| 1. |
- Brundin, Patrik, et al.
(författare)
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Bilateral caudate and putamen grafts of embryonic mesencephalic tissue treated with lazaroids in Parkinson's disease
- 2000
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Ingår i: Brain. - 1460-2156. ; 123, s. 1380-1390
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Five parkinsonian patients were transplanted bilaterally into the putamen and caudate nucleus with human embryonic mesencephalic tissue from between seven and nine donors. To increase graft survival, the lipid peroxidation inhibitor tirilazad mesylate was administered to the tissue before implantation and intravenously to the patients for 3 days thereafter. During the second postoperative year, the mean daily L-dopa dose was reduced by 54% and the UPDRS (Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale) motor score in 'off' phase was reduced by a mean of 40%. At 10-23 months after grafting, PET showed a mean 61% increase of 6-L-[(18)F]fluorodopa uptake in the putamen, and 24% increase in the caudate nucleus, compared with preoperative values. No obvious differences in the pattern of motor recovery were observed between these and other previously studied cases with putamen grafts alone. The amount of mesencephalic tissue implanted in each putamen and caudate nucleus was 42 and 50% lower, respectively, compared with previously transplanted patients from our centre. Despite this reduction in grafted tissue, the magnitudes of symptomatic relief and graft survival were very similar. These findings suggest that tirilazad mesylate may improve survival of grafted dopamine neurons in patients, which is in agreement with observations in experimental animals.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Hagell, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Sequential bilateral transplantation in Parkinson's disease: effects of the second graft
- 1999
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Ingår i: Brain. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1460-2156. ; 122:6, s. 1121-1132
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Five parkinsonian patients who had received implants of human embryonic mesencephalic tissue unilaterally in the striatum 10-56 months earlier were grafted with tissue from four to eight donors into the putamen (four patients) or the putamen plus the caudate nucleus (one patient) on the other side, and were followed for 18-24 months. After 12-18 months, PET showed a mean 85% increase in 6-L-[18F]fluorodopa uptake in the putamen with the second graft, whereas there was no significant further change in the previously transplanted putamen. Two patients exhibited marked additional improvements after their second graft: 'on-off' fluctuations virtually disappeared, movement speed increased, and L-dopa could be withdrawn in one patient and reduced by 70% in the other. The improvement in one patient was moderate. Two patients with atypical features, who responded poorly to the first graft, worsened following the second transplantation. These findings indicate that sequential transplantation in patients does not compromise the survival and function of either the first or the second graft. Moreover, putamen grafts that restore fluorodopa uptake to normal levels can give improvements of major therapeutic value.
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| 5. |
- Sandell, Rickard, 1964-
(författare)
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Social movements and social networks
- 1998
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- One consistent finding in research on social movement organizations is that people's participation as well as their involvement in the formation of these organizations is linked to their structural location in several social dimensions. Hence, understanding the premises for social movement organizations is ultimately a question of examining the structure of people's social networks.Drawing on these findings, the first study in this thesis argues that an individual's decision to leave a social movement organization is the result of similar influences. By using information about membership turnover in a local Swedish temperance organization, the question of whether existing members' dropout propensity is related to prior members' dropout decisions is tested. It is found that existing members' dropout propensity increases when their socially relevant others drop out of the organization. The results suggest that the decision processes concerning leaving and joining an organization are mirror images. This should have implications for any analysis of social movement organizations because only when this duality of interpersonal influences is considered can we fully understand the social dynamics of social movement organizations.The second study in this thesis calls into question an important and usually implicit assumption in the literature, namely, that social movement organizations are units capable of growth. Organization ecology is an organization theory that has developed parallel to traditional social movement research. Ecologists have argued that organizations are inert structures that hardly ever change and that a micro process such as recruitment is only marginally important for the assessment of aggregate membership. To test whether the ecological argument is relevant for our understanding of social movements, a series of analyses are performed on three Swedish movements - the temperance, the free church, and the trade union movement. The results show considerable merit in the ecological argument and bolster the argument that we cannot fully understand social movements using micro models alone: the macro processes that influence organizational founding and disbanding also need to be included.The third study addresses the free-rider problem from a network perspective. It is suggested that individuals' groups of relevant others are considerably smaller than is usually assumed in the work of Mancur Olson and his followers. Instead of focusing on the interest group as a whole, it is argued that a group of relevant others consists of those to whom the individual is tied through various social bonds. Since these groups tend to be small, social incentives are likely to be effective in inducing individual participation. These ideas are tested empirically by using microdata on members in a Swedish temperance movement organization. The results of the analysis support the "small group" thesis - additional movement members in the group of relevant others increase an individual's propensity to join a social movement organization. However, the results also lend support to Olson's free-rider thesis - when controlling for the composition of the group of relevant others, the more members a movement has, the less likely it is for an individual to join the movement.Finally, the fourth study analyzes the relative importance of two networks in explaining the spatial diffusion of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. The first is a micro-network of interpersonal contacts and the second is a macro-network linking otherwise disconnected local networks. The macro-network considered here emerged out of the travel routes of political agitators affiliated with the Social Democratic Party. Party diffusion, thus, is analyzed as the combined result of two contagious processes operating at different analytical levels, and it is suggested that this multi-level approach provides a deeper understanding of the way in which the diffusion process operated. Analyses of a unique data set on the founding dates of local party organizations during the period 1894 - 1911 show that both types of networks were of considerable importance for the spatial diffusion of the Swedish Social Democratic Party.
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| 6. |
- Singer, Andrew C, et al.
