Revue YOUR Review
Not a member yet
430 research outputs found
Sort by
Atypical Brain Connectivity in Autism
Get PDFAutism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by difficulties in social interaction and communication, as well as restricted and repetitive behaviours. Although widely accepted as being neurodevelopmental in nature, the specific abnormalities of brain function underlying the disorder remain poorly understood. A growing number of studies have investigated the neuropathology of autism using functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which investigates the relations among large-scale, functionally specialized brain networks. Research studying healthy adults has demonstrated that the antagonistic “default” and “dorsal attention” networks, which subserve internally and externally directed cognition respectively, are modulated by a third “frontoparietal control” network which flexibly couples with either the default or dorsal attention network depending upon locus of attention. We investigated resting-state functional connectivity within and between the default, dorsal attention, and frontoparietal control networks in a group of 25 adult males with ASD and a control group matched on age, intelligence quotient (IQ), and motion parameters. The hierarchical organization of brain networks, assessed via agglomerative clustering, was altered in the ASD group. Region-of-interest analyses identified abnormal functional connectivity of the left frontal eye fields which were hyperconnected to the medial prefrontal cortex and hypoconnected to the insula, which are thought to mediate context-memory binding and salient stimulus detection. Finally, graph theoretic analysis demonstrated an increase in betweenness centrality of the left middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann Area 6), a crucial interconnector node, in the ASD group. These results provide evidence that the typical resting-state relationships among the default, dorsal attention, and frontoparietal control networks are altered in ASD
Drug Report: Capecitabine
Get PDFCancer is a disease that causes a number of the body’s cells to start dividing rapidly and spreading into surrounding tissues. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world with a very low survival rate. There are a few discovered chemotherapeutic drugs that show promising results for the patients and increase the survival rate. Capecitabine is one of them. It is a known orally administered fluoropyrimidine chemotherapeutic agent which is employed in the treatment of metastatic, breast, and colorectal cancers. Activated through a three-step enzymatic pathway, this drug mimics continuous infusion of 5-fluorouracil and creates 5-fluorouracil at the tumour site. As an oral agent, capecitabine is more convenient for patients and medical personnel. Also, it avoids the complications associated with venous access. This project reviews the biochemistry, Synthesis, ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion), toxicity profile, drug function, comparison with older drugs, and bioavailability of the chemotherapeutic drug. Capecitabine is an important new treatment option for breast cancer patients. Ongoing clinical trials can provide further information on the drug’s role in a range of settings. Currently, capecitabine shows a promising future for cancer treatment
Transnationalizing Predatory Food and Body Advertisement
No full textWestern food and body-related corporate advertising methods, when delineated into a five-category model encompassing food, gender, and body insecurity, have been assessed as potential psychic drivers of “thinness,” fear of food, and the implied inadequacy of the “average” individual’s body perception vis-à-vis the manufactured “beauty idol.” Noting the exponential economic growth and consistent maintenance of insecurity-based advertising within Western food, diet, and media industries in the previous decades, this research sought to uncover the similarities in rising rates of North American eating disorders and negative body perceptions, their potential linkage to delineated methods of food and body-image advertising through specific industries, and their reproduction in a “non-Western” sociocultural setting. The following conclusion was subsequently reached: the perceptually negative impacts on gendered North American eating disorder and body-image rates and their methodological reproduction in the Asia-Pacific region represent a statistical tabulation suggestive of a successful “exporting” of Western corporate food and body-image advertising to demographics saturated with its subversive sub-threshold effects. This suggestion becomes particularly visible, and almost definitively exemplified, in the female-identifying populations of Fiji who are noted to have gone from a near-zero rate of medically diagnosed disordered eating and a female body ideal described as “heavier, [and] more robust,” to an alarming increase in eating disorder rates and negative body-image perceptions following the introduction and subsequent accessibility of Western, specifically American, satellite television programming
Terms of Endearment: The Effect of Racial Epithets on Internalized Racial Oppression
Get PDFEarly research on racism traditionally focused on measuring beliefs and attitudes towards racial and ethnic groups. There is a need to examine internalized racial oppression and the mechanisms that seek to maintain and reproduce prejudice among Black populations. The objective of the current study was to gain insight into how usage of racial epithets among Black populations might influence the internalization of white racism. This study examined changes in scores on a post-internalized racial oppression measure after exposure to the racial epithet “nigger” among Black and white female participants. In this study, female York University (Toronto, Canada) students (n=30) were randomly assigned to one of three experimental vignette conditions. Pre-post scores of internalized racial oppression were assessed for each participant. The relationship between psychological resilience and internalized racial oppression was also explored. On average, Black participants obtained higher scores on a post-internalized racism measure (p < .001) but retained lower psychological resilience scores compared to their white counterparts. Results from this study suggest that exposure to the racial epithet “nigger” may unknowingly strengthen internalized racial oppression among Black female participants. Moreover, these findings demonstrate that Black participants with high levels of resilience are better able to mitigate the psychological and emotional discord associated with internalized racial oppression, compared to those with low levels of resilience
