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Cell therapy has been extensively investigated in heart disease but less so in the kidney. We considered whether cell therapy also might be useful in diabetic kidney disease. Cognizant of the likely need for autologous cell therapy in humans, we sought to assess the efficacy of donor cells derived from both healthy and diabetic animals. Eight-week-old db/db mice were randomized to receive a single intravenous injection of PBS or 0.5 x 106 early-outgrowth cells (EOCs) from db/m or db/db mice. Effects were assessed 4 weeks after cell infusion. Untreated db/db mice developed mesangial matrix expansion and tubular epithelial cell apoptosis in association with increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) and overexpression of thioredoxin interacting protein (TxnIP). Without affecting blood glucose or blood pressure, EOCs not only attenuated mesangial and peritubular matrix expansion, as well as tubular apoptosis, but also diminished ROS and TxnIP overexpression in the kidney of db/db mice. EOCs derived from both diabetic db/db and nondiabetic db/m mice were equally effective in ameliorating kidney injury and oxidative stress. The similarly beneficial effects of cells from healthy and diabetic donors highlight the potential of autologous cell therapy in the related clinical setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-state voltage fluctuations between a hyperpolarized down-state and a depolarized up-state have been observed experimentally in a wide variety of neurons across brain regions. Using a biophysical model, we show that synaptic input by NMDA receptors can cause such membrane potential fluctuations. In this model, when a neuron is driven by two input pathways with different AMPA/NMDA receptor content, the NMDA-rich input causes up-state transitions, whereas the AMPA-rich input generates spikes only in the up-state. Therefore the NMDA-rich pathway can gate input from an AMPA pathway in an all-or-none fashion by switching between different membrane potential states. Furthermore, once in the up-state, the NMDA-rich pathway multiplicatively increases the gain of a neuron responding to AMPA-rich input. This proposed mechanism for two-state fluctuations directly suggests specific computations, such as gating and gain modulation based on the distinct receptor composition of different neuronal pathways. The dynamic gating of input by up- and down-states may be an elementary operation for the selective routing of signals in neural circuits, which may explain the ubiquity of two-state fluctuations across brain regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrator circuits in the brain show persistent firing that reflects the sum of previous excitatory and inhibitory inputs from external sources. Integrator circuits have been implicated in parametric working memory, decision making and motor control. Previous work has shown that stable integrator function can be achieved by an excitatory recurrent neural circuit, provided synaptic strengths are tuned with extreme precision (better than 1% accuracy). Here we show that integrator circuits can function without fine tuning if the neuronal units have bistable properties. Two specific mechanisms of bistability are analyzed, one based on local recurrent excitation, and the other on the voltage-dependence of the NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) channel. Neither circuit requires fine tuning to perform robust integration, and the latter actually exploits the variability of neuronal conductances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the techniques used in tracking errors in typescripts of psychotherapy sessions. Instances where the therapist made incorrect statements that got the patient off his track; Classification of the most common tracking errors and their effects in order to diminish their frequency.

Deals with the use of a brief typescript of a part of a taped psychotherapeutic interview in supervision and teaching. Modification of the Gottschalk scales; Classification of components of focal conflicts; Role in decreasing excessive subjectivity on the part of teacher and student; Cognitive foundation for dynamic psychotherapy.

This monograph demonstrates a new method for describing crime stalistics reported in the Uniform Crime Reports. After discussing the methods currently used to present these dam, we explain a scaling modcl based on the scaling of inlelligence uscd in differential psychology and apply that model to a rescaling of reported crime occurences in 76 of the largest cities in the United Stales. A profile of victimization quotients was generated for these cities that allows for more detailed analyses of crime patterns and covariances than do otlm reporting methods. The crime quotients are still examined in relation to four structural characteristics of the 76 cities (municipal expendituscs, police service expenditures, percent of the population that is minority, and population density) as an example of the potential uses of the new scaling system. Psychometric and practical issues associated with the new scaling system are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]