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Juvenile Pigs (juvenile + pig)
Selected AbstractsBrief communication: Tissue isotopic enrichment associated with growth depression in a pig: Implications for archaeology and ecologyAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2010Christina Warinner Abstract Stressors such as fasting or poor diet quality are thought to potentially alter the nitrogen and carbon isotopic values of animal tissues. In this study, we demonstrate an inverse correlation between growth rate and multiple tissue enrichment of ,15N, ,13C, and, to a lesser degree, ,18O in a juvenile pig. A more complex pattern is observed with respect to tissue ,D and growth rate. The observed association between growth rate and tissue isotopic fractionation has important implications for paleodietary and migratory reconstructions of archaeological populations that may have been affected by famine, malnutrition, seasonal variation in food availability, and/or other factors that can affect childhood growth rates. Am J Phys Anthropol 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Hypertrophied hearts: what of sevoflurane cardioprotection?ACTA ANAESTHESIOLOGICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 4 2009J. R. LARSEN Background: Recent studies have demonstrated that inhalation anaesthetics, like sevoflurane, confer cardioprotection both experimentally and clinically. However, coexisting cardiac disease might diminish anaesthetic cardioprotection and could partly explain why the clinical results of cardioprotection with anaesthetics remain controversial , in contrast to solid experimental evidence. Concomitant left ventricular hypertrophy is found in some cardiac surgery patients and could change cardioprotection efficacy. Hypertrophy could potentially render the heart less susceptible to sevoflurane cardioprotection and more susceptible to ischaemic injury. We investigated whether hypertrophy blocks sevoflurane cardioprotection, and whether tolerance to ischaemia is altered by left ventricular hypertrophy, in an established experimental animal model of ischaemia,reperfusion. Methods: Anaesthetized juvenile pigs (n=7,12/group) were subjected to 45 min distal coronary artery balloon occlusion, followed by 120 min of reperfusion. Controls were given pentobarbital, while sevoflurane cardioprotection was achieved by 3.2% inhalation throughout the experiment. Chronic banding of the ascending aorta resulted in left ventricular hypertrophy development in two further groups and these animals underwent identical ischaemia,reperfusion protocols, with or without sevoflurane cardioprotection. Myocardial infarct sizes were compared post-mortem. Results: The mean myocardial infarct size (% of area-at-risk) was reduced from mean 55.0 (13.6%) (±SD) in controls to 17.5 (13.2%) by sevoflurane (P=0.001). Sevoflurane reduced the infarct size in hypertrophied hearts to 14.6 (10.4%) (P=0.001); however, in hypertrophic controls, infarcts were reduced to 34.2 (10.2%) (P=0.001). Conclusion: Sevoflurane abrogated ischaemic injury to similar levels in both normal and left ventricular hypertrophied hearts. [source] Circadian variation of portal, arterial and venous blood levels of melatonin in pigs and its relationship to food intake and sleepJOURNAL OF PINEAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2000G.A. Bubenik Circadian levels of melatonin were determined in the hepatic portal vein, cranial vena cava, and the lower aorta of ten juvenile pigs. Blood was sampled every hour for a total of 24 hr via temporary cannulas introduced into blood vessels under anesthesia. No peak levels of melatonin were found in the mid-scotophase, but hepatic portal concentrations peaked at 06.00 hr. Overall levels of melatonin were highest in the hepatic portal vein (range 35,65 pg/mL), followed by an artery (range 30,55 pg/mL) and the vena cava (range 25,35 pg/mL). Levels of melatonin exhibit strong variation between individual pigs, but generally the average levels from all three sources follow each other's time course. However, on occasion, melatonin levels in the hepatic portal vein varied independently from the levels in the vena cava. Large portal peaks were usually preceded by a feeding period and were associated with a subsequent period of sleep. The data indicate that: 1) there is no clear circadian rhythm of melatonin in the peripheral blood of pigs, 2) relatively little melatonin is metabolized during the first liver passage, 3) food intake may elevate melatonin levels in the hepatic portal vein, and 4) increased levels of melatonin originated in the gastrointestinal tract may induce sleep. [source] PIGS FOR THE GODS: BURNT ANIMAL SACRIFICES AS EMBODIED RITUALS AT A MYCENAEAN SANCTUARYOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2004YANNIS HAMILAKIS Summary. The archaeology of animal sacrifice has attracted considerable attention, although discussions on the meanings and social effects of the practice in different contexts are rather under-developed. In the Aegean, classical antiquity has provided abundant literary, zooarchaeological and iconographic evidence (and has inspired some excellent studies) but it has also overshadowed discussion on sacrifice in other periods. Until recently, it was assumed that burnt animal sacrifices (i.e. the ritual burning of bones or parts of the carcass, often taken to be offerings to the deities) were absent from the pre-classical contexts. Recent studies have shown this not to be the case. This article reports and discusses evidence for burnt animal sacrifices from the sanctuary of Ayios Konstantinos at Methana, north-east Peloponnese. It constitutes the first, zooarchaeologically verified such evidence from a sanctuary context. The main sacrificial animals seem to have been juvenile pigs, which were transported as whole carcasses into the main cultic room; non-meaty parts were selected for burning whereas their meaty parts were first consumed by humans and then thrown into the fire (some neonatal pigs may have been thrown into the fire whole). The article integrates zooarchaeological, other contextual, and comparative archaeological evidence and explores the social roles and meanings of sacrifice in the Mycenaean context and more broadly. It is suggested that, rather than focusing on possible continuities of the practice through to the classical period (an issue which remains ambiguous), sacrifice should be meaningfully discussed within the broader framework of the archaeology of feasting, and more generally food consumption, as a socially important, sensory embodied experience. The evidence from Ayios Konstantinos may reveal a hitherto eluding phenomenon: small-scale, sacrificial-feasting ritual in a religious context, conferring cosmological and ideological powers on few individuals, through the participation in an intense, embodied, transcendental experience. [source] Morphological changes induced in the pig kidney by extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy: Nephron injuryTHE ANATOMICAL RECORD : ADVANCES IN INTEGRATIVE ANATOMY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 1 2003Youzhi Shao Abstract While shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) is known to cause significant damage to the kidney, little is known about the initial injury to cells along the nephron. In this study, one kidney in each of six juvenile pigs (6,7 weeks old) was treated with 1,000 shock waves (at 24 kV) directed at a lower pole calyx with an unmodified HM-3 lithotripter. Three pigs were utilized as sham-controls. Kidneys were fixed by vascular perfusion immediately after SWL or sham-SWL. Three of the treated kidneys were used to quantitate lesion size. Cortical and medullary samples for light (LM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were taken from the focal zone for the shock waves (F2), the contralateral kidney, and the kidneys of sham-SWL pigs. Because preservation of the tissue occurred within minutes of SWL, the initial injury caused by the shock waves could be separated from secondary changes. No tissue damage was observed in contralateral sham-SWL kidneys, but treated kidneys showed signs of injury, with a lesion of 0.2% ± 0.1% of renal volume. Intraparenchymal hemorrhage and injury to tubules was found at F2 in both the cortex and medulla of SWL-treated kidneys. Tubular injury was always associated with intraparenchymal bleeding, and the range of tissue injury included total destruction of tubules, focal cellular fragmentation, necrosis, cell vacuolization, and membrane blebbing. The initial injury caused by SWL was cellular fragmentation and necrosis. Cellular vacuolization, membrane blebbing, and disorganization of apical brush borders appear to be secondary changes related to hypoxia. Anat Rec Part A 275A:979,989, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] | ||||||||||