It is well established that pregnancy induces physiological, metabolical and hormonal changes. As a consequence, trace metal metabolism can be affected. The aim of the present study was to assess the urinary cadmium levels in women during gestation and postpartum. The survey was conducted in a group of nonoccupationally cadmium-exposed women from Southern Catalonia (NE, Spain). Urine samples were obtained before pregnancy, during the 6th, 10th, 26th, and 30th wk of gestation, as well as during the 5th and 24th wk after delivery. Urinary cadmium levels were determined by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The concentrations of zinc and copper in plasma were also measured. Moreover, to assess the effect of the diet during pregnancy, dietary ingestions of zinc, iron, and calcium were also determined. A significant decrease of plasma zinc levels could be observed during the last two trimesters of pregnancy, while plasma copper concentrations significantly increased during the same period. Urinary cadmium concentrations ranged from 0.05 to 3.79 micrograms/g creatinine (geometric mean 0.49 +/- 2.26 micrograms/g creatinine). No significant changes in urinary cadmium concentrations during pregnancy and postpartum could be observed.
Caecilia pachynema is a distinctively colored species known from western Ecuador and supposedly from a remote population in the northern Cordillera Central of Colombia. Previously it had been detected that the Colombian populations of "C. pachynema’’ were likely an undescribed species. Material gathered over the past twenty years allows us to describe this new species and restrict the known distribution of C. pachynema to Ecuador.
Kaplan-Solms y Solms presentan en su libro Estudios clínicos en neuropsicoanálisis un método que representa la posible unión de las neurociencias con el psicoanálisis. El objetivo del presente trabajo es comprender la propuesta metodológica del neuropsicoanálisis según la perspectiva de estos autores y su inserción en el campo del psicoanálisis. El presente trabajo se sirvió de la reseña crítica, que permitió una lectura analítica de la obra de los autores. La perspectiva teórica de los autores corresponde a tradiciones postfreudianas, las cuales ponen todo el énfasis en la autonomía del yo y sus funciones, lo que lleva a que se realicen analogías entre formaciones de lo inconsciente y alteraciones neurológicas sin considerar la relación a la causalidad.
Las cecilias y las serpientes de coral son sin duda unos de los vertebrados más fascinantes. Ambos comparten algunas similitudes evolutivas (convergencias) como respuesta a la necesidad de adaptarse a la vida subterránea, donde la vista es relegada a un segundo plano para favorecer un complejo aparato quimiorreceptor. Es bien sabido que las serpientes de coral se alimentan de otros vertebrados vermiformes como las lagartijas amphisbaenidas, las cecilias y muchas otras serpientes que pueden o no, ser de su misma especie. Reportamos el primer registro de Micrurus mipartutus depredando a Oscaecilia polyzona, uno de los caeciliidos más desconocidos del país, esto en base a una fascinante fotografía tomada en Cimitarra, Santander, Colombia. Esta foto nos permite incluir a O. polyzona dentro de la dieta de M. mipartitus.
We here report the first dynamic event of predation and defensive behavior in Microcaecilia nicefori provoked by Micrurus dumerilii in Armero, Tolima, Colombia, and we also provide a compendium of all the available literature records of caecilians being preyed upon by snakes in the Neotropic.
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