Molting is an essential process in the life cycle of arthropods and is regulated by complex neuroendocrine pathways where activation of the ecdysone receptor (EcR) plays a major role. The EcR forms a non-covalent heterodimer with the ultraspiracle protein (USP) when activated by endogenous ecdysteroids, but can also be activated by several insecticides and other environmental chemicals. Environmental ...

The latency of startle reflex potentiation may shed light on the aware and unaware processes underlying associative learning, especially associative fear learning. We review research suggesting that single-cue delay classical conditioning is independent of awareness of the contingency between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US). Moreover, we discuss research that argues ...

Tetradecabromo-1,4-diphenoxybenzene (TeDB-DiPhOBz) is a highly brominated additive flame retardant (FR). Debrominated photodegradates of TeDBDiPhOBz are hydroxylated <i>in vitro</i> in liver microsomal assays based on herring gulls (<i>Larus argentatus</i>), including one metabolite identified as 4<i>″</i>-OH-2,2<i>′</i>,2<i>″</i>,4-tetrabromo-DiPhOBz. Chemically related methoxylated tetra- ...

<p><i>Background</i>: Autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) has been used over the last two decades to treat focal cartilage lesions aiming to delay or prevent the onset of osteoarthritis; however, some patients do not respond adequately to the procedure. A number of biomarkers that can forecast the clinical potency of the cells have been proposed, but evidence for the relationship between in ...

Bakgrunn: In vitro fertiliseringsklinikken ved Universitetssykehuset i Nord Norge har vært sterkt delaktig i utviklingen av et regime til bruk i klinisk in vitro fertilisering som går ut på å dyrke embryo i langtidskultur i fem dager til blastocyster. Dette for å selektere de mest levedyktige embryoene for tilbakeføring ved å observere hvilke embryoer som utvikler seg best og ekskludere de som ...

Background: Poxvirus-vectored vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer are currently under development. We hypothesized that the extensive use of poxvirus-vectored vaccine in future might result in co-infection and recombination between the vaccine virus and naturally occurring poxviruses, resulting in hybrid viruses with unpredictable characteristics. Previously, we confirmed that ...

In vitro models with the ability to estimate drug penetration through healthy and compromised skin may reduce animal testing of drugs and cosmetics to a minimum. The phospholipid vesicle based permeation assay (PVPA) is based on a tight barrier composed of liposomes mimicking cells. It was originally made to mimic the intestinal epithelial barrier and in this project further developed to mimic the ...

(Trans)dermal drug therapy is gaining increasing importance in the modern drug development. To fully utilize the potential of this route, it is important to optimize the delivery of active ingredient/drug into/through the skin. The optimal carrier/vehicle can enhance the desired outcome of the therapy therefore the optimization of skin formulations is often included in the early stages of the ...

Although faces are often included in the broad category of emotional visual stimuli, the affective impact of different facial expressions is not well documented. The present experiment investigated startle electromyographic responses to pictures of neutral, happy, angry, and fearful facial expressions, with a frontal face direction (directed) and at a 45 angle to the ...

Background: The incidence of uveitis associated with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) varies around the world. Our aim was to investigate the incidence and predictors of uveitis in a Nordic population-based cohort. <br>Methods: Consecutive JIA cases from defined geographical areas in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway with disease onset between January 1997 to June 2000 were followed for ...