Insect molting is elicited by a class of polyhydroxylated steroids, ecdysteroids, that originate in the prothoracic glands. Ecdysteroid synthesis in the prothoracic glands is controlled in large measure by a peptide hormone from the brain, prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH), which exists in two forms and is released into the general circulation as a result of environmental and developmental cues. The means by which PTTH activates the prothoracic glands has been examined at the cellular level and the data reveal the involvement of (...) cAMP, calcium, calmodulin, cAMP‐dependent protein kinase and the ultimate phosphorylation of a 34 kDa protein tentatively identified as ribosomal protein S6. (shrink)

El nuevo libro de Xavier de Planhol, L'Islam et la mer es el primer intento, por parte de un especialista occidental, de evaluar el papel del mar en el mundo islámico. No es un libro que se dedique a describir acontecimientos sino a establecer paradigmas culturales e intelectuales, llegando a la conclusión de que «el islam es incompatible con el mar». En consecuencia, explora las implicaciones de esta antipatía a lo largo de la historia islámica desde tiempos pre-islámicos hasta el (...) presente. Su tesis, sin embargo, puede ser cuestionada desde diversas perspectivas, y este artículo, a la vez reseña y estado de la cuestión, sugiere aspectos en los que, tanto las fuentes que él cita, como otras no utilizadas en el libro, pueden ser interpretadas para llegar a conclusiones muy diferentes. (shrink)

This collection of interdisciplinary essays on a unique work by a physician and political figure in 12th-century Spain and North Africa casts important light on the social and intellectual history of the period and breaks new ground in the critical assessment of medieval Arabic literary works.

Mitochondria contain a molecular genetic system to express the 13 protein components of the electron transport system encoded in the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA). Defects in the function of this system result in some diaseases, many of which are multisystem disorders, prominently involving highly aerobic, postmitotic tissues. These defects can be caused by large‐scale rearrangements of mtDNA, by point mutations, or by nuclear gene mutations resulting in abnormalities in mtDNA. Although any of these mutations would be expected to produce a similar (...) clinical phenotype by compromising oxidative phosphorylation, the surprising and puzzling result is that different clinical phenotypes are generally associated with specific mtDNA mutations. Moreover, the same mutation can produce a distinct clinical phenotype in different individuals or pedigrees. MtDNA rearrangements are also found in aged individuals, but at a subclinical level, suggesting that normal and pathological processes can differ by the effect of genetic or environmental factors on the error rate of mtDNA replication. (shrink)

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a movement disorder with prominent tau neuropathology. Brain diseases with abnormal tau deposits are called tauopathies, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Environmental causes of tauopathies include repetitive head trauma associated with some sports. To identify common genetic variation contributing to risk for tauopathies, we carried out a genome-wide association study of 1,114 individuals with PSP and 3,247 controls followed by a second stage in which we genotyped 1,051 cases and 3,560 controls for the (...) stage 1 SNPs that yielded P ≤ 10-3. We found significant previously unidentified signals associated with PSP risk at STX6, EIF2AK3 and MOBP. We confirmed two independent variants in MAPT affecting risk for PSP, one of which influences MAPT brain expression. The genes implicated encode proteins for vesicle-membrane fusion at the Golgi-endosomal interface, for the endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response and for a myelin structural component. © 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Purpose With the increasing sophistication of neuroimaging technologies in medicine, new language is being sought to make sense of the findings. The aim of this paper is to explore whether the brain-reading metaphor used to convey current medical or neurobiological findings imports unintended significations that do not necessarily reflect the genuine findings made by physicians and neuroscientists. Methods First, the paper surveys the ambiguities of the readability metaphor, drawing from the history of science and medicine, paying special attention to the (...) sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Next, the paper addresses more closely the issue of how metaphors may be confusing when used in medicine in general, and neuroscience in particular. The paper then explores the possible misleading effects associated with the contemporary use of the brain-reading metaphor in neuroimaging research. Results Rather than breaking new ground, what we see in current scientific language is a persistence of both a constraining and expansive set of language practices forming a relatively continuous tradition linking current neuroimaging to past scientific investigations into the brain. Conclusions The use of the readability metaphor thus carries with it both positive and negative effects. Physicians and neuroscientists must resort to the use of terms already laden with abstracted meanings, and often burdened by tradition, at the risk of importing through these words connotations that do not tally with the sought-after objectivity of empirical science. (shrink)

