University of Düsseldorf

About: University of Düsseldorf is a education organization based out in Düsseldorf, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Transplantation. The organization has 25225 authors who have published 49155 publications receiving 1946434 citations.

Line bisection judgments implicate right parietal cortex and cerebellum as assessed by fMRI

Abstract: Objective: To use functional MRI (fMRI) to determine which brain regions are implicated when normal volunteers judge whether pretransected horizontal lines are correctly bisected (the Landmark test). Background: Manual line bisection and a variant thereof involving perceptual judgments of pretransected lines (the Landmark test) are widely used to assess unilateral visuospatial neglect in patients with neurologic disease. Although unilateral (left) neglect most often results from lesions to right temporoparietal cortex, the normal functional anatomy of the Landmark test has not been convincingly demonstrated. Methods: fMRI was carried out in 12 healthy right-handed male volunteers who judged whether horizontal lines were correctly prebisected. In the control task, subjects detected whether the horizontal lines contained a transection mark irrespective of the position of that mark. Response was by two-choice key press: on half the trials, subjects used the right, and on half, the left hand. Statistical analysis of evoked blood oxygenation level-dependent responses, measured with echoplanar imaging, employed statistical parametric mapping. Results: Performing the Landmark task showed neural activity (p Conclusions: The right hemispheric dominance observed in inferior parietal cortex is consistent with the results of lesion studies. Right superior parietal cortex, vermis, and left cerebellar hemisphere have not been implicated in neglect, but all appear to play a cognitive role in the Landmark task.

Plant Peroxisomes: Biogenesis and Function

Abstract: Peroxisomes are eukaryotic organelles that are highly dynamic both in morphology and metabolism. Plant peroxisomes are involved in numerous processes, including primary and secondary metabolism, development, and responses to abiotic and biotic stresses. Considerable progress has been made in the identification of factors involved in peroxisomal biogenesis, revealing mechanisms that are both shared with and diverged from non-plant systems. Furthermore, recent advances have begun to reveal an unexpectedly large plant peroxisomal proteome and have increased our understanding of metabolic pathways in peroxisomes. Coordination of the biosynthesis, import, biochemical activity, and degradation of peroxisomal proteins allows for highly dynamic responses of peroxisomal metabolism to meet the needs of a plant. Knowledge gained from plant peroxisomal research will be instrumental to fully understanding the organelle’s dynamic behavior and defining peroxisomal metabolic networks, thus allowing the development of molecular strategies for rational engineering of plant metabolism, biomass production, stress tolerance, and pathogen defense.

ECTRIMS/EAN Guideline on the pharmacological treatment of people with multiple sclerosis:

Abstract: Background:Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex disease with new drugs becoming available in the past years There is a need for a reference tool compiling current data to aid professionals in trea

A Structured Teaching and Self-management Program for Patients Receiving Oral Anticoagulation: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract: ContextControl of oral anticoagulation therapy has been reported to often be inadequate. Previous retrospective investigations suggest that patients' self-adjustment of oral anticoagulants may lead to improved control.ObjectiveTo investigate the effects of patients' self-management of oral anticoagulation therapy on accuracy of control and measures of treatment-related quality of life.DesignRandomized, single-blind, multicenter trial.Setting and ParticipantsA total of 179 patients receiving long-term oral anticoagulation treatment were enrolled at 5 referral centers in Germany.InterventionPatients were randomized to an oral anticoagulation self-management group based on a structured treatment and teaching program and international normalized ratio (INR) self-monitoring. The control group received conventional care as provided by family physicians, including referral to specialists if necessary.Main Outcome MeasuresDeviation of INR values from the individual INR target range (squared) and the 5 categories of treatment-related quality of life.ResultsDeviation of INR value from the mean of the INR target range was significantly lower in the intervention group at 3-month (squared INR deviation, 0.59 vs 0.95; P<.001) and 6-month follow-up (0.65 vs 0.83; P=.03) compared with the control group. Also, the intervention group had INR values within the target range more often (repeated measurement analysis for categorical data, P=.006). The results were mainly due to less frequent suboptimal INR values in the intervention group (32.8% vs 50.0% [P=.03] at 3-month, and 33.7% vs 48.2% [P=.08] at 6-month follow-up). Treatment-related quality-of-life measures, especially treatment satisfaction scores, were significantly higher in the intervention group compared with controls.ConclusionsAn anticoagulation education program that includes self-management of anticoagulation therapy results in improved accuracy of anticoagulation control and in treatment-related quality-of-life measures. Further studies are needed to describe whether the program will reduce risk of bleeding or thromboembolism.

Annotated English translation of Mereschkowsky's 1905 paper ‘Über Natur und Ursprung der Chromatophoren im Pflanzenreiche’

Abstract: That plastids were once free-living cyanobacteria is now taken for granted by many, and for good reasons, for there is a wealth of data – in particular from the comparison of plastid and cyanobacterial genomes – that support this view. There is currently no seriously entertained alternative hypothesis to the view that plastids descend from cyanobacteria. But that was not always the case. Well into the 1970s there was a generally favoured alternative hypothesis, namely that early in evolution plastids arose de novo from within a non-plastid bearing cell (an autogenous origin) rather than through invasion by a cyanobacterium into a non-plastid-bearing cell with subsequent intracellular coexistence and reduction to an organelle (an endosymbiotic origin). Interestingly, the shift from autogenous to endosymbiotic hypotheses during the 1970s was a reversal of state for during the first two decades of this century, the endosymbiont hypothesis for the origins of plastids (and mitochondria, which will not be further discussed here) was very popular among biologists. It fell into disfavour shortly after the First World War, for reasons that are very difficult to summarize briefly, and remained scorned for 50 years (see Sapp, 1994, for an historical account in English, and Hoxtermann, 1998, for a succinct historical account in German). So where did the first version of the endosymbiont hypothesis come from? In a nutshell, it came from Konstantin Sergejewiz Merezkovskij (usually written as Constantin Mereschkowsky), a Russian botanist of little standing who worked at a rather small and by no means prominent university in Kasan and who published a very remarkable paper in 1905. We are not aware of any true precedent for his paper, which draws upon three lines of evidence known at the time.