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This article explores the relationship between art and entomology, showcasing the historical collaboration between the two fields. By combining art and science, researchers and educators can create engaging experiences that enhance understanding and appreciation of insects and science. The article provides examples of art-science collaborations, such as using music and immersive installations to disseminate research findings. Art that incorporates scientific knowledge can increase awareness of conservation efforts and foster a deeper connection with nature. The article suggests various activities for integrating art and entomology, emphasizing the importance of sustained support and funding for interdisciplinary initiatives. It encourages readers to explore the creative aspects of the scientific process and incorporate art-science integration in their own research, art, and education. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines the development of the resource Mind-Boggling Medical History, a card game developed to introduce medical and healthcare history to new and non-traditional audiences for the subject. We explore the methods we used to develop and improve the game, which was reliant on stakeholder participation. We then focus on the impact of Mind-Boggling Medical History on nurses, who have constituted one of the game's key audiences, and explore its role in supporting nurses' critical engagement with changing knowledge and concepts of evidence. We also evaluate the limitations in our own approach to collaboration with nurses. Through this, we elucidate the relative lack of engagement, historically speaking, there has been between humanities scholars and nurses. We conclude by pointing to ways in which resources like Mind-Boggling Medical History can open up the academic medical humanities to audiences that the discipline rarely caters to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes devastating infections in immunocompromised individuals. Once established, P. aeruginosa infections become incredibly difficult to treat due to the development of antibiotic tolerant, aggregated communities known as biofilms. A hyper-biofilm forming clinical variant of P. aeruginosa, known as a rugose small-colony variant (RSCV), is frequently isolated from chronic infections and is correlated with poor clinical outcome. The development of these mutants during infection suggests a selective advantage for this phenotype, but it remains unclear how this phenotype promotes persistence. While prior studies suggest RSCVs could survive by evading the host immune response, our study reveals infection with the RSCV, PAO1ΔwspF, stimulated an extensive inflammatory response that caused significant damage to the surrounding host tissue. In both a chronic wound model and acute pulmonary model of infection, we observed increased bacterial burden, host tissue damage, and a robust neutrophil response during RSCV infection. Given the essential role of neutrophils in P. aeruginosa-mediated disease, we investigated the impact of the RSCV phenotype on neutrophil function. The RSCV phenotype promoted phagocytic evasion and stimulated neutrophil reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. We also demonstrate that bacterial aggregation and TLR-mediated pro-inflammatory cytokine production contribute to the immune response to RSCVs. Additionally, RSCVs exhibited enhanced tolerance to neutrophil-produced antimicrobials including H2O2 and the antimicrobial peptide LL-37. Collectively, these data indicate RSCVs elicit a robust but ineffective neutrophil response that causes significant host tissue damage. This study provides new insight on RSCV persistence, and indicates this variant may have a critical role in the recurring tissue damage often associated with chronic infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Chronic skin wounds are a significant human health concern and are often complicated by infection with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus, particularly methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Translating the knowledge gained from extensive study of virulence mechanisms and pathogenesis of these bacterial species to new treatment modalities has been lacking in part due to a paucity of animal models able to recapitulate human disease. Our groups recently described a novel porcine chronic burn wound model for the study of bacterial infection; however, the histopathology of infection has yet to be described. The objective of this study is to define the histopathology of this model using important human chronic wound bacterial isolates. Porcine full-thickness burn wounds topically inoculated with P. aeruginosa strain PAO1, MRSA S. aureus strain USA300 or both bacteria were used to define and quantify histopathologic lesions. The development of a systemic, well-defined rubric for analysis allowed for evaluation of differences between infection groups. These differences, which included epithelial migration and proliferation, stromal necrosis, fluid accumulation and intensity and character of the innate and adaptive inflammatory cell responses, were identified temporally between infection groups. Mono-species infected wounds developed a hyper-proliferative wound edge. Coinfected wounds at day 35 had the largest wound sizes, increased amounts of neutrophilic inflammation, immaturity of the wound bed, and retention of necrotic tissue. Infection, regardless of species, inhibited wound contracture at all time points evaluated. Most importantly, this model recapitulated key features of chronic human wounds. Thus, this model will allow researchers to study novel treatment modalities in a biologically relevant animal model while monitoring both host and bacterial responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) remains a significant central nervous system disease of horses in the American continents. Sarcocystis neurona is considered the primary causative agent and its intermediate life stages are carried by a wide host-range including raccoons ( Procyon lotor ) in North America. S. neurona sarcocysts mature in raccoon skeletal muscle and can produce central nervous system disease in raccoons, mirroring the clinical presentation in horses. The study aimed to develop laboratory tools whereby the life cycle and various life stages of S. neurona could be better studied and manipulated using in vitro and in vivo systems and compare the biology of two independent isolates. This study utilized culture-derived parasites from S. neurona strains derived from a raccoon or from a horse to initiate raccoon infections. Raccoon tissues, including fresh and cryopreserved tissues, were used to establish opossum ( Didelphis virginiana ) infections, which then shed sporocyts with retained biological activity to cause encephalitis in mice. These results demonstrate that sarcocysts can be