Cognitive activity roots in perceptions. However, research on sensorial alterations in psychiatric conditions has mainly focused on visual or auditory processes and less on olfaction. Here, we examine data on olfactory deficits in psychiatric patients using a systematic review of recent publications. Schizophrenic patients are mainly characterized by no reliable change in odour sensitivity and by a deficit in odour identification, recognition and discrimination. Depressed patients principally exhibit a deficit in the hedonic aspects of this perception, even if, in some case, alterations in sensitivity or identification

are also found. Changes in odour perception are also found in dementia and in some neurodegenerative disease,

but in this case alterations concern PLX4720 all aspects of the sensorial experience (detection threshold, identification and recognition). Taken together, these data indicate that olfactory abnormalities might be a marker of psychiatric conditions, with a specific pattern for each disease. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is the Lentipirus responsible for an immunodeficiency-like disease in domestic cats (Felis catus). FIV is divided into five phylogenetic subtypes (A, B, C, D, and E), based on genetic diversity. Knowledge of the geographical distribution of subtypes is relevant for understanding different disease progressions and for vaccine development. In this study, viral sequences of 26 GDC-973 infected cats from Rio de Janeiro, 8 undergoing treatment with zidovudine (AZT) for at least 5 years,

were successfully amplified from blood specimens. gag capsid (CA), no pol reverse transcriptase (RT), and env gp120 (V3-V4) regions were analyzed to determine subtypes and to evaluate potential mutations related to antiretroviral drug resistance among treated cats. Subtyping based on phylogenetic analysis was performed by the neighbor-joining and maximum likelihood methods. All of the sequences clustered with subtype B in the three regions, exhibiting low genetic variability. Additionally, we found evidence that the same virus is circulating in animals in close contact. The analysis of FIV RT sequences identified two new putative mutations related to drug resistance located in the RT “”finger”" domain, which has 60% identity to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) sequence. Amino acid change K—>R at codons 64 and 69 was found in 25% and 37.5% of the treated animals, respectively. These signatures were comparable to K65R and K70R thymidine-associated mutations found in the HIV-1 HXB2 counterpart. This finding strongly suggests a position correlation between the mutations found in FIV and the K65R and K70R substitutions from drug-resistant HIV-1 strains.