1,720,956 research outputs found
Overlooking the obvious? Influence of electrolyte concentrations on seizure quality parameters in electroconvulsive therapy
No full textSerum neurofilament light chain (NFL) remains unchanged during electroconvulsive therapy
No full textNeurofilament Light Chain als Biomarker einer möglichen neuronalen Zellschädigung unter EKT-Behandlung bei unipolar depressiven Patienten
Full text linkEs besteht eine hohe medizinische Evidenz, dass die Elektrokonvulsionstherapie (EKT) eine sichere, gut verträgliche und wirksame Behandlungsform u.a. bei schweren therapiereresistenten depressiven Störungen ist. Trotzdem bestehen bei vielen Patienten aufgrund von kognitiven Nebenwirkungen der Behandlung zum Teil starke Ängste vor möglichen bleibenden Hirnschädigungen durch Behandlungs-induzierte neuronale Schädigungen, obwohl es für derartige EKT-bedingte Effekte in der vorliegenden Literatur keine Hinweise gibt. Neurofilament Light Chain (NFL) ist Teil des axonalen Zytoskeletts und wird bei neuronaler Zellschädigung in den Liquor und ins Serum freigesetzt. Seit kurzem ist durch die Single Molecule Array-Technologie erstmals die sensitive quantitative Bestimmung von NFL im longitudinalen Verlauf durch Abnahme von Serumproben möglich, wodurch NFL einen großen Stellenwert in der neurowissenschaftlichen Forschung als Biomarker für axonale und neuronale Zellschädigung erlangt hat. Die primäre Zielsetzung dieser Arbeit war die Untersuchung von Konzentrationsänderungen von NFL im Blut von unipolar depressiven Patienten unter einer Serienbehandlung mit EKT. Hierfür wurden Patienten mit unipolarer depressiver Episode, für die eine EKT-Serienbehandlung im Rahmen eines stationären Aufenthalts in der in der Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie der Universitätsmedizin Göttingen geplant wurde, gescreent und nach zuvor definierten Einschlusskriterien rekrutiert. Insgesamt konnten 15 Patienten eingeschlossen worden, bei denen jeweils innerhalb von 48 Stunden vor der Durchführung der ersten EKT, innerhalb von 24 Stunden nach der letzten EKT der Serienbehandlung sowie als Follow-up-Untersuchung eine Woche nach Beendigung der Serie die NFL-Konzentration im Serum bestimmt wurde. Zudem wurden 15 gesunde Vergleichsprobanden als Kontrollgruppe eingeschlossen, welche im Rahmen eines individuellen Matchings bezüglich Geschlecht und Alter dem Patientenkollektiv zugeordnet wurde und bei denen ebenfalls eine Baseline NFL-Messung erfolgte. Als zentrales Ergebnis konnte für das untersuchte Patientenkollektiv nachgewiesen werden, dass es im Verlauf einer EKT-Serienbehandlung nicht zu einem Anstieg des neuronalen Schädigungsmarkers Neurofilament Light Chain kommt. Es zeigte sich konträr eine numerische, nicht signifikante Reduktion der NFL-Werte. Im Vergleich zwischen den NFL-Konzentrationen der Patienten und der Kontrollen zeigten sich keine statistisch signifikanten Unterschiede. Zusammenfassend ergab die vorliegende Arbeit in Übereinstimmung mit der Literatur keine Hinweise auf das Auftreten von EKT-bedingten neuronalen Schäden und untermauert damit die Sicherheit dieser in der modernen Psychiatrie fest etablierten Behandlungsform. Aufbauend auf den Ergebnissen dieser Arbeit wäre es sehr wünschenswert, wenn die Ergebnisse in einer deutlichen größeren Stichprobe bestätigt werden könnten.Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a well-established and highly effective treatment for severe treatment-resistant depression, among other conditions. Nevertheless, concerns regarding potential long-term neuronal damage persist among patients, partly due to the known cognitive side effects associated with the treatment, despite a lack of evidence for such ECT-related effects in the existing literature. Neurofilament light chain (NFL) is part of the axonal cytoskeleton and is released into the cerebrospinal fluid and serum during neuronal cell damage. Recent advances in Single Molecule Array (Simoa) technology have enabled the sensitive and quantitative measurement of serum NFL levels, establishing NFL as a significant biomarker for axonal and neuronal cell damage in neuroscience research. The primary objective of this study was to investigate changes in NFL concentrations in the blood of unipolar depressive patients undergoing ECT. 15 patients diagnosed with unipolar depression, scheduled to undergo ECT at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Göttingen, were recruited. NFL concentrations in serum were measured at three time points: within 48 hours prior to the first ECT session, within 24 hours following the final ECT session, and one week post-treatment. A control group consisting of 15 healthy, age- and gender-matched individuals underwent a baseline NFL measurement. The central finding of the study was that no increase in serum NFL concentrations was observed in patients following ECT. Instead, a nonsignificant trend toward reduced NFL levels was noted post-treatment. There were no statistically significant differences in NFL concentrations between patients and controls. In summary, this study found no evidence of ECT-induced neuronal damage, aligning with existing literature and further supporting the safety profile of this well-established treatment in contemporary psychiatry. To strengthen these findings, replication in a larger, more statistically robust sample would be highly desirable.2024-12-0
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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