual registration of immobility time.     

The influence of epiphysectomy and melatonin on the antidepressive effect in disordered function of the beta-adrenergic mechanisms in rats]

After chronic administration of beta-adrenoblocker propranolol (1 mg/kg, 14 days) reorganization of time course of forced swimming with decrease of rhythmical index of depression was observed. Pinealectomy slightly attenuated, and melatonin (1 mg/kg) potentiated this effect. As proposed, antidepressive properties of beta-adrenoblockade primarily are not connected with pharmacological denervation of the pineal gland.     

The temporal dynamics of swimming in rats as a possible index of the circadian mobility of the animals

By the time course of forced swimming all rats may be separated in several groups with typical patterns of circadian motility. In case when active swimming movements and reduced immobility predominated, invert type of daily chronogram with low activity at the night hours and high sensitivity to chronic imipramine treatment were observed. Considerable immobility correlates with clear circadian rhythm and weak response to antidepressant. It is suggested that rhythmical pattern of the forced swimming may be used as predicator of circadian motility type.     

Dynamics of changes in the electroretinogram of isolated frog and turtle retinas during rhythmic photic stimulation in conditions of induced lipid peroxidation

Comparative study of isolated retinas of frogs and turtles exposed to rhythmical photostimulation was conducted. It was shown that there are marked differences between the responses of isolated retinas of frogs and turtles to the rhythmical photostimulation. A considerable depression of the total amplitude of the rhythmical electroretinogram was observed under the conditions of induced lipid peroxidation. Introduction of a selenium compound to the superfusing medium increased to a certain extent both the single and rhythmical responses of isolated retinas of the animals.     

The role of the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nuclei in changing the sensitivity of animals to stress]

Destruction of the circadian pacemaker: suprachiasmatic nuclei of the hypothalamus, enhances the anxiety, sympathetic tone, and induced a reorganising of the time course of forced swimming. In rats under acute stress, these shifts were more obvious. Primary disorganisation of rhythmical processes seems to augment animals' sensitivity to stress.     

Principles of complementary medicine in terms of a suggested scientific basis

In order to create a scientific basis of complementary medicine it is certainly necessary to add a more non-local approach to the molecular substance of orthodox "life-sciences". It should be able to explain strange phenomena like healing by homeopathy or acupuncture. A possible frame concerns oscillatory electromagnetic interactions as regulatory and - in case of disease--deregulatory impulses of the organisms. These couplings are found, for instance, in biological rhythms, external rhythmical influences (sun exposure, atmospheric disturbances), and vibrations of the body over a huge range of frequencies. One basic example is biophotons and "delayed luminescence".     

The Effects of Inhaled <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pimpinella peregrina</Emphasis> Essential Oil on Scopolamine-Induced Memory Impairment,Anxiety, and Depression in Laboratory Rats

In the present study, we identified the effects of inhaled Pimpinella peregrina essential oil (1 and 3 %, for 21 continuous days) on scopolamine-induced memory impairment, anxiety, and depression in laboratory rats. Y-maze and radial arm-maze tests were used for assessing memory processes. Also, the anxiety and depressive responses were studied by means of the elevated plus-maze and forced swimming tests. The scopolamine alone-treated rats exhibited the following: decrease of the spontaneous alternation percentage in Y-maze test, increase of the number of working and reference memory errors in radial arm-maze test, along with decrease of the exploratory activity, the percentage of the time spent and the number of entries in the open arm within elevated plus-maze test and decrease of swimming time and increase of immobility time within forced swimming test. Inhalation of the P. peregrina essential oil significantly improved memory formation and exhibited anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects in scopolamine-treated rats. Our results suggest that the P. peregrina essential oil inhalation ameliorates scopolamine-induced memory impairment, anxiety, and depression. Moreover, studies on the P. peregrina essential oil may open a new therapeutic window for the prevention of neurological abnormalities closely related to Alzheimer’s disease.     

Locomotion and neuromuscular system of Aglantha digitale

Aglantha digitale swims in two ways: a slow rhythmical swim typical of hydromedusae in general and a sudden rapid movement that appears to be an escape response. The swimming musculature is an extremely well developed striated circular muscle layer that possesses a sarcoplasmic reticulum. The nervous system of this species can be divided into three units: an inner nerve ring and an outer nerve ring, which are joined by unusually large transmesogleal pathways, a group of giant axons that extends over the surface of the swimming muscle, and the radial canal. Well developed ciliated sensory cells are located on the exumbrellar surface of the margin. Consideration of these properties of the organisation of this species suggests that normal slow swimming is controlled by a mechanism similar to that found in other medusae, while the escape response is the result of the action of the giant axons.     

Planktonic copepods reacting selectively to hydrodynamic disturbances

In the water column, planktonic copepods encounter small-scale hydrodynamic disturbances generated by fellow zooplankters. Our question is whether or not the copepods can distinguish between hydrodynamic disturbances created by predators, prey, conspecifics and/or mates. We used a Schlieren optical system with a density gradient in the water volume and filmed at 48 frames per second to record the behaviour of copepods during encounters with an artificial hydrodynamic disturbance. We observed the reactions of Cyclops scutifer and Epischura nordenskioldi towards disturbances of different strengths. We also re-examined an earlier report on tandem swimming in C. scutifer while attempting to mate, using novel mathematical tools to analyse possible correlations between the two mates. We conclude that the information within the hydrodynamic disturbances created by swimming zooplankters has enough content for differentiated reactions. We also suggest that the adaptive value of tandem swimming during mating results in offspring capable of executing escape reactions comparable in strength to the disturbances.     

