(C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.”
“Systemic sclerosis click here (SSc) is a connective tissue disease characterised by widespread vascular lesions and fibrosis of the skin and internal organs. Cardiac involvement is recognised as a poor prognostic factor when clinically evident. Primary myocardial involvement is common in SSc. Increasing evidence strongly suggests that myocardial involvement is related to repeated focal ischaemia leading to myocardial fibrosis with irreversible lesions. Reproducible data have shown that this relates to microcirculation impairment with abnormal vasoreactivity, with or without associated structural vascular abnormalities. Consistently, atherosclerosis

and macro vascular coronary lesions do not seem to be increased in SSc. Myocardial involvement leads to abnormal systolic

and diastolic left ventricular dysfunction and right ventricular dysfunction. Sensitive and quantitative methods have demonstrated the ability of vasodilators, including calcium channel blockers and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, to improve both perfusion and function abnormalities further emphasising the critical role of microcirculation impairment. Recent quantitative methods such as tissue Doppler echocardiography and magnetic resonance imaging have underlined these results.”
“In rats, hedonic ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) is a validated model of positive affect and is best elicited by rough-and-tumble FK866 play. Here we report that modulation of GluN2B-containing NMDA receptors (NMDAR) in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is involved in positive emotional learning. Rough and tumble play increased both GluN1 and GluN2B NMDAR subunit mRNA Ilomastat molecular weight and protein levels in the frontal cortex. GLYX-13, a GluN2B-preferring,

NMDAR glycine-site partial agonist (1 mg/kg, i.v.) significantly increased positive emotional learning whereas the GluN2B receptor-specific antagonist, ifenprodil (10 mg/kg, i.p.), inhibited positive emotional learning. Animals selectively bred for low rates of hedonic USVs were returned to wild-type levels of positive emotional learning following GLYX-13 treatment. MPFC microinjections of GLYX-13 (0.1-10 mu g/side) significantly increased rates of positive emotional learning. Thus GluN2B-containing NMDARs may be involved in positive emotional learning in the MPFC by similar mechanisms as spatial/temporal learning in the hippocampus. (C) 2011 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Cholesterol embolism (CE) is characterized by emboli containing cholesterol crystal in the arterioles, most commonly found in the skin and the kidney. The skin presentations of CE include livedo reticularis, blue toe syndrome, ulceration and gangrene. Cutaneous reactive angiomatosis (CRA) is a recently proposed term to describe a group of reactive vascular proliferation in skin caused by various diseases.