generated using in vitro -derived S. neurona merozoites, including an isolate originally derived from a naturally infected horse with clinical EPM. This study indicates the life cycle can be significantly manipulated in the laboratory without affecting subsequent stage development, allowing further purification of strains and artificial maintenance of the life cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Histories of dynamic psychotherapy in the late 19th century have focused on practitioners in continental Europe, and interest in psychological therapies within British asylum psychiatry has been largely overlooked. Yet Daniel Hack Tuke (1827–95) is acknowledged as one of the earliest authors to use the term ‘psycho-therapeutics’, including a chapter on the topic in his 1872 volume, Illustrations of the Influence of the Mind upon the Body in Health and Disease. But what did Tuke mean by this concept, and what impact did his ideas have on the practice of asylum psychiatry? At present, there is little consensus on this topic. Through in-depth examination of what psycho-therapeutics meant to Tuke, this article argues that late-19th-century asylum psychiatry cannot be easily separated into somatic and psychological strands. Tuke’s understanding of psycho-therapeutics was extremely broad, encompassing the entire field of medical practice (not only psychiatry). The universal force that he adopted to explain psychological therapies, ‘the Imagination’, was purported to show the power of the mind over the body, implying that techniques like hypnotism and suggestion might have an effect on any kind of symptom or illness. Acknowledging this aspect of Tuke’s work, I conclude, can help us better understand late-19th-century psychiatry – and medicine more generally – by acknowledging the lack of distinction between psychological and somatic in ‘psychological’ therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several reports indicate the presence of small tissue cysts associated with Sarcocystis neurona infections. Several failed attempts to develop tissue cysts in potential intermediate host using in vitro derived parasites originally isolated from horses with equine protozoal myeloencephalitis suggest that the experimental methods to achieve bradyzoites with those isolates was not possible. Those prior studies reported the lack of detectable sarcocysts based on histology and in vivo feeding trials. A recent report of successful production and detection of small sarcocysts triggered us to review archived tissues from earlier experimental infection studies. The retrospective review sought to determine if small sized sarcocysts were not detected due to their relatively smaller size and infrequency as compared to larger sized sarcocysts produced with other isolates in these experimental inoculation trials. Tissues from two prior in vivo inoculation studies, involving in vitro -produced parasites inoculated into laboratory-reared cats and raccoons, were re-examined by immunohistochemistry staining to more easily detect the tissue cysts. In the experimental cat study no small tissue cysts were seen, consistent with the original publication results. However, in the experimental raccoon study, one raccoon inoculated with an EPM-derived isolate, SN-UCD1, had small sarcocysts not reported in the original publication. This retrospective study suggests that much closer scrutiny of tissues, including the use of immunohistochemistry on tissue sections is required to detect the smaller S. neurona sarcocysts associated with the experimental inoculations of the isolates originally derived from horses with EPM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that late nineteenth-century definitions of self-mutilation, a new category of psychiatric symptomatology, were heavily influenced by the use of self-injury as a rhetorical device in the novel, for the literary text held a high status in Victorian psychology. In exploring Dimmesdale's 'self-mutilation' in The Scarlet Letter in conjunction with psychiatric case histories, the paper indicates a number of common techniques and themes in literary and psychiatric texts. As well as illuminating key elements of nineteenth-century conceptions of the self, and the relation of mind and body through ideas of madness, this exploration also serves to highlight the social commentary implicit in many Victorian medical texts. Late nineteenth-century England, like mid-century New England, required the individual to help himself and, simultaneously, others; personal charity and individual philanthropy were encouraged, while state intervention was often presented as dubious. In both novel and psychiatric text, self-mutilation is thus presented as the ultimate act of selfish preoccupation, particularly in cases on the 'borderlands' of insanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CASE DESCRIPTION A 3-year-old 5-kg sexually intact female silvery langur housed in a single-species group at a zoological institution was presented because of acute trauma to the left forelimb. CLINICALFINDINGS Radiography of the left forelimb revealed a type 11 Monteggia fracture (proximal ulnar fracture with cranial displacement and caudal luxation of the radial head). During surgery, disruption of the annular ligament and rupture of the lateral collateral ligament were noted. TREATMENT AND OUTCOME The langur underwent open reduction and internal fixation of the ulnar fracture and placement of a radioulnar positional screw, a prosthetic lateral collateral ligament, and a temporary hinged type IA external skeletal fixator. The langur was returned to group housing, underwent behavioral training, and was periodically anesthetized for physical therapy sessions to improve range of motion of the left elbow joint. The external skeletal fixator was removed 4 weeks after surgery, and the radioulnar positional screw was removed 6 weeks after surgery. Three months after surgery, the range of motion of the langur's left elbow joint was considered normal, and the animal returned to normal activity. CLINICAL RELEVANCE For the captive silvery langur of the present report, surgical stabilization and postoperative management of a type 11 Monteggia fracture of the left forelimb were successful with recovery of elbow joint function. These techniques may be applied to other captive nonhuman primates, including those that brachiate or are members of social species that must be housed with conspecifics in the postoperative period to maintain group dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a report on the requirement of circadian genes for cocaine sensitization in Drosophila melanogaster. Flies not sensitized due to the lack of the gene timeless, showing the induction of tyrosine decarboxylase normally seen after cocaine exposure; Indication of unexpected roles for these genes in regulating cocaine sensitization and that they function as regulators of tyrosine decarboxylase.