EarlyView Articles

Pharmacokinetics of GHB and detection window in serum and urine after single uptake of a low dose of GBL – an experiment with two volunteers

Published: Jun 4, 2013

Author(s): Alexandra Schröck, Yvonne Hari, Stefan König, Volker Auwärter, Stefan Schürch, Wolfgang Weinmann

Journal: Drug Testing and Analysis

During the last few years γ‐hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) and γ‐butyrolactone (GBL) have attracted much interest as recreational drugs and knock‐out drops in drug‐facilitated sexual assaults. This experiment aims at getting an insight into the pharmacokinetics of GHB after intake of GBL. Therefore Two volunteers took a single dose of 1.5 ml GBL, which had been spiked to a soft drink. Assuming that GBL was completely metabolized to GHB, the...

Detection of myo ‐inositol tris pyrophosphate (ITPP) in equine following an administration of ITPP

Published: Jun 4, 2013

Author(s): Geoffrey Lam, Sarah Zhao, Jasmeet Sandhu, Rong Yi, Devan Loganathan, Barbara Morrissey

Journal: Drug Testing and Analysis

Myo‐Inositol tris pyrophosphate (ITPP) is a powerful allosteric modulator of haemoglobin that increases oxygen‐releasing capacity of red blood cells. It is capable of crossing the red blood cell membrane unlike its open polyphosphate analog myo‐inositol hexakisphosphate (IHP). Systemic administration of ITPP enhanced the exercise capacity in mice. There have been rumours of its abuse in the horse racing industry to enhance the performance of racing...

Characterizing the interaction between enantiomers of eight psychoactive drugs and highly sulfated‐ β ‐cyclodextrin by counter‐current capillary electrophoresis

Published: Jun 4, 2013

Author(s): Lucía Asensi‐Bernardi, Laura Escuder‐Gilabert, Yolanda Martín‐Biosca, Salvador Sagrado, María José Medina‐Hernández

Journal: Biomedical Chromatography

ABSTRACT The estimation of apparent binding constants and limit mobilities of the complexes of the enantiomers that characterize the interaction of enantiomers with chiral selectors, in this case highly sulfated β‐cyclodextrin, was approached using a simple and economic electrophoretic modality, the complete filling technique (CFT) in counter‐current mode. The enantiomers of eight psychoactive drugs, four antihistamines (dimethindene,...

Quantification of human high‐energy phosphate metabolite concentrations at 3 T with partial volume and sensitivity corrections

Published: Jun 3, 2013

Author(s): AbdEl‐Monem M. El‐Sharkawy, Refaat E. Gabr, Michael Schär, Robert G. Weiss, Paul A. Bottomley

Journal: NMR in Biomedicine

Practical noninvasive methods for the measurement of absolute metabolite concentrations are key to the assessment of the depletion of myocardial metabolite pools which occurs with several cardiac diseases, including infarction and heart failure. Localized MRS offers unique noninvasive access to many metabolites, but is often confounded by nonuniform sensitivity and partial volume effects in the large, poorly defined voxels commonly used...

Identification and quantification of synthetic cannabinoids in ‘spice‐like’ herbal mixtures: A snapshot of the German situation in the autumn of 2012

Published: May 30, 2013

Author(s): Nico Langer, Rainer Lindigkeit, Hans‐Martin Schiebel, Ludger Ernst, Till Beuerle

Journal: Drug Testing and Analysis

Synthetic compounds mimicking cannabis‐like effects are a recent trend. Currently, these so‐called synthetic cannabinoids are the largest and fastest growing class of newly appearing designer drugs. Many national authorities are continuously adapting their regulations to keep pace with the permanently changing variety of compounds. We have analyzed eight herbal smoking blends containing synthetic cannabinoids. Altogether, nine compounds...

Forensic analysis of arsenic poisoning in Japan by synchrotron radiation X‐ray fluorescence

Published: May 30, 2013

Author(s): Jun Kawai

Journal: X-Ray Spectrometry

Synchrotron radiation X‐ray fluorescence (SR‐XRF) analysis reports of a poisoning case by arsenic, 25 July 1998, Japan, for forensic investigation purposes are reviewed. In these forensic analyses, SPring‐8 and KEK‐PF beamlines were used for minor element (Sn, Sb, Mo, Bi, Ba) analysis in the arsenic pesticide specimens, sampled at the crime scene as well as the neighborhood of the suspect. For this case, two kinds of documents were...

Desialylation improves the detection of recombinant erythropoietins in urine samples analyzed by SDS‐PAGE

Published: May 29, 2013

Author(s): Philippe Desharnais, Jean‐François Naud, Christiane Ayotte

Journal: Drug Testing and Analysis

Recombinant erythropoietin (rhEPO) has been misused for over two decades by athletes, mainly but not only in endurance sports. A direct rhEPO detection method in urine by isoelectric focusing (IEF) was introduced in 2000, but the emergence of third‐generation erythropoiesis‐stimulating agents and so‐called biosimilar rhEPOs, together with the sensitivity of human endogenous EPO (huEPO) pattern to enzymatic activities and its modification...