Given immunity’s general role in the organism’s economy—both in terms of its internal environment as well as mediating its external relations—immune theory has expanded its traditional formulation of preserving individual autonomy to one that includes accounting for nutritional processes and symbiotic relationships that require immune tolerance. When such a full ecological alignment is adopted, the immune system becomes the mediator of both defensive and assimilative environmental intercourse, where a balance of immune rejection and tolerance governs the complex interactions of the (...) organism’s ecological relationships. Accordingly, immunology, which historically had affiliated with the biology of individuals, now becomes a science concerned with the biology of communities. With this translocation, the ontological basis of the organism is undergoing a profound change. Indeed, the recent recognition of the ubiquity of symbiosis has challenged the traditional notions of biological individuality and requires a shift in the metaphysics undergirding biology, in which a philosophy of the organism must be characterized by ecological dialectics “all-the-way-down.”. (shrink)

Optogenetics is being optimistically presented in contemporary media for its unprecedented capacity to control cell behavior through the application of light to genetically modified target cells. As such, optogenetics holds obvious potential for application in a new generation of invasive medical devices by which to potentially provide treatment for neurological and psychiatric conditions such as Parkinson's disease, addiction, schizophrenia, autism and depression. Design of a first-in-human optogenetics experimental trial has already begun for the treatment of blindness. Optogenetics trials involve a (...) combination of highly invasive genetic and electronic interventions that results in irreversible and permanent modifications of an individual's nervous system. Given its novelty, its uncertain benefit to patients, and its unique risk profile of irreversible physiological alteration, optogenetics requires a reassessment of the ethical challenges for protecting human participants in clinical trials, particularly at formative stages of clinical evaluation. This study explores the evolving ethical issues surrounding optogenetics’ potential harm to participants within trial design, especially focusing on whether Phase 1 trials should incorporate efficacy as well as safety endpoints in ways that are fair and respectful to research trial participants. (shrink)

In her article, Pascale Hess raises the issue of whether her proposed model may be extrapolated and applied to clinical research fields other than stem cell-based interventions in the brain (SCBI-B) (Hess 2012). Broadly summarized, Hess’s model suggests prioritizing efficacy over safety in phase 1 trials involving irreversible interventions in the brain, when clinical criteria meet the appropriate population suffering from “degenerative brain diseases” (Hess 2012). Although there is a need to reconsider the traditional phase 1 model, especially with respect (...) to first-in-human clinical trials involving novel technologies, the question arises as to whether it is appropriate to advocate for a new model that prioritizes efficacy over safety across all phase 1 clinical research trials involving irreversible interventions in the brain. -/- . (shrink)

We show the existence of Lorentz invariant Berry phases generated, in the Stueckelberg–Horwitz–Piron manifestly covariant quantum theory (SHP), by a perturbed four dimensional harmonic oscillator. These phases are associated with a fractional perturbation of the azimuthal symmetry of the oscillator. They are computed numerically by using time independent perturbation theory and the definition of the Berry phase generalized to the framework of SHP relativistic quantum theory.

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence and their application within the field of mental health provision raise issues that cross social, economic, and philosophical boundaries. While Therapeutic A.I. promises to disrupt the current provision of mental health services to reach populations without access to adequate mental health care there are risks. This paper addresses the philosophical problems posed by Therapeutic A.I. I suggest that in the absence of legal guidelines there is a need for philosophical guidance that prioritizes the dignity of (...) clients/consumers. To that end, I advance Rosen’s concept of dignity-as-respectfulness as the most appropriate philosophical principle to guide the application of Therapeutic A.I. (shrink)

The phenomenological effects of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on the self of the patient remains poorly understood and under described in the literature, despite growing evidence that a significant number of patients experience postoperative neuropsychiatric changes. To address this lack of phenomenological evidence, we conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 17 patients with Parkinson's disease who had undergone DBS. Exploring the subjective character specific to patients' experience of being implanted gives empirical and conceptual understanding of the potential phenomenon of DBS-induced self-estrangement. (...) Our study concluded that (1) the more patients preoperatively felt alienated by their illness, the more they experienced postoperative self-estrangement, and (2) the notion of self-estrangement seems to exist in association with certain common qualitative characters, namely, loss of control, which reflects a deteriorative estrangement, and distorted perception of capacities, which reveals a restorative estrangement. These findings indicate that subjective self-reports help us to understand some aspects of the potential phenomenon of DBS-induced self-estrangement. (shrink)

