These electrophysiological features, which are manifestations of the abnormal atrial electrophysiology, would favor production of atrial reentry in chronic lone AF.

These data suggest that the SNPs in DRD2 and AKT1 may influence the treatment response to risperidone in schizophrenia patients.

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Our data provide the first experimental support of the hypothesis implicating virtual electrode-induced phase singularity in defibrillation failure in the Langendorff-perfused rabbit heart. Optimal biphasic shock has a higher defibrillation efficacy because it does not produce virtual electrode-induced phase singularities.

Risperidone is a widely used atypical antipsychotic with certain advantages over typical antipsychotics. Although variations in the efficacy of treatment with risperidone have been observed, no specific predictable marker has been identified as of yet. In all, 73 Japanese patients with schizophrenia were given risperidone for 8 weeks, and clinical symptoms were evaluated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Six candidate polymorphisms (HTR2A À1438G4A, 102T4C, H452Y; DRD2 À141delC, Taq I A; COMT V158M) were genotyped. The diplotype configuration for each individual was estimated by the maximum-likelihood method. Multiple linear regressions were used to analyze the effects of these haplotypes/genotype and other prognostic factors on PANSS scale performance. After adjustment for the effects of patient-related variables, HTR2A diplotype and COMT genotype, as well as other potential prognostic factors, did not significantly influence the clinical performance. A DRD2 haplotype tended to correlate with better clinical performance. Compared with patients who had Ins-A2/Ins-A2 diplotype (n¼25), PANSS total scores of patients with Ins-A2/ Del-A1 diplotype (n¼10) showed 40% greater improvement (P¼0.03). The PANSS total scores of patients with HTR2A A-T/A-T diplotype (n¼22) tended to show 15% worse improvement compared with A-T/G-C diplotype (n¼33) (P¼0.06). These results should be treated with caution because of limitations due to small sample size, heterogeneity of patients with respect to past antipsychotic use history, and no correction for multiple corrections. However, the present findings generate important hypotheses in a sample of Japanese schizophrenia patients that may lay the foundation for future pharmacogenomics investigations in other populations.