Correlations Between Clinicopathological Features and the Vegetative Nervous System in Gastric Cancer.

Gastric cancer currently represents one of the most important public health problems. Recent studies have demonstrated the existence of strong correlations between the vegetative nervous system and the role it plays in the initiation of the oncogenetic process and the progression of cancer. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the involvement of the sympathetic and parasympathetic vegetative nervous system in the evolution of gastric cancer, according to the stage of tumor differentiation. In this current paper we have included a number of four patients diagnosed with gastric cancer post UGI (Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy) and have analyzed relations that exist between the tumor differentiation degree and the metanephrine and normetanephrine serum level in the blood of the patients. Following the research, we have observed an increased value of the metanephrine and normetanephrine serum level in the patient which displayed the lowest degree of differentiation.

The Treatment of Arterial Hypertension.

Arterial hypertension is the leading cause of death worldwide and is one of the most important public health problems. Arterial hypertension is a major cardiovascular risk factor with an increasing incidence. In this paper we set out to analyze a group of 3050 patients hospitalized between January 2013 and December 2017 in terms of drug therapy. We found that the majority of patients received drug treatment with a converting-enzyme inhibitor as a monotherapy, and the most common drug association was the association between conversion enzyme inhibitor and calcium channel blocker.

Psychophysical and pupillometric study of spatial channels of visual processing in blindsight.

To date no systematic method has been used for characterising the residual capacity of blindsight subjects that would allow comparison and generalisation across all subjects. The detection of isoluminant gratings of varying spatial and temporal frequencies commends itself for detailed between-subject comparison, and for mapping results onto physiological properties in relation to neuronal circuitry. We report the ability of a blindsight subject (CS) to detect suprathreshold sine-wave gratings over a range of spatial and temporal frequencies using psychophysical techniques. A band-pass spatial channel with an upper cutoff below 3.5 cycles/deg is specified. The data also have been analysed to compare differences between two types of blindsight performances, type I and type II. Spatial gratings were also used to elicit a pupillary grating response, offering an objective method that is free of verbal nuances and response bias, and the resulting band-pass channel can be used both for clinical screening and for prediction and comparisons with psychophysical profiles. Finally, we have compared our results with those reported in studies of a well-known subject, GY, which demonstrate remarkable similarities. Implications are discussed in relation to blindsight research.

[The synthesis and effects of nitric oxide at the retinal level]. / Sinteza si efectele monoxidului de azot la nivelul retinei.

Nitric oxide (NO) is synthetized from L-arginine by the aid of an enzyme--NO synthase (NOS). This enzyme has there isoforms, which are either constitutive; neural NOS (nNOS) and endothelial NOS (eNOS) or inducible (iNOS). These three isoforms are expressed also in the retina. NO produced in small amounts by nNOS and eNOS is involved in neurotransmission in the retina and in the regulation of retinal arteriolar tonicity. NO produced in large quantities by iNOS is a bactericidal agent but can also generate inflammation of the retina and even retinal degeneration.

[The molecular mechanism of visual transduction]. / Mecanismul molecular al transductiei vizuale.

Light absorbtion by the visual pigment rhodopsin triggers, through Gt-protein (transducin) coupling, a cascade of events--in the outer segment of the rod cell of the retina--that results in membrane hyperpolarization and nerve excitation. Activated rhodopsin is removed from the cascade of reactions by rhodopsin kinase and arrestin that stop the visual transduction pathway. Thus, when light stimulation ceases, the transduction system is restored to its resting state.