Aquinas’s Five Ways are not to be understood as demonstrative proofs, successful or not, for the existence of God. Rather, they provide a necessary step towards supplying licensable surrogates for the essential predications that cannot logically be drawn from the incomprehensible nature of God, yet would seem needed for the Summa’s declared genre of argued theology. (Predication secundum analogiam provides surrogates for non-relational accidental predications, likewise unavailable.) What Aquinas is proving in arguing deum esse in ST I.2.3 is not God’s (...) actual existence (see ST I.3.4 ad 2) but an alternative interpretation of “God’s being something” where “God is something” is a placeholder for, say, “God is prime mover” or, more explicitly, for such (necessary) identities as “The prime mover is the necessitated necessitator,” an identity whose necessity depends at more than one place on the assumption of God’s existence from faith, not on demonstrative proof of God’s existence. (shrink)

Solidarité est un maître-mot des discours éthiques et politiques contemporains. Sa relative banalisation ne devrait pourtant pas faire oublier l'intense travail de pensée, pluridisciplinaire, qui sous-tend son élaboration, en particulier au sein du solidarisme. On s'intéressera ici tout particulièrement à l'apport du protestantisme aux idées de coopération, d'équité, de service public et de don. Des idées qui témoignent de la force d'un projet éthique souvent inspiré de Kant mais aussi de la liberté critique des solidaristes, qui n'ont pas hésité à (...) réinterpréter le Kantisme dans le cadre d'une anthropologie soucieuse de pratiques concrètes. Solidarity is a keyword of contemporary ethical and political views. Although it has become a relatively commonplace term, one should not forget the hard work of underlying multidisciplinary thinking behind its elaboration, especially in Solidarism. This paper deals particularly with the contribution of Protestantism to the ideas of cooperation, equity, public service, and donation. These ideas witness to the power of an ethical project that is often inspired by Kant, but also by the critical freedom of the Solidarists, who did not hesitate to reinterpret Kantianism in the setting of an anthropology preoccupied with concrete practices. (shrink)

How is it that sounds from the mouth or marks on a page—which by themselves are nothing like things or events in the world—can be world-disclosive in an automatic manner? In this fascinating and important book, Lawrence J. Hatab presents a new vocabulary for Heidegger’s early phenomenology of being-in-the-world and applies it to the question of language. He takes language to be a mode of dwelling, in which there is an immediate, direct disclosure of meanings, and sketches an extensive (...) picture of proto-phenomenology, how it revises the posture of philosophy, and how this posture applies to the nature of language. Representational theories are not rejected but subordinated to a presentational account of immediate disclosure in concrete embodied life. The book critically addresses standard theories of language, such that typical questions in the philosophy of language are revised in a manner that avoids binary separations of language and world, speech and cognition, theory and practise, realism and idealism, internalism and externalism. (shrink)

The initial one-third of the paper is devoted to exposing the first chapter (“Sense-Certainty”) of Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT as a thesis about reference, viz., that singular demonstrative reference is impossible. In the remainder I basically argue that such a view commits one to radically undermining our conceptions of space, time, and substance (concrete individuality), and rests on the central mistake of construing <this> on the model of a predicable (or property).

Behavior, language, development, identity, and science—all of these phenomena are commonly characterized as 'social' in nature. But what does it mean to be 'social'? Is there any intrinsic 'mark' of the social shared by these phenomena? In the first book to shed light on this foundational question, twelve distinguished philosophers and social scientists from several disciplines debate the mark of the social. Their varied answers will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, psychologists, and anyone interested in the theoretical foundations (...) of the social sciences. (shrink)

Werner Jaeger's highly-acclaimed work treats paideia, the shaping of Greek character, as the basis for study of Hellenism as a whole, to explain the interaction between the historical process by which Greek character was formed and the intellectual process by which they constructed their ideal of the human personality.