scholarly journals Leviathan and the Soft Animal: Medical Humanism and the Invertebrate Models for Higher Nervous Functions, 1950s–90s

2011 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio De Sio
Keyword(s):  
Medical Humanism ◽  
Invertebrate Models

Sometime between the late 1960s and the early 1970s, a ‘Monsieur Jourdain syndrome’ seems to have spread among basic researchers and clinicians in fields as diverse as neurology, psychology, psychiatry, behavioural studies, physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology. Almost overnight, they realised that they were but neuroscientists.

Medical Humanism and Blackwood’s Magazine at the Fin de Siècle

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Coyer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Medical Humanism

If Blackwood’s helped to generate a recuperative medical humanism in the first half of the nineteenth century, what was its legacy? This ‘Coda’ turns to the fin de siècle to trace some key examples of a resurgence of the magazine’s mode of medical humanism at a time of perceived crisis for the medical profession, when many began ‘to worry that the transformation of medicine into a science, as well as the epistemological and technical successes of the new sciences, may have been bought at too great a price’....

Alternative Host Models for Testing Anti-Protozoal or Antifungal Compounds and Fungal Infection

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 300-311
Author(s):  
Ana Claudia Torrecilhas ◽  
Patricia Xander ◽  
Karen Spadari Ferreira ◽  
Wagner Luiz Batista
Keyword(s):  
Fungal Infection ◽  
Neglected Tropical Diseases ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Laboratory Animals ◽  
Antifungal Compounds ◽  
Alternative Host ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
New Compounds ◽  
Invertebrate Models ◽  
Alternative Drugs

The neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are caused by several parasites, fungi, bacteria and viruses and affect more than one billion people in the world. The control and prevention against NTDs need implementation of alternative methods for testing new compounds against these diseases. For the implementation of alternative methods, it is necessary to apply the principles of replacement, reduction and refinement (the 3Rs) for the use of laboratory animals. Accordingly, the present review addressed a variety of alternative models to study the infections caused by protozoa and fungi. Overall, vertebrate and invertebrate models of fungal infection have been used to elucidate host-pathogen interactions. However, until now the insect model has not been used in protozoal studies as an alternative method, but there is interest in the scientific community to try new tools to screen alternative drugs to control and prevent protozoal infections.

scholarly journals Emerging Synaptic Molecules as Candidates in the Etiology of Neurological Disorders

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viviana I. Torres ◽  
Daniela Vallejo ◽  
Nibaldo C. Inestrosa
Keyword(s):  
Central Nervous System ◽  
Neurological Disorders ◽  
Neuronal Development ◽  
Protein Complexes ◽  
Synaptic Proteins ◽  
Excitatory Synapses ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Disease Phenotype ◽  
The Central Nervous System ◽  
Invertebrate Models

Synapses are complex structures that allow communication between neurons in the central nervous system. Studies conducted in vertebrate and invertebrate models have contributed to the knowledge of the function of synaptic proteins. The functional synapse requires numerous protein complexes with specialized functions that are regulated in space and time to allow synaptic plasticity. However, their interplay during neuronal development, learning, and memory is poorly understood. Accumulating evidence links synapse proteins to neurodevelopmental, neuropsychiatric, and neurodegenerative diseases. In this review, we describe the way in which several proteins that participate in cell adhesion, scaffolding, exocytosis, and neurotransmitter reception from presynaptic and postsynaptic compartments, mainly from excitatory synapses, have been associated with several synaptopathies, and we relate their functions to the disease phenotype.

Promoting Empirical Knowledge in Habsburg Europe

Nuncius ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-118
Author(s):  
Luca Ciancio
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Medical Humanism ◽  
Mathematical Sciences

Abstract Recent studies on the functions performed by natural and mathematical sciences in Renaissance courts have shown how closely and extensively the domains of medicine, astrology and politics interacted with each other. The dedicatory letters to Cardinal and Prince-Bishop Bernardo Cles printed in works of medicine, astronomy and natural philosophy by scholars like Marco Antonio Rozoni (1524), Sebastian Münster (1527), Luca Gaurico (1531) Pietro Antonio Mattioli (1533) and Ludovico Nogarola (1536) reveal how much attention Ferdinand I’s Supreme Chancellor, a prelate and politician of unquestioned authority and power, devoted to such influential domains of natural science. In particular, they suggest that Bernardo was not unfavorable to a view of natural knowledge inspired by the anti-astrological skepticism of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. What is more, his intellectual proximity to learned physicians working in the wake of Nicolò Leoniceno’s medical humanism lends credit to the image of a patron, and a ruler, who was oriented to rely preferably on natural knowledge grounded in repeatable sensorial experience.

scholarly journals The Genome of the Softshell Clam Mya arenaria and the Evolution of Apoptosis

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1681-1693
Author(s):  
David C Plachetzki ◽  
M Sabrina Pankey ◽  
Matthew D MacManes ◽  
Michael P Lesser ◽  
Charles W Walker
Keyword(s):  
Copy Number ◽  
Gene Copy Number ◽  
Mya Arenaria ◽  
Whole Genome Sequence ◽  
Gene Copy ◽  
Fundamental Feature ◽  
Apoptosis Gene ◽  
Invertebrate Models ◽  
Existing Data ◽  
Softshell Clam

Abstract Apoptosis is a fundamental feature of multicellular animals and is best understood in mammals, flies, and nematodes, with the invertebrate models being thought to represent a condition of ancestral simplicity. However, the existence of a leukemia-like cancer in the softshell clam Mya arenaria provides an opportunity to re-evaluate the evolution of the genetic machinery of apoptosis. Here, we report the whole-genome sequence for M. arenaria which we leverage with existing data to test evolutionary hypotheses on the origins of apoptosis in animals. We show that the ancestral bilaterian p53 locus, a master regulator of apoptosis, possessed a complex domain structure, in contrast to that of extant ecdysozoan p53s. Further, ecdysozoan taxa, but not chordates or lophotrochozoans like M. arenaria, show a widespread reduction in apoptosis gene copy number. Finally, phylogenetic exploration of apoptosis gene copy number reveals a striking linkage with p53 domain complexity across species. Our results challenge the current understanding of the evolution of apoptosis and highlight the ancestral complexity of the bilaterian apoptotic tool kit and its subsequent dismantlement during the ecdysozoan radiation.

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