Preliminary evidence for neural responsiveness to infants in mothers with schizophrenia and the implications for healthy parenting

Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness that may significantly affect maternal sensitive behaviour. Neural correlates of maternal behaviour represent a potentially valuable means of differentiating objectively between healthy mothers expressing variations in maternal sensitivity. As mothers with schizophrenia (MWS) show deficits in behavioural responses to infants compared to healthy mothers, we explored whether maternal brain responses to infant stimuli would be significantly reduced in MWS. We also examined whether differences in maternal behaviour between healthy and ill mothers (during play interactions with own infant) were associated with differences in brain activation to infant stimuli. We found no evidence of differential 'maternal brain' responses or 'maternal behavioural' responses in 11 new MWS compared to 20 healthy new mums; neither were neural responses to infants linked to behavioural or cognitive aspects of the mother's relationship with her infant in MWS. These preliminary findings suggest maternal sensitivity differences between MWS and healthy mothers, suggested in previous studies, may be reversible in stable treated MWS.

Abstract P1-03-06: Improvement in risk predictive value of Nottingham prognostic index by determining GP88 tumor tissue expression for estrogen receptor positive breast cancer patients

Background: The Nottingham Prognostic Index (NPI), which includes nodal status, tumor size and histological grade was established to provide predictive value information on post-surgery survival for primary breast cancer patients. Attempts to improve NPI's performance have included addition of other biomarker expression and morphological features such as vascular invasion. In the present study, we investigated whether expression of the autocrine growth and survival factor GP88 (progranulin), known to be overexpressed in breast cancer, whereas it is negative in normal mammary tissue, would improve NPI's predictive value.

Methods: We examined the tumor tissue GP88 expression by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue sections from 508 cases of estrogen receptor positive (ER+) invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) with known clinical outcomes (disease-free and overall survivals) and with known NPI. GP88 IHC tumor tissue expression was determined using an anti-GP88 antibody (clone 6B3) developed in our laboratory. GP88 expression was scored (0, 1+, 2+, 3+) by two board certified pathologists and classified into two IHC score groups of GP88 < 3+ (0, 1+, 2+) and GP88 = 3+. The correlation between GP88 scoring, NPI and disease-free (DFS) and overall survival (OS) outcomes was then examined by Kaplan Meier analysis, Cox proportional Hazard (CPH) ratio and Pearson's C2 test.

Results: Kaplan-Meier survival graphs categorized by NPI scores (< 3.4, 3.4-5.4, and >5.4) and by GP88 expression (< 3+ and 3+) showed that for each NPI subgroup, patients with GP88 IHC score of 3+ had a worse disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) than patients within the same NPI subgroup with tumors that had GP88 IHC score < 3+. When adjusted for NPI, high GP88 score was highly significantly associated with recurrence with a hazard ratio of 3.30 (95% CI 2.12 to 5.14).

Conclusions: The data suggest that measuring GP88 tumor tissue expression by IHC at time of diagnosis for breast cancer patients with primary ER+ IDC could provide recurrence prediction and survival information complementary to that provided by the determination of NPI alone and thus may be useful for risk management of patients diagnosed with breast cancer.

Citation Format: Serrero G, Hawkins DM, Bejarano PA, Ioffe O, Tkaczuk KR, Elliott RE, Head JF, Phillips J, Godwin AK, Weaver J, Hicks D, Yue B. Improvement in risk predictive value of Nottingham prognostic index by determining GP88 tumor tissue expression for estrogen receptor positive breast cancer patients [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2016 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-03-06.

Anaesthetic agents in paediatric day case surgery: do they affect outcome?

Both the numbers of children undergoing day case surgery and the type of procedures performed in this way are increasing. This expansion will only be beneficial if anaesthesia and surgery are provided with minimal post-operative morbidity e.g. postoperative delirium or nausea and vomiting. The choice of anaesthetic technique is considered critical to optimizing the service provided to patients and for this reason much research has addressed this question. This review considers the effect of anaesthetic technique on postoperative outcome in paediatric day case surgery. The outcome measures reviewed by this article are induction of anaesthesia, effects on the cardiovascular system, recovery from anaesthesia and postoperative nausea and vomiting. In each section both quantitative and qualitative outcome measures are discussed. Comparisons are made between sevoflurane and halothane, sevoflurane and propofol, propofol and halothane, desflurane and halothane and the presence or absence of nitrous oxide.

Injury severity and neuropsychological and balance outcomes of four college athletes

Recent evidence suggests significant short-term neurocognitive deficits following mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) in sports. However, sequelae of mild head injuries is complicated by many factors including a history of multiple head injuries and injury severity. Few studies have considered the influence these variables may have on proper classification of a MTBI and their meaning for return-to-play guidelines. This study presents the short-term neuropsychological and balance outcomes of four college athletes who sustained mild head injuries of different severity (grade I, grade II, grade III and multiple head injured with a grade II based on American Academy of Neurology guidelines). The results demonstrated that self-report symptoms of concussion were slow to resolve in the grade III and multiple concussed individuals. For neuropsychological testing, Trails A & B, Symbol Digit Modalities Test and Digits Span Backwards were the most sensitive in identifying differences between the injuries. For balance assessments using the Neurocom Smart Balance System, the Sensory Organization Test and Reaction Time were also important variables in detecting differences among the various injuries. When these data are used together, it can assist physicians in determining safe return-to-play for athletes who sustain MTBI. There are contradindications in the numerous grading systems and return-to-play guidelines for MTBI. The results from this study provides new evidence which can be assimilated into a valid grading scale for MTBI sustained in sport.

Seal lungs collapse during free diving: evidence from arterial nitrogen tensions

Arterial blood nitrogen tensions of free-diving Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddelli) were measured by attaching a microprocessor-controlled blood pump and drawing samples at depth to determine how these marine mammals dive to great depths and ascend rapidly without developing decompression sickness. Forty-seven samples of arterial blood were obtained from four Weddell seals during free dives lasting up to 23 minutes to depths of 230 meters beneath the sea ice of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Peak arterial blood nitrogen tensions of between 2000 and 2500 millimeters of mercury were recorded at depths of 40 to 80 meters during descent, indicating that the seal's lung collapses by 25 to 50 meters. Then arterial blood nitrogen tensions slowly decreased to about 1500 millimeters of mercury at the surface. In a single dive, alveolar collapse and redistribution of blood nitrogen allow the seal to avoid nitrogen narcosis and decompression sickness.

Relationship of biochemical drug effects to their antitumor activity--II. Diacridines and membrane-related reactions

A method is presented that determines the degree of attachment of cancer cells to normal cells. This method may be useful in determining the extent to which treatment of normal cells (or of a tumor-bearing host) with a particular chemotherapeutic agent may affect the degree of attachment of cancer cells to the normal cells. The effects of several diacridines upon this process are described. In addition, we have determined the ability of individual diacridines to alter the permeability of P-388 cells; this effect has been related to their antitumor properties. In general, the most effective antitumor diacridines are those that cause minimal disruption of cell permeability. Conversely, diacridines that disrupt cell permeability tend to have poor antitumor properties. It is considered that the toxicity of these compounds may be a necessary consequence of the assays used for testing anticancer agents, and may not necessarily be related to their antitumor activity.