Hearing voices among Russian patients with schizophrenia.

There has been relatively little work which systematically examines whether the content of hallucinations in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia varies by cultural context. The work that exists finds that it does. The present project explores the way auditory hallucinations, or "voices," manifest in a Russian cultural context. A total of 28 individuals, diagnosed with schizophrenia, who reported hearing voices at the Republican Clinical Psychiatric Hospitals in Kazan, Russia, were interviewed about their experience of auditory hallucinations. The voices reported by our Russian participants did appear to have culturally specific content. Commands tended to be non-violent and focused on chores or other activities associated with daily life (byt). Many patients also reported sensory hallucinations involving other visions, sounds, and smells which sometimes reflected Russian folklore themes. For the most part, religious themes did not appear in patients' auditory vocal hallucinations, though nearly all patients expressed adherence to a religion. These findings support research that finds that the content, and perhaps the form, of auditory hallucinations may be shaped by local culture.

Non-destructive sampling of ancient insect DNA.

BACKGROUND: A major challenge for ancient DNA (aDNA) studies on insect remains is that sampling procedures involve at least partial destruction of the specimens. A recent extraction protocol reveals the possibility of obtaining DNA from past insect remains without causing visual morphological damage. We test the applicability of this protocol on historic museum beetle specimens dating back to AD 1820 and on ancient beetle chitin remains from permafrost (permanently frozen soil) dating back more than 47,000 years. Finally, we test the possibility of obtaining ancient insect DNA directly from non-frozen sediments deposited 3280-1800 years ago -- an alternative approach that also does not involve destruction of valuable material. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The success of the methodological approaches are tested by PCR and sequencing of COI and 16S mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) fragments of 77-204 base pairs (-bp) in size using species-specific and general insect primers. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: The applied non-destructive DNA extraction method shows promising potential on insect museum specimens of historical age as far back as AD 1820, but less so on the ancient permafrost-preserved insect fossil remains tested, where DNA was obtained from samples up to ca. 26,000 years old. The non-frozen sediment DNA approach appears to have great potential for recording the former presence of insect taxa not normally preserved as macrofossils and opens new frontiers in research on ancient biodiversity.