Category Archives: Volume 67

Particular aspects of social integration among patients with schizophrenia

Andreea Salcudean, Eliza Dumitrita Sirbu, Daniela Muresan, Cristina Raluca Bodo

George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures, Romania

DOI: 10.2478/amma-2021-0002

Objective: In this study we aim to identify characterize the social integration of patients with Schizophrenia in Romania and identify variables that influence their social integration.
Method: Charts from patients hospitalized in the Psychiatry Clinic 1, during 21 months, were studied: marital status, parenting, and family residence, the quality of the relationships with relatives, professional status and the association with a personality disorder. The associations were performed using the chi-square test. Windows excel and Graphpad.com were used for data processing.
Result: From the 116 patients selected, 30.17% were married; 71.4% have secondary and higher education; 21.6% were unemployed and did not have any social assistance income; 37.9% lived with families; 46.6% had children; 20.7% had appropriate family relationships; and 54.3% have a personality disorder. There was no association between the number of hospitalizations and the patient’s gender (p=0.59), between the personality type and higher education level (p=0.51). Having a personality disorder was not statistically associated with residential status (p=0.11). The chance of a patient living with his family is 2.5 times higher if the patient has a schizoid personality disorder.
Conclusion: Indicators such as marital status, parenting, family residence, employment, relationship with the family can be used to analyze the effectiveness of the treatment schemes that are conducted for the patients with schizophrenia.

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The effect of amygdala low-frequency stimulation on inter-hippocampal connectivity in the pilocarpine model of epilepsy

István Mihály, Ádám-József Berki, Károly Orbán-Kis, Zsolt Gáll, Réka-Barbara Bod, Tibor Szilágyi

George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures, Romania

DOI: 10.2478/amma-2021-0004

Objective: The aim of our study was to investigate the effect of amygdala low-frequency stimulation on inter-hippocampal network synchronization by using the phase locking value (PLV) in order to establish new biomarkers of treatment efficacy in a temporal lobe epilepsy model.
Materials and Methods: The lithium-pilocarpine model of epilepsy was used to induce status epilepticus in male Wistar rats. Afterward, seizures were scored based on continuous video recordings. 8 weeks after status epilepticus electrodes were implanted: a stimulating electrode in the left basolateral amygdala and bilaterally two hippocampal recording electrodes in both pilocarpine-treated and age-matched control rats (N=7). 10 Pilo and 4 control animals were stimulated daily for 10 days with 4 packages of 50 seconds 4Hz trains. Inter-hippocampal PLVs were measured offline before and after stimulation trains in delta (1-4Hz), theta (4-12Hz), gamma (30-100Hz), HFO (100-150Hz), ripple (150-250Hz), and fast ripple (250-600Hz) bands using Brainstorm software.
Results: The PLV before the stimulation was significantly lower in epileptic animals compared to controls in the delta, theta, and gamma bands. The PVLs of epileptic animals were increased by low-frequency stimulation in delta and theta bands. The PLVs in HFO and ripple band correlated positively with the changes in seizure rate, while the PLVs in the delta, theta, and gamma correlated positively with the changes in seizure duration.
Conclusion: Amygdala low-frequency stimulation improved the impaired synchrony between the two hippocampi in low-frequency bands. The phase locking value could be useful to evaluate the efficiency of therapeutic interventions in temporal lobe epilepsy.

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Educational design research, an innovative method to investigate virtual reality applications in disaster management training programs

Emilia Turucz1, Sorana Teodora Truta1, Maria Dorina Pașca2, Ernő Jerzicska3, Cristian Marius Boeriu1, János Szederjesi4, Leonard Azamfirei5

1. Department of Emergency Medicine, George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures, Romania
2. Department of Ethics and Social Sciences, George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures, Romania
3. Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Oradea Emergency Clinical County Hospital, Romania
4. Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care I, George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures, Romania
5. Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care II, George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures, Romania

DOI: 10.2478/amma-2021-0003

Educational design research is a form of experiment that combines the stages of development, design and testing of a researched paradigm in a way that all theese processes are conducted in real learning environment. The investigated educational dilemmas are continuously modified and readjusted throughout the research process, so that researchers can test and generate theories simultaneously within naturalistic educational contexts. Design-based research is defined as an adaptive, collaborative, contextual and flexible process, easily adapting to any research objective through the adjacent methodological complex. It differrs from other research methods by addressing practical and theoretical objectives with the same importance, the final contribution being, in general, a validated practical application and a set of new theoretical knowledge. The aim of this paper is to present the exceptional advantages of this research method and to provide a source of ideas for researchers interested in developing scientific works based on this methodology. Demonstratively, we include an example of a research protocol adapted to this methodological concept, which aimed to investigate the potential use and integration of virtual reality technology in disaster management related training programs. This protocol constituted the basis of a complex inquiry process led by our research team and which we consider to be a perfect model for demonstrating the adaptability of the method to instructional research objectives.

