Altered Ca2+ release from intracellular stores also has significant implications for neuro-degenerative conditions. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“There is widespread consensus that stress induces dramatic physiological changes, but no agreement on the quantitative parameters that are appropriate to measure these responses. More importantly, the interpretation of various stress measurements, and how individual responses should be evaluated, has not been properly addressed. Even the definition of baseline, against which stress responses must be measured, is not clearly established. The current experiment sought to address
these shortcomings by comparing selleck compound the predictive value of different calculated parameters for psychosocial and physiological measures of stress across individuals. Subjects were 29 male and 59 female healthy undergraduate AZD2281 cell line students with saliva samples collected over a 3-h interval that included a Trier Social Stress Test. Salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase response were analyzed using the absolute concentration, the percent change
in concentration, the area under the curve (Pruessner et al., 2003), and the arrival index (change from arrival to 1 h after arrival). The arrival index correlated with the subsequent stress response for both cortisol (r = 0.76, p < 0.01) and alpha-amylase (r = 0.86, p < 0.01). The arrival index for both cortisol and alpha-amylase was also related to subjective ratings of anxiety following the psychosocial stressor. A subset
of individuals with high self-reported anxiety also displayed higher reactivity in response to the psychosocial stressor. Thus, the magnitude of the difference in cortisol and alpha-amylase between arrival and 1 h after arrival was a predictor of subsequent stress reactivity. These findings suggest that different psychosocial profiles may be reflected in cortisol and alpha-amylase changes. For this reason: (1) a recovery period after arrival is essential to establish a baseline, (2) the difference between arrival and post-recovery period baseline should be included in experimental designs as a predictive variable, and (3) transformation of individual measures into proportional changes relative to the INCB018424 in vitro arrival sample is very likely to obscure important underlying individual differences. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Objectives: In the Single Ventricle Reconstruction trial, infants undergoing the Norwood procedure were randomly allocated to undergo a right ventricle-to-pulmonary artery shunt or a modified Blalock-Taussig shunt. Apart from shunt type, subjects received the local standard of care. We evaluated variation in perioperative care during the Norwood hospitalization across 14 trial sites.
Methods: Data on preoperative, operative, and postoperative variables for 546 enrolled subjects who underwent the Norwood procedure were collected prospectively on standardized case report forms, and variation across the centers was described.