Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0036572 (seizures)
 80,221 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A 45-year-old man called for the hospital in a confused and anxious state. Another man of around 30 walked into a hospital sweating and complaining of abdominal pain, and subsequently suffered several epileptic seizures and died before being recognised as a body packer. A 39-year-old man suffered an epileptic seizure on the aeroplane and a 21-year-old man was found dead, having suffered from abdominal pain the previous day. All were found to have swallowed cocaine packets. The two eldest men underwent emergency surgery: one died as the result of cocaine intoxication and one recovered. Body packers, people carrying cocaine packets in their bodies, are arriving in Europe in increasing numbers, mainly from South America. Body-packer syndrome consists of intestinal occlusion or potentially lethal intoxication caused by rupture of the packets. Awareness of the body packers' circumstances and the clinical signs of body-packer syndrome makes early recognition possible. In Amsterdam, the identification of body packers after arrival at the airport by the Schiphol-team and the medical follow-up by the Forensic Medicine Department of the Municipal Health Service of Amsterdam, result in a relatively low mortality risk. Early detection of intoxication will save lives.
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PMID:['Body-packer' syndrome: an important disease with forensic-medical aspects]. 1451 43

Although ASIC4 is a member of the acid-sensing ion channel (ASIC) family, we have limited knowledge of its expression and physiological function in vivo. To trace the expression of this ion channel, we generated the ASIC4-knockout/CreERT(2)-knockin (Asic4(Cre) (ERT) (2)) mouse line. After tamoxifen induction in the Asic4(Cre) (ERT)(2)::CAG-STOP(floxed)-Td-tomato double transgenic mice, we mapped the expression of ASIC4 at the cellular level in the central nervous system (CNS). ASIC4 was expressed in many brain regions, including the olfactory bulb, cerebral cortex, striatum, hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus, brain stem, cerebellum, spinal cord and pituitary gland. Colocalisation studies further revealed that ASIC4 was expressed mainly in three types of cells in the CNS: (i) calretinin (CR)-positive and/or vasoactive intestine peptide (VIP)-positive interneurons; (ii) neural/glial antigen 2 (NG2)-positive glia, also known as oligodendrocyte precursor cells; and (iii) cerebellar granule cells. To probe the possible role of ASIC4, we hypothesised that ASIC4 could modulate the membrane expression of ASIC1a and thus ASIC1a signaling in vivo. We conducted behavioral phenotyping of Asic4(Cre) (ERT)(2) mice by screening many of the known behavioral phenotypes found in Asic1a knockouts and found ASIC4 not involved in shock-evoked fear learning and memory, seizure termination or psychostimulant-induced locomotion/rewarding effects. In contrast, ASIC4 might play an important role in modulating the innate fear response to predator odor and anxious state because ASIC4-mutant mice showed increased freezing response to 2,4,5-trimethylthiazoline and elevated anxiety-like behavior in both the open-field and elevated-plus maze. ASIC4 may modulate fear and anxiety by counteracting ASIC1a activity in the brain.
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PMID:Genetic mapping of ASIC4 and contrasting phenotype to ASIC1a in modulating innate fear and anxiety. 2582 70