Pimozide treatment for delusion of infestation

Pimozide was tried in the treatment of delusion of parasitosis (a type of monosymptomatic hypochondriacal psychosis), a syndrome that is found with increasing frequency. Ten patients were selected on the basis of unambiguously defined psychopathological criteria. Pimozide therapy was assessed by means of placebo control and the double-blind method using a rating scale evolved for this particular therapy. The results have quite definitely proved the effect of small doses (two to eight mg per day) of pimozide compared to the administration of a placebo. The very few side-effects observed could easily be influenced. The dynamics of the regression of the psychopathological symptoms suggest that the efficacy of pimozide therapy is decisively linked to the central dopamine receptor blocking effect of the drug.     

Comparative multiple threshold analysis: a possible new way for validating schizophrenia classifications

Activ. nerv. sup. (Praha) 28, 2. 1986. 350 carefully selected schizophrenic probands and their parents and siblings were diagnosed according to three different clinical classifications and a multiple-threshold analysis was carried out within the framework of the multifactorial model of inheritance. The results suggest that of the three classificatory systems studied, Leonard's and Sneshnevsky's nosological system delineate relatively homogeneous subtypes from the clinical and genetic point of view, pointing to the promise these nosological systems have for the planning of future research in psychiatric genetics.     

Mechanism of the cobalt-catalyzed carbonylation of ethyl diazoacetate

Carbonyl cobalt complexes serve as catalysts or catalyst precursors for the facile and selective transformation of primary diazoalkanes into the corresponding ketene. The mechanism of this carbonylation reaction has been elucidated in the case of ethyl diazoacetate as model diazoalkane using octacarbonyl dicobalt as the catalyst precursor. Dinuclear cobalt complexes having ethoxycarbonylcarbene ligand(s) in bridging position(s) have been identified as active intermediary of the catalytic cycles and their relevant chemical properties have been explored. Key step of the carbonylation is the formation of the highly reactive ethoxycarbonylketene by intramolecular coupling of a carbonyl ligand with the ethoxycarbonylcarbene ligand. DFT calculations reveal that the ketene formation takes place via a rapid coupling of the carbene ligand with one terminal CO followed by coordination of an external carbon monoxide and by a facile intramolecular rearrangement and ketene elimination. The ethoxycarbonylketene can be in situ trapped by OH, NH, or CH acid compounds or by N-substituted imines. In the presence of ethanol diethyl malonate is the only product of the catalytic carbonylation of ethyl diazoacetate. On the bases of the kinetics of the composing steps of the catalytic cycles, localization of the rate-determining step(s) under various reaction conditions has been made.     

New 1,3-dioxolane and 1,3-dioxane derivatives as effective modulators to overcome multidrug resistance

Multidrug resistance (MDR) to antitumor agents represents a major obstacle to a successful chemotherapy of cancer. Overexpression of P-glycoprotein (p-gp) seems to be the major factor responsible for MDR. A large number of chemically unrelated compounds are known to interact with p-gp resulting in a decreasing resistance. In our efforts related to structure-activity studies of new potential MDR reversal agents we synthesized a series of compounds that differ in the aromatic core structure, the linker, and the basic moiety. For our search of new aromatic core structures we synthesized novel 2,2-diphenyl-1,3-dioxolane, 2,2- diphenyl-1,3-dioxane, and 4,5-diphenyl-1,3-dioxolane derivatives. A range of lipophilic linker structures and protonable basic moieties were synthesized and investigated to optimize the structure of the potential MDR-modulators. The compounds were tested in vitro using human Caco-2 cells. Both the cytotoxicity of the synthons and their ability to resensitize the cells were determined with a MTT assay. The results show that at low concentration various substances reverse tumor cell MDR. Some of the new structures show better effects than established modulators like trifluoperazine.     

Evaluation of a partial genome screening of two asthma susceptibility regions using bayesian network based bayesian multilevel analysis of relevance

Genetic studies indicate high number of potential factors related to asthma. Based on earlier linkage analyses we selected the 11q13 and 14q22 asthma susceptibility regions, for which we designed a partial genome screening study using 145 SNPs in 1201 individuals (436 asthmatic children and 765 controls). The results were evaluated with traditional frequentist methods and we applied a new statistical method, called Bayesian network based Bayesian multilevel analysis of relevance (BN-BMLA). This method uses Bayesian network representation to provide detailed characterization of the relevance of factors, such as joint significance, the type of dependency, and multi-target aspects. We estimated posteriors for these relations within the Bayesian statistical framework, in order to estimate the posteriors whether a variable is directly relevant or its association is only mediated.With frequentist methods one SNP (rs3751464 in the FRMD6 gene) provided evidence for an association with asthma (OR = 1.43(1.2–1.8); p = 3×10⁻⁴). The possible role of the FRMD6 gene in asthma was also confirmed in an animal model and human asthmatics.In the BN-BMLA analysis altogether 5 SNPs in 4 genes were found relevant in connection with asthma phenotype: PRPF19 on chromosome 11, and FRMD6, PTGER2 and PTGDR on chromosome 14. In a subsequent step a partial dataset containing rhinitis and further clinical parameters was used, which allowed the analysis of relevance of SNPs for asthma and multiple targets. These analyses suggested that SNPs in the AHNAK and MS4A2 genes were indirectly associated with asthma. This paper indicates that BN-BMLA explores the relevant factors more comprehensively than traditional statistical methods and extends the scope of strong relevance based methods to include partial relevance, global characterization of relevance and multi-target relevance.