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The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the educational process of Dental Medicine Department students in Oradea University during the lockdown period

Gabriela Ciavoi1, Catalina Farcasiu2, Edwin Sever Bechir3, Magdalena Natalia Dina2, Titus Alexandru Farcasiu2, Daniela Ioana Tarlungeanu2, Oana Cella Andrei2

1. University of Oradea, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Oradea, Romania
2. “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucuresti, Romania
3. George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures, Faculty of Medicine, Targu Mures,
Romania

DOI: 10.2478/amma-2021-0006

Aim: This cross-sectional study assesses the opinions regarding the abrupt change in dental health education of students from the Department of Dentistry, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Oradea University during the lockdown period.
Materials and methods: An on-line survey was distributed, from 30th of April 2020 until the 2nd of May 2020, collecting data about gender, nationality, year of study, sources of information about the virus, measures taken to avoid contamination, rating online teaching versus face-to face teaching, experiencing anxiety about the future of the profession, perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their life and professional future and possible measures that can be implemented in order to avoid or reduce contamination. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS and Chi-Square test.
Results and discussions: Reopening was associated with anxiety concerning the future of the profession for 44.8% of the respondents; almost half of the students experienced anxiety caused by the possibility of being infected in case of reopening (49.7%), while 62.6% were afraid of the possibility to infect their family, peers or patients. From the total number of students, 12.9% were considering changing their profession. A quarter of respondents (25.2%) declared that they will wait for a decrease in number of cases in order to reevaluate their professional career options.
Conclusions: Government provided data was preferred by the female respondents’ group, versus the men respondents’ group who preferred the information provided by the WHO. The highest percentage of respondents that considered professional psychological support from university during the lockdown period useful were in the first 4 years of study. Most of the foreign students preferred to open their own dental office, while most of the Romanian students opted for being an employee in a big Dental Clinic or for reevaluating their options at a later point.

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Protein level alteration of endocannabinoid system components after chronic, oral self-administration of three atypical antipsychotics in rat

László-István Bába1, Melinda Kolcsár1, Zsolt Gáll1, László Csaba Bencze2, Adrian Man3, Imre Zoltán Kun4

1. Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy, George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures, Romania
2. Biocatalysis and Biotransformation Research Center, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
3. Department of Microbiology, George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures, Romania
4. Doctoral School, George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures, Romania

DOI: 10.2478/amma-2021-0008

Objective: Atypical antipsychotics (AAPs) often cause metabolic adverse effects (mAE) such as weight gain and dyslipidemia. The mechanisms underlying AAP induced mAE are not fully elucidated. The endocannabinoid system (ECS) is a key system in the regulation of energy metabolism that may be involved in AAPs induced mAE. In this experiment, we studied the expression of three major components of ECS: cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1), fatty acid amidohydrolase (FAAH) and monoacyl glycerol lipase (MAGL) after chronic administration in rat of three AAPs: olanzapine (Ola), aripiprazole (Ari) and cariprazine (Car).
Methods: Drugs were self-administered orally, in two doses by female, adult Wistar white rats (n=6 per treatment group) for six weeks. After the treatment period, the animals were sacrificed and visceral (perirenal) white fat pads were collected. The fat tissue samples were homogenized and the expression level of CB1, FAAH and MAGL were compared by western-blot analysis.
Results: An increase of CB1 expression was noticed after the treatment with 1.5 mg/kg/day Ola, although not statistically significant. All three drugs augmented the FAAH expression, the effect being significant after the treatment with 0.25 mg/kg/day Car. The expression of MAGL was not influenced significantly by the three AAPs, nevertheless, an increasing tendency can be remarked in the case of Ari and Car.
Conclusions: Promoting the CB1 expression in adipose tissue could contribute to weight increasing and other mAE effects of Ola. The tendency of Ari and Car to enhance the breakdown enzymes expression might have some role in more favorable mAE of these drugs.

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