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OBJECTIVE: In a cohort that spanned all of childhood and suffered equivalent types of traumas, the authors examined diagnostic validity and risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For older children, parent-child agreement was investigated. METHOD: Sixty-two children ages 0-18 years who were hospitalized with injuries were assessed 2 months later for PTSD. Mothers were interviewed, and concurrent interviews were conducted with 24 adolescents. RESULTS: Children did not attain the DSM-IV threshold of three criterion C items until age 7. The 0-6-year-old group had significantly fewer criterion C symptoms (mean=0.43) than the 12-18-year-olds (mean=1.17). The impact of altering thresholds for criteria C and D was examined. Older children reported symptoms meeting criterion B significantly more often (79.2%) than parents (45.8%). Combined parent-child reports yielded significantly more symptoms and higher rates for criteria B, C, and D (almost a twofold increase) and for the overall diagnosis (37.5%) than parent report alone (4.2%). This 8.9-fold increase in diagnosis from combined reports suggests that the diagnostic rates for children who cannot make self-reports may greatly underestimate the true numbers. The interaction between pretrauma externalizing behavior and witnessing a threat to a caregiver had a significant effect on the total number of PTSD symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide additional support for lowering the requirement of three criterion C symptoms for preschool children and raise questions about the appropriateness of this threshold for prepubertal children. The validity of studies that do not assess symptoms with combined parent and child reports is limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: To examine the needs and practices of rural GPs and their relationships with local acute mental health services, particularly in the provision of care to depressed patients. DESIGN: Postal survey. SETTING: Rural general practices. SUBJECTS: Ninety-nine GPs (63 males, 36 females) from the Hunter Valley region of NSW, Australia. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: GPs' self-reported contact rates, confidence, needs and beliefs. RESULTS: Depression was the most commonly seen mental disorder, with an average of 1.44 patients per GP per month referred to local acute mental health services, most commonly for suicidality. The preferred form of feedback after the referral of a depressed patient was a follow-up letter, while the most requested type of patient management support was cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) groups. GPs were most confident in recognising depression, compared to other mental disorders except anxiety, and they were most confident in treating depression, compared to all other mental disorders. The most common barrier to providing care for depressed patients was reported to be 'time constraints' on GPs. CONCLUSIONS: The challenge for mental health services is to develop ways to collaborate more effectively with GPs in the provision of psychological services for depressed patients in rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical reports suggest that intracoronary delivery of adenoviruses encoding angiogenic growth factors, or their transactivators, has a therapeutic benefit. However there has not been a systematic assessment of the transfection efficiency of this technique in vivo. In rabbits we investigated the efficiency of myocardial gene transfer following intracoronary infusion of 1 × 10[sup 10]-1 × 10[sup 12] p.f.u, of adenovirus in combination with interventions to enhance transfection. In five standard short axis sections, we were barely able to detect reporter gene expression following unmodified intracoronary infusion. Efficiency was not enhanced by the exclusion of blood and the increase of intracoronary dwell time through occlusive engagement of the left coronary ostium enabled by oxygenated perfluorocarbon emulsion as viral diluent. Of the interventions and pretreatments designed to increase vascular permeability, VEGF, calcium-free viral diluent and adenosine, only the latter tended to increase efficiency. However an intervention designed to increase the myocardial transcapillary gradient, by increasing venular pressure with pulmonary artery occlusion and arteriolar pressure with occlusion of the aorta above the coronary ostia, increased transfection efficiency by two orders of magnitude. Unfortunately the clinical utility of this technique may be limited by accompanying cardiac dilation and marked elevations in intracardiac pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been almost no overlap between behavior genetics and consumer behavior research, despite each field's importance in understanding society. In particular, both have neglected to study genetic influences on consumer adoption and usage of new technologies — even technologies as important as the mobile phone, now used by 5.8 out of 7.0 billion people on earth. To start filling this gap, we analyzed self-reported mobile phone use, intelligence, and personality traits in two samples of Australian teenaged twins (mean ages 14.2 and 15.6 years), totaling 1,036 