(författare)
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Meeting Report : Risk Assessment of Tamiflu Use Under Pandemic Conditions
- 2008
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Ingår i: Environmental Health Perspectives. ; 116:11, s. 1563-7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- On 3 October 2007, 40 participants with diverse expertise attended the workshop Tamiflu and the Environment: Implications of Use under Pandemic Conditions to assess the potential human health impact and environmental hazards associated with use of Tamiflu during an influenza pandemic. Based on the identification and risk-ranking of knowledge gaps, the consensus was that oseltamivir ethylester-phosphate (OE-P) and oseltamivir carboxylate (OC) were unlikely to pose an ecotoxicologic hazard to freshwater organisms. OC in river water might hasten the generation of OC-resistance in wildfowl, but this possibility seems less likely than the potential disruption that could be posed by OC and other pharmaceuticals to the operation of sewage treatment plants. The workgroup members agreed on the following research priorities: a) available data on the ecotoxicology of OE-P and OC should be published ; b) risk should be assessed for OC-contaminated river water generating OC-resistant viruses in wildfowl ; c) sewage treatment plant functioning due to microbial inhibition by neuraminidase inhibitors and other antimicrobials used during a pandemic should be investigated ; and d) realistic worst-case exposure scenarios should be developed. Additional modeling would be useful to identify localized areas within river catchments that might be prone to high pharmaceutical concentrations in sewage treatment plant effluent. Ongoing seasonal use of Tamiflu in Japan offers opportunities for researchers to assess how much OC enters and persists in the aquatic environment.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Stern, Charlotta, 1967-
(författare)
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The dynamics of social movements : essays on competition and diffusion
- 1999
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this thesis various aspects of social movement competition and diffusion is studied. The first part of the thesis focus on movement competition and especially on how competition relates to the ability of movements to attract members. The second part of the thesis focus on movement diffusion, especially on how different types of social networks affect social movement evolution.In the first essay inter-movement competition between a temperance organization and a Social Democratic party organization is studied. It is argued that a movement organization's success and evolution is influenced by other movement organizations in the local environment. Using the analogy of the ecological niche, organizational competition is modelled as a function of organizational niche-overlap. It is found that niche-overlap affect an organization's success in attracting members, and that niche interaction affect the evolution of the organizational niche.In the second essay intra-movement competition is examined with regard to its effect on the overall growth of a movement's membership. Using data on the Swedish temperance movement, hypotheses from three different theories are tested - cross pressure theory, rational choice theory, and organizational ecology theory - the main finding is that intra-movement competition increase the membership of social movements, which is in line with the hypothesis derived from rational choice theory.In the third essay intra-movement competition is further examined. A model built on the idea of ecological niches and differences in 'ways of life' is developed and hypotheses are tested using data on the free church movement. It is found that the effect of intra-movement competition on membership differ in homogeneous and heterogeneous niches. It is further found that the success of the free church movement is significantly lower in homogeneous niches. The suggested explanation is firstly, that the free church movement faced a different situation than the other folk-movements, since their organizational niche was already occupied by the Swedish state church; secondly, that the holding power of the state church was strong in homogeneous niches since they are more likely to be characterized by a common way of life.In the fourth essay the diffusion of memberships to a local temperance organization is studied. The essay addresses the free rider problem from a network perspective, and suggests that a potential solution to the problem is provided by the social networks to which individuals belong. It is argued that an individual's network consists of a group of 'relevant others' that are small enough to provide social selective incentives and, thus, to overcome the free rider problem. The ideas are tested empirically, and the results support the small group thesis - additional movement members in the group of relevant others increase an individual's propensity to join the organization.The last essay analyzes the relative importance of two networks in explaining the spatial diffusion of the Swedish Social Democratic party. The first is a micro-network of interpersonal contacts and the second is a macro-network linking otherwise disconnected local networks. This macro-network emerged out of the travel routes of the party's political agitators. Party diffusion, thus, is analyzed as the combined result of two networks at different analytical levels, and it is suggested that this multi-level approach provides a deeper understanding of the diffusion process. The empirical results show that both types of networks were of considerable importance for party diffusion.
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| 9. |
- Wenning, Gregor K, et al.
(författare)
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Short- and long-term survival and function of unilateral intrastriatal dopaminergic grafts in Parkinson's disease
- 1997
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Ingår i: Annals of Neurology. - : Wiley. - 1531-8249 .- 0364-5134. ; 42:1, s. 95-107
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Six patients with Parkinson's disease were followed for 10 to 72 months after human embryonic mesencephalic tissue from four to seven donors was grafted unilaterally into the putamen (4 patients) or putamen plus caudate (2 patients). After 8 to 12 months, positron emission tomography showed a 68% increase of 6-L-[18F]-fluorodopa uptake in the grafted putamen, no change in the grafted caudate, and minor decreases in nongrafted striatal regions. There was therapeutically valuable improvement in 4 patients, but only modest changes in the other 2, both of whom developed atypical features. Patient 4 was without L-dopa from 32 months and had normal fluorodopa uptake in the grafted putamen at 72 months. Overall, the L-dopa dose was reduced by a mean of 10 and 20%, "off" time was reduced by 34 and 44%, and the "off" phase Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale motor score by 18 and 26%, and the duration of the response to a single L-dopa dose increased by 45 and 58% during the first and second years after surgery, respectively. Rigidity and hypokinesia improved bilaterally, but mainly contralateral to the implant. No consistent changes in dyskinesias were observed. We conclude that transplantation of embryonic mesencephalic tissue leads to highly reproducible survival of dopaminergic neurons, inducing clinically valuable improvements in most recipients.
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| 10. |
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| 11. |
- Niemi, MEK, et al.
(författare)
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- 2021
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swepub:Mat__t
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| 12. |
- Kanai, M, et al.
(författare)
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- 2023
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swepub:Mat__t
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