Direct and efficient liquid chromatographic‐tandem mass spectrometric method for opiates in urine drug testing – importance of 6‐acetylmorphine and reduction of analytes

Published: May 29, 2013

Author(s): Maria Andersson, Nikolai Stephanson, Inger Öhman, Tommy Terzuoli, Jonatan D Lindh, Olof Beck

Journal: Drug Testing and Analysis

Opiates comprise a class of abused drugs that is of primary interest in clinical and forensic urine drug testing. Determination of heroin, codeine, or a multi‐drug ingestion is complicated since both heroin and codeine can lead to urinary excretion of free and conjugated morphine. Liquid chromatography‐tandem mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS) offers advantage over gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry by simplifying sample preparation but...

Fast and sensitive analysis of dermorphin and HYP ⁶ ‐dermorphin in equine plasma using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

Published: May 29, 2013

Author(s): Caroline C. Wang, Petra Hartmann‐Fischbach, Tim R. Krueger, Terry L. Wells, Amy R. Feineman, Joanne C. Compton

Journal: Drug Testing and Analysis

Dermorphin and HYP6‐dermorphin are hepta‐ peptides and natural opioids originally isolated from the skin of South American frogs. They are more potent than morphine but less likely to produce drug tolerance and addiction. These properties make them ideal candidates for the doping of racehorses to enhance performance during competition. Dermorphin was recently classified as a Class I...

Diffusion‐weighted MRI and its role in prostate cancer

Published: May 27, 2013

Author(s): Tsutomu Tamada, Teruki Sone, Yoshimasa Jo, Akira Yamamoto, Katsuyoshi Ito

Journal: NMR in Biomedicine

In the last 5 years, the multiparametric approach has been investigated as the method for the MRI of prostate cancer. In multiparametric MRI of the prostate, at least two functional MRI techniques, such as diffusion‐weighted MRI (DW‐MRI) and dynamic contrast‐enhanced MRI, are combined with conventional MRI, such as T2‐weighted imaging. DW‐MRI has the ability to qualitatively and quantitatively represent the diffusion of water molecules by ...

Structure and chain polarization of long polyynes investigated with infrared and Raman spectroscopy

Published: May 27, 2013

Author(s): N. R. Agarwal, A. Lucotti, D. Fazzi, M. Tommasini, C. Castiglioni, W.A. Chalifoux, R. R. Tykwinski

Journal: Journal of Raman Spectroscopy

Symmetrically and unsymmetrically endcapped polyynes (triisopropylsilyl – TIPS – and super trityl endcapping groups) have been studied with density functional theory calculations and Raman and infrared spectroscopy. This spectroscopic investigation provides general guidelines for studying the vibrational and structural features of sp‐carbon‐based materials, which nowadays are at the center of growing interest for the potential...

Role of high‐field MR in studies of localized prostate cancer

Published: May 24, 2013

Author(s): Miriam W. Lagemaat, Tom W. J. Scheenen

Journal: NMR in Biomedicine

Magnetic resonance imaging is attracting increasing attention from the uroradiological community as a modality to guide the management of prostate cancer. With the high incidence of prostate cancer it might come as a surprise that for a very long time (and in many places even at present) treatment decisions were being made without the use of detailed anatomical and functional imaging of the prostate gland at hand. Although T2‐weighted MRI...

Desalkylflurazepam found in patients’ samples after high‐dose midazolam treatment

Published: May 24, 2013

Author(s): Susanne Vogt, Jürgen Kempf, Jürgen Buttler, Volker Auwärter, Wolfgang Weinmann

Journal: Drug Testing and Analysis

Effects of exercise‐induced intracellular acidosis on the phosphocreatine recovery kinetics: a ³¹ P MRS study in three muscle groups in humans

Published: May 23, 2013

Author(s): Gwenael Layec, Emil Malucelli, Y. Le Fur, David Manners, Kazuya Yashiro, Claudia Testa, Patrick J. Cozzone, Stefano Iotti, David Bendahan

Journal: NMR in Biomedicine

Little is known about the metabolic differences that exist among different muscle groups within the same subjects. Therefore, we used 31P‐magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P‐MRS) to investigate muscle oxidative capacity and the potential effects of pH on PCr recovery kinetics between muscles of different phenotypes (quadriceps (Q), finger (FF) and plantar flexors (PF)) in the same cohort of 16 untrained adults. The estimated muscle...

Texture‐based and diffusion‐weighted discrimination of parotid gland lesions on MR images at 3.0 Tesla

Published: May 23, 2013

Author(s): Julia Fruehwald‐Pallamar, Christian Czerny, Laura Holzer‐Fruehwald, Stefan F. Nemec, Christina Mueller‐Mang, Michael Weber, Marius E. Mayerhoefer

Journal: NMR in Biomedicine

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether texture‐based analysis of standard MRI sequences and diffusion‐weighted imaging can help in the discrimination of parotid gland masses. The MR images of 38 patients with a biopsy‐ or surgery‐proven parotid gland mass were retrospectively analyzed. All patients were examined on the same 3.0 Tesla MR unit, with one standard protocol. The ADC (apparent diffusion...

A 22‐channel receive array with Helmholtz transmit coil for anesthetized macaque MRI at 3 T

Published: May 23, 2013

Author(s): Thomas Janssens, Boris Keil, Peter Serano, Azma Mareyam, Jennifer A. McNab, Lawrence L. Wald, Wim Vanduffel

Journal: NMR in Biomedicine

The macaque monkey is an important model for cognitive and sensory neuroscience that has been used