individuals. ACE modeling using Mx software showed substantial heritabilities for how often teens make voice calls (.60 and .34 in samples 1 and 2, respectively) and for how often they send text messages (.53 and. 50). Shared family environment – including neighborhood, social class, parental education, and parental income (i.e., the generosity of calling plans that parents can afford for their teens) — had much weaker effects. Multivariate modeling based on cross-twin, cross-trait correlations showed negative genetic correlations between talking/texting frequency and intelligence (around –.17), and positive genetic correlations between talking/texting frequency and extraversion (about .20 to .40). Our results have implications for assessing the risks of mobile phone use such as radiofrequency field (RF) exposure and driving accidents, for studying adoption and use of other emerging technologies, for understanding the genetic architecture of the cognitive and personality traits that predict consumer behavior, and for challenging the common assumption that consumer behavior is shaped entirely by culture, media, and family environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. The paper examines the general literature and available research evidence on medical, health and social aspects of life for adults with skeletal dysplasia conditions causing profound short stature. Method. The paper reports on a literature review using available medical, psychological and social sources. Results. There is a dearth of methodologically sound research evidence in this field, and this is particularly marked in areas such as transition to adulthood, ageing and medical, surgical and health experiences. Conclusions. There are serious gaps in the available literature and research evidence is sparse and often based on biased samples of limited numbers. This means that it is difficult to get information beyond the anecdotal in assessing the health and social needs of this group of people, and in particular to define needs that are currently unmet. It also limits the scope of advice and information available to health professionals and others in the field who offer support to adults with the conditions and parents of newly-diagnosed babies and young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the data being collected from the Brisbane Longitudinal Twin Study in Australia as part of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded project, Pathways to Cannabis Use, Abuse and Dependence. The history, recruitment, assessment, and retention of twin families in this project are described in detail, along with preliminary findings and plans for future research. The goal of this NIDA project is to make a significant contribution to the discovery of quantitative trait loci influencing cannabis use disorders. Although the focus is cannabis use, abuse, and dependence in young adults, measures of comorbid illicit drug use disorders are also being collected. In addition, a variety of internalizing and externalizing disorders are being assessed, funded by support from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. Because these same twins have participated in numerous twin studies since 1992, future plans will include linking different phenotypes to investigate relationships between drug use, psychiatric disorders, and psychological phenotypes within cross-sectional and longitudinal or developmental frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The G protein-coupled receptor 119 (GPR119) mediates insulin secretion from pancreatic β cells and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) release from intestinal L cells. While GPR119-mediated insulin secretion is glucose dependent, it is not clear whether or not GPR119-mediated GLP-1 secretion similarly requires glucose. This study was designed to address the glucose-dependence of GPR119-mediated GLP-1 secretion, and to explore the cellular mechanisms of hormone secretion in L cells versus those in β cells. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH GLP-1 secretion in response to GPR119 agonists and ion channel modulators, with and without glucose, was analysed in the intestinal L cell line GLUTag, in primary intestinal cell cultures and in vivo. Insulin secretion from Min6 cells, a pancreatic β cell line, was analysed for comparison. KEY RESULTS In GLUTag cells, GPR119 agonists stimulated GLP-1 secretion both in the presence and in the absence of glucose. In primary mouse colon cultures, GPR119 agonists stimulated GLP-1 secretion under glucose-free conditions. Moreover, a GPR119 agonist increased plasma GLP-1 in mice without a glucose load. However, in Min6 cells, GPR119-mediated insulin secretion was glucose-dependent. Among the pharmacological agents tested in this study, nitrendipine, an L-type voltage-dependent calcium channel blocker, dose-dependently reduced GLP-1 secretion from GLUTag cells, but had no effect in Min6 cells in the absence of glucose. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Unlike that in pancreatic β cells, GPR119-mediated GLP-1 secretion from intestinal L cells was glucose-independent in vitro and in vivo, probably because of a higher basal calcium tone in the L cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]