Familial Hyperckemia and Calf Hypertrophy Secondary to a Caveolin-3 Mutation.

ABSTRACT: Idiopathic hyperckemia has been described as persistent serum creatine kinase elevation at least 1.5 times the upper limit of normal in individuals with otherwise normal laboratory findings and neurological examination. This type of hyperckemia encompasses both sporadic and familial cases, which have been found to be asymptomatic or subclinical, presenting with mild symptoms, such as myalgias or cramps. Genetic causes of hyperckemia have been rarely described. The authors aim to describe a benign autosomal dominant condition caused by a rare mutation in the caveolin gene. Caveolin gene encodes for structural membrane proteins in muscle. The purpose of this article was to discuss the presentation, pathophysiology, and diagnosis of familial hyperckemia secondary to a relatively unknown mutation in caveolin-3 gene.

Sacroiliac Joint Interventions.

Sacroiliac joint (SIJ) pain is an important cause of lower back problems. Multiple SIJ injection techniques have been proposed over the years to help in the diagnosis and treatment of this condition. However, the SIJ innervation is complex and variable, and truly intra-articular injections are sometimes difficult to obtain. Different sacroiliac joint injections have shown to provide pain relief in patients suffering this ailment. Various techniques for intraarticular injections, sacral branch blocks and radiofrequency ablation, both fluoroscopy guided and ultrasound guided are discussed in this paper. Less common techniques like prolotherapy, platelet rich plasma injections and botulism toxin injections are also discussed.

Measuring individual locomotor rhythms in honey bees, paper wasps and other similar-sized insects.

Circadian rhythms in social insects are highly plastic and are modulated by multiple factors. In addition, complex behaviors such as sun-compass orientation and time learning are clearly regulated by the circadian system in these organisms. Despite these unique features of social insect clocks, the mechanisms as well as the functional and evolutionary relevance of these traits remain largely unknown. Here we show a modification of the Drosophila activity monitoring (DAM) system that allowed us to measure locomotor rhythms of the honey bee, Apis mellifera (three variants; gAHB, carnica and caucasica), and two paper wasps (Polistes crinitus and Mischocyttarus phthisicus). A side-by-side comparison of the endogenous period under constant darkness (free-running period) led us to the realization that these social insects exhibit significant deviations from the Earth's 24 h rotational period as well as a large degree of inter-individual variation compared with Drosophila. Experiments at different temperatures, using honey bees as a model, revealed that testing the endogenous rhythm at 35°C, which is the hive's core temperature, results in average periods closer to 24 h compared with 25°C (23.8 h at 35°C versus 22.7 h at 25°C). This finding suggests that the degree of tuning of circadian temperature compensation varies among different organisms. We expect that the commercial availability, cost-effectiveness and integrated nature of this monitoring system will facilitate the growth of the circadian field in these social insects and catalyze our understanding of the mechanisms as well as the functional and evolutionary relevance of circadian rhythms.