			Home About us Contact

Unique Circumstance (unique + circumstance)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Psychology	50%
Medical Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Myometrial mechanoadaptation during pregnancy: implications for smooth muscle plasticity and remodelling

JOURNAL OF CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR MEDICINE, Issue 4 2008
X. Wu
Abstract The smooth muscle of the uterus during pregnancy presents a unique circumstance of physiological mechanotransduction as the tissue remodels in response to stretches imposed by the growing foetus(es), yet the nature of the molecular and functional adaptations remain unresolved. We studied, in myometrium isolated from non-pregnant (NP) and pregnant mice, the active and passive length,tension curves by myography and the expression and activation by immunoblotting of focal adhesion-related proteins known in other systems to participate in mechanosensing and mechanotransduction. In situ uterine mass correlated with pup number and weight throughout pregnancy. In vitro myometrial active, and passive, length-tension curves shifted significantly to the right during pregnancy indicative of altered mechanosensitivity; at term, maximum active tension was generated following 3.94 ± 0.33-fold stretch beyond slack length compared to 1.91 ± 0.12-fold for NP mice. Moreover, mechanotransduction was altered during pregnancy as evidenced by the progressive increase in absolute force production at each optimal stretch. Pregnancy was concomitantly associated with an increased expression of the dense plaque-associated proteins FAK and paxillin, and elevated activation of FAK, paxillin, c-Src and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK1/2) which reversed 1 day post-partum. Electron microscopy revealed close appositioning of neighbouring myometrial cells across a narrow extracellular cleft adjoining plasmalemmal dense plaques. Collectively, these results suggest a physiological basis of myometrial length adaptation, long known to be a property of many smooth muscles, whereupon plasmalemmal dense plaque proteins serve as molecular signalling and structural platforms contributing to functional (contractile) remodelling in response to chronic stretch. [source]

Mycosis fungoides and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia , composite T-cell and B-cell lymphomas presenting in the skin

BRITISH JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY, Issue 2 2000
P.R. Hull
Composite lymphomas involving cutaneous B-cell and T-cell lymphomas are very uncommon. We report here the unique circumstance of a patient with mycosis fungoides (primary cutaneous T-cell lymphoma) who later developed chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (B-cell lymphoproliferation, B-CLL), which presented in the skin (leukaemia cutis) as a composite lymphoma affecting an earlobe. The presence of both lymphoproliferative disorders was confirmed with immunophenotyping and the finding of both immunoglobulin gene rearrangements and T-cell receptor gene rearrangements in the ear and the same T-cell receptor gene rearrangement in a plaque lesion of mycosis fungoides on the arm. [source]

Sleeping with baby: an internet-based sampling of parental experiences, choices, perceptions, and interpretations in a western industrialized context

INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2007
J. J. McKenna
Abstract Mothers and infants sleeping within proximity to each other (co-sleeping) represents normal, healthy, and expectable human behaviour, especially if mothers breastfeed. Yet, western health officials generally recommend against particularly one form of co-sleeping known as bedsharing. This study explores these issues and especially highlights parental accounts of their sleep practices, interpretations, and reflections based on detailed narratives or ,ethnohistories.' The sample involves a self-selected sub-group of over 200 mostly middle-class mothers from Canada, the United States, Australia, and Great Britain. Mothers report how and why they adopted co-sleeping practices, how satisfied they are (or were) with their decisions, and what benefits they think they or their infants derived from their co-sleeping practices. Also included in the reports are a surprisingly high number of parents who think they may have saved their infant's life by bedsharing, data heretofore never reported in the literature. The formulation of medical policies, we suggest, ultimately must be informed by a full understanding of how parents actually think about and subsequently structure their infant's sleep, what their goals and expectations are, and by an awareness of the emotional factors motivating parents to choose certain sleeping arrangements over others. The results reveal that many factors coalesce, often in unique ways, under unique circumstances, family by family, to determine where babies sleep and why. We conclude that sleeping arrangements are not solely determined by medically based recommendations, but also by the method of feeding, the particular needs of a particular infant, and the needs of mothers and fathers to get more sleep. While baby sleep locations and sleep patterns change in the first year of life, nighttime sleeping arrangements almost always reflect the nature of family values and the quality of social relationships at any given time. We conclude that these factors, alongside widely known independent SIDS risk factors, must also be acknowledged and respected if we are ever to achieve an effective and inclusive public health approach to the question of creating safe sleep environments for infants and children. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Rural mental health and psychological treatment: a review for practitioners

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 5 2010
K. Bryant Smalley
Abstract Practitioners in rural areas face particular challenges in providing psychological services, ranging from disparate rates of mental disorders to unique circumstances in treating special populations. In this article, we discuss the burden of mental disorders in rural areas, current trends in integration of mental health care and primary care, and unique concerns practitioners face in treating two special populations in rural areas (children and families, and older adults and their caregivers). Implications for practice are also discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol: In Session 66:1,11, 2010. [source]