In the present study, we investigated the effects of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), a proposed treatment for patients with intractable epilepsy, on cardiac rhythm following seizures induced by pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) in Wistar rats. After a baselinerecording of electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG) and blood pressure (BP), rats in the first group received a single convulsive dose of PTZ (70 mg/kg) (Group 1). In the other
two groups, the Wistar rats were implanted with a cuff electrode on the left cervical vagus nerve. One day after surgery, rats in the second group were treated with VNS (Group 2), whereas rats in the third group were connected to the stimulator but did not receive VNS (Group 3). Ten minutes after VNS onset, 70 mg/kg dose of PTZ was injected. EEG, ECG and BP were continuously recorded during post-injection period. Seizure severity was scored behaviorally. Then, baseline, ictal and postictal periods were analyzed for cardiac rhythms, seizure severity and blood pressure variability. PTZ treatment induced tonic-clonic seizure activity in all animals of Group 1 and Group 3. In these groups a marked increase of mean arterial blood pressure (MABP) but a significant decrease in heart rate and PP interval fluctuations was observed at postictal period. However, in the VNS-treated group the seizure scores and cardiac parameter returned to the baseline level. Present results emphasize that VNS effectively reduces seizure severity and suppress the seizure-induced cardiac rhythm changes.
Reproductive medicine is one of the most progressive and most popular medicine branches. Its success and rapid development, together with the primacy of biological or genetic ties in the western construction of family is considered the main reason for decreasing popularity of adoption as the way of resolving involuntary childlessness. These assumptions are confronted with empirical findings about Czech population. The respondents of the survey conducted in the Czech households were asked about their preferences in the hypothetical situation of being confronted with physical infertility and about their attitudes towards various ways of solving it. The data showed that while infertility is actually constructed as a medical problem requiring high technology medical treatments, the adoption would not be considered a choice of last resort, after the failure of all procedures of artificial reproduction, including using donor gametes or embryo. Further, the data does not support the hypothesis of significant gender differences in these attitudes.
Přiblížení vzhledu a života vakovlka (Thylacinus cynocephalus), historie jeho vyhubení v Austrálii a Tasmánii a pokusů o případné oživení pomocí klonování. and The article describes the appearance and bionomics of the Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger, as well as the history of its extinction in Australia and Tasmania and attempts to recover the species by cloning.
Díky trvajícímu tradičnímu hospodaření přežívají v krajině moravských Karpat specializovaní pastvinoví motýli. Kriticky ohrožený modrásek černoskvrnný (Phengaris arion) je vázán na extenzivní pastvu ovcí a zároveň se nabízí jako vhodný deštníkový druh pro ochranu lokálních společenstev denních motýlů. and Carpathians still host specialised butterflies depending on sheep pastures. One of them, the critically endangered Large Blue (Phengaris arion) depends on non-intensive small-scale pastures, and offers an ideal umbrella species for conserving local butterfly communities.
Stať se věnuje násilným praktikám, které představovaly ústřední prvek občanské války v Bosně a Hercegovině v devadesátých letech minulého století: etnickým čistkám. Jejím cílem je poukázat na fatální důsledky vojenských akcí, které byly vedeny za účelem etnické homogenizace jednotlivých území a které vyplývaly ze souvztažnosti mezi rozdílným demografickým vývojem konstitutivních národů Bosny a Hercegoviny (Srbů, Chorvatů a Muslimů - Bosňáků) před vypuknutím konfliktu a jeho dopadem na proměny národnostního složení jednotlivých regionů. Po teoretickém vymezení termínů „etnická čistka“ a „genocida“ autor analyzuje charakter a rozsah násilné homogenizace na lokální úrovni, jež vyvolala největší uprchlickou vlnu v Evropě od skončení druhé světové války. Příspěvek na základě souhrnného výčtu jednotlivých etap etnických čistek během válečných let 1992 až 1995 ukazuje, že občanská válka v Bosně a Hercegovině se na počátku rozhořela převážně v místech, která v posledních dvou dekádách před rozpadem Jugoslávie vykazovala nejvýraznější proměny etnického zastoupení konstitutivních národů (především Srbů a Muslimů). V druhé části autor soustředí pozornost na rozbor strategických zájmů národnostních elit Srbů, Chorvatů i Bosňáků a forem, jichž nabyly během násilné realizace etnické homogenizace území pod jejich vojenskou kontrolou., The article is concerned with ethnic cleansing, that is, the violent methods that constituted the central element of the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s. The article aims to show the fatal consequences of the military operations that were conducted with the aim of the ethnic homogenization of the individual territories, and were rooted in the differences in the demographic development of the constituent peoples (the Serbs, Croatians, and Muslim Bosniaks) of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the outbreak of the conflict and the impact of this development on the transformation of the ethnic composition of the individual regions. After defining the terms ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’, the author analyses the character and extent of the violent local homogenization that led to the greatest refugee crisis in Europe since the end of the Second World War. On the basis of a summary of the individual stages of the ethnic cleansing during the war from 1992 to 1995, the author seeks to demonstrate that the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina at first erupted mainly in places that had, during the last two decades before the breakup of Yugoslavia, manifested the most striking changes in the ethnic representation of the constituent nations (chiefly the Eastern Orthodox Serbs and the Muslims). In the second part, the author focuses on analysing the strategic interests of the elites of the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks and the forms these interests took during the violent ethnic homogenization of the territory under their military control., Ondřej Žíla., and Obsahuje bibliografii