Complaints of Sleep Disturbances Are Associated with Cardiovascular Disease: Results from the Gutenberg Health Study

Background

Despite their high prevalence, sleep disorders often remain unrecognized and untreated because of barriers to assessment and management. The aims of the present study were to examine associations of complaints of sleep disturbances with cardiovascular disease, related risk factors, and inflammation in the community and to determine the contribution of sleep disturbances to self-perceived physical health.

Method

The sample consists of n = 10.000 participants, aged 35 to 74 years of a population based community sample in Germany. Cross-sectional associations of complaints of sleep disturbances with cardiovascular risk factors and disease, biomarkers of inflammation, depression, anxiety, and physical health status were analyzed.

Results

19% of our sample endorsed clinically significant sleep disturbances. In the unadjusted analyses severity of sleep disturbances increased with female sex, low socioeconomic status, living without a partnership, cardiovascular disease, depression, anxiety, poor physical health, increased levels of C-reactive protein and fibrinogen. After multivariate adjustment robust associations with coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction and dyslipidemia remained. Complaints of sleep disturbances were strong and independent contributors to self-perceived poor physical health beyond depression, anxiety and medical disease burden.

Conclusions

Given the high prevalence of complaints of sleep disturbances and their strong impact on health status, increased efforts should be undertaken for their identification and treatment.     

The striatum and the organization of forced swimming in rats

Prolonged repeated electric stimulation of rats striatum causes stable behavioural depression and reorganization of temporal dynamics of forced swimming. Simultaneously increases the depression index offered by us as ratio of the number of immobilization cycles shorter than 6 s to the total number of active swimming cycles. Striatectomy and amphetamine administration (1 mg/kg) uniformly change the rhythmic structure of swimming with an increase of animals general motor activity without change of the depression index. It is suggested to use striatal inactivation as a model of depression state.     

Swimming performance in early development and the "other" consequences of egg size for ciliated planktonic larvae

The evolutionary significance of egg size in marine invertebrates is commonly perceived in energetic terms. Embryonic size should also have direct effects upon the forces that govern swimming, a behavior common to early larval development in the plankton. If swimming is ecologically important, early larvae may need to perform to a certain "standard", or threshold of speed and/or stability. The existence of performance standards in early development could therefore act to constrain the evolution of egg size and the evolution of development. Here we present the key parameters that characterize the upward swimming speed of ciliated spheroidal larvae moving at very low Reynolds numbers. The dependence of maximum supported mass upon larval size, and the independence of neutral-weight swimming speed from size, lead to hypotheses about scaling of swimming speed with size. Experimental studies with thirteen broadcast-spawning planktotrophs demonstrate that free-living embryonic swimmers in all of these species conform to a strong negative scaling of density with size that offsets increases in mass with increasing size. This trend suggests that swimming ability is broadly under selection in early development. In experimental studies and in a hydrodynamic model of larval swimming, the performance of trochophore larvae provides support for our hypothesized scaling relationships, and also for the concept of a standard in swimming speed. Echinoid blastulae, however, show relationships between speed and size that are not predicted by our scaling arguments. Results for echinoids suggest that differences in ciliary tip speed, or possibly in spatial density of cilia over the blastula's surface, result in significant differences in species' performance. Strong phyletic differences in the initial patterning and growth of structures used for swimming thus appear to cause significant differences in the relationship of swimming ability with embryo size.     

Neurophysiological model of cognitive space

The aim of the study was to find out how EEG rhythmical patterns change with gradual changes of a degree of verbal and spatial thinking involved in the process of task solving. The obtained data allowed us to draw two principally new conclusions. 1. During performance of mixed tasks the spatial and verbal thinking do not mix, and their rhythmical signs are both present with their basic properties preserved. A mixed rhythmical pattern is thus a superposition of a spatial and a verbal pattern. 2. It is possible to introduce a "distance" between mental conditions as a measure of difference in the corresponding EEG power spectra. With such distances calculated, multidimensional scaling methods may be used to represent cognitive states as points on a plane. Cognitive states form constellations with shapes reasonably reflecting psychological properties of cognitive tasks. The results suggest the existence of a "cognitive space", whose structure may be revealed by objective electrophysiological methods.     

Electroacupuncture attenuates the decrease of hippocampal progenitor cell proliferation in the adult rats exposed to chronic unpredictable stress

The present study was designed to investigate whether electroacupuncture (EA) was beneficial to extenuate the behavioral deficit in a rat model of depression induced by chronic unpredictable stress (CUS) and to observe the effect of EA on progenitor cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus (DG) of hippocampus. EA was performed on acupoints "Bai-Hui" (Du 20) and unilateral "An-Mian" (EX 17) once daily for 3 consecutive weeks, 2 weeks post CUS procedure. Open field test and forced swimming test were employed to evaluate the behavioral activity during a stress period or EA treatment. The results revealed that exposure to CUS resulted in a decrease of behavioral activity, whilst a daily session of EA treatment significantly reversed the behavioral deficit of these depression model rats. Moreover, as shown by 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine (BrdU) labeling immunohistochemistry, hippocampal progenitor cell proliferation was decreased in the DG of depression model rats. Intriguingly, EA treatment effectively blocked this decrease. The study demonstrated a potential antidepressant-like effect of EA treatment on CUS induced depression model rats, which might be mediated by up-regulating the hippocampal progenitor cell proliferation.     

Role of actin microfilaments in depression of acetylcholine-induced current in Helix lucorum neurons on cellular analogue of habituation

Toxins that impair the function of actin microfilaments in cytoskeleton, cytochalasin B (disrupts microfilaments by inhibiting actin polymerization) and phalloidin (binds polymeric F-actin, stabilizing it and interfering with the function of actin-rich structures) reduce the depression of acetylcholine-induced inward current in Helix lucorum command neurons of defensive behavior during rhythmical local acetylcholine applications to soma (cellular analogue of habituation). These results and mathematical simulation allow us to suggest that the depression of cholinosensitivity of extrasynaptic membrane zones in command neurons on the cellular analogue of habituation is associated with the involvement of actin microfilaments in reduction of the number of membrane cholinoreceptors.     

Sleep Disturbances and Health-Related Quality of Life in Adults with Steady-State Bronchiectasis

Background

Sleep disturbances are common in patients with chronic lung diseases, but little is known about the prevalence in patients with bronchiectasis. A cross sectional study was conducted to investigate the prevalence and determinants associated with sleep disturbances, and the correlation between sleep disturbances and quality of life (QoL) in adults with steady-state bronchiectasis.

Methods

One hundred and forty-four bronchiectasis patients and eighty healthy subjects were enrolled. Sleep disturbances, daytime sleepiness, and QoL were measured by utilizing the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and St. George Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), respectively. Demographic, clinical indices, radiology, spirometry, bacteriology, anxiety and depression were also assessed.

Results

Adults with steady-state bronchiectasis had a higher prevalence of sleep disturbances (PSQI>5) (57% vs. 29%, P<0.001), but not daytime sleepiness (ESS≥10) (32% vs. 30%, P = 0.76), compared with healthy subjects. In the multivariate model, determinants associated with sleep disturbances in bronchiectasis patients included depression (OR, 10.09; 95% CI, 3.46–29.37; P<0.001), nocturnal cough (OR, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.13–3.18; P = 0.016), aging (OR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.01–1.07; P = 0.009) and increased 24-hour sputum volume (OR, 2.01; 95% CI, 1.22–3.33; P = 0.006). Patients with sleep disturbances had more significantly impaired QoL affecting all domains than those without. Only 6.2% of patients reported using a sleep medication at least weekly.

Conclusions

In adults with steady-state bronchiectasis, sleep disturbances are more common than in healthy subjects and are related to poorer QoL. Determinants associated with sleep disturbances include depression, aging, nighttime cough and increased sputum volume. Assessment and intervention of sleep disturbances are warranted and may improve QoL.     

Sleep disturbances are associated with increased pain,disease activity,depression, and anxiety in ankylosing spondylitis: a case-control study

Introduction

Literature data suggest that sleep disturbances are prevalent among patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and have a close correlation with pain. Other studies indicate that sleep disturbances are constantly accompanied by depression and anxiety in AS, but their interrelations are poorly understood. This study was designed to evaluate sleep disturbances and their association with demographic variables, pain, disease-specific variables, functional status, covering depression and anxiety in AS patients.

Methods

The 314 patients with AS and age- and sex-matched controls took part in the study, completed a battery of questionnaires, and participated in long-term follow-up. Blood samples were taken to measure C-reactive protein (CRP) and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). The association among sleep, pain, disease activity, functional status, depression, and anxiety were assessed by using Pearson/Spearman correlations and multiple regression analysis.

Results

The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) score of the Chinese version was significantly higher in the AS group than in the control group (P = 0.020). Of the 314 patients with AS, 184 (58.6%) had a high risk for sleep disturbances. The PSQI score was associated with age, years of education, ESR, CRP, overall assessment of health, pain, morning stiffness, Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI), Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI), depression, and anxiety (all P < 0.001), but were not associated with disease duration, fingertip-to-floor distance, and Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Metrology Index (BASMI) (P > 0.05). In hierarchic multiple regression analysis, the medical and psychological variables contributed significantly to the variance in sleep-disturbances scores, adding an additional 23.9% to the overall R² beyond that accounted for by demographic variables (R-square, 8.5%), resulting in a final R²of 42.6%. Multiple stepwise regression analysis revealed that anxiety was the maximal statistical contribution in predicting sleep disturbances (standardized coefficients, 0.287).

Conclusions

The prevalence of sleep disturbances in AS patients is higher than it is generally thought to be. Depression, anxiety, nocturnal pain, and total back pain are the major contributors of sleep disturbances in AS.