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“Background Sleep paralysis (SP) is characterised by an inability to move voluntarily for a period on going to sleep or on waking. It is also associated with hallucinations, and often with fear. This study seeks to explore the experience of SP in an Irish university sample.
Methods A cross-sectional survey design was employed, with a validated scale for the assessment of SP being distributed to 2,500 students. A total of 418 responded, of whom 83 reported having experienced SP.
Results The most commonly reported and most intense hallucinations were falling, sensed
presence, visual hallucination, pressure on the body and belief might be dying. Fear was also commonly experienced. Bivariate analyses showed an association between fear and several hallucination types.
Conclusion SP in university students often includes experience of hallucinations.
These, in turn, are associated with frequent and intense fear.”
“We URMC-099 molecular weight Selleckchem Caspase inhibitor investigated the genetic diversity of 63 wheat genotypes, composed of 48 accessions and 15 varieties, using 56 polymorphic simple sequence repeat primers. One hundred and eighty-six loci were found, with a mean of 131.26 alleles per locus. Cluster analysis based on microsatellite allelic diversity discriminated the accessions and varieties into different clusters; genetic diversity was the highest between variety Kohistan-97 and accession number 011512, giving a genetic similarity value of 0.4198. Accession numbers selleck chemicals 011484 and 011356 gave a genetic similarity value of 0.9589, indicating that these accessions were 95.89% similar. We found that microsatellite markers could characterize and discriminate all of the genotypes; more primers could be used for saturation of different regions
in further studies.”
“A prospective cohort, noncomparative, multicenter trial was conducted to explore the potential of a phytotherapeutic compound, available as a dietary supplement and containing extracts of Bacopa monnieri and Haematococcus pluvialis (astaxanthin) plus phosphatidylserine and vitamin E, in improving cognition in subjects diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment. Enrolled subjects (n=104) were aged 71.2 +/- 9.9 years and had a mini-mental state examination score of 26.0 +/- 2.0 (mean +/- standard deviation). They underwent the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive subscale (ADAS-cog) test and the clock drawing test at baseline and upon completion of a 60-day period of dietary supplementation with one tablet daily of the tested compound. In 102 assessable subjects, total ADAS-cog scores improved from 13.7 +/- 5.8 at baseline to 9.7 +/- 4.9 on day 60, and the clock drawing test scores improved from 8.5 +/- 2.3 to 9.1 +/- 1.9. Both changes were statistically significant (P<0.001). Memory tasks were the individual components of ADAS-cog showing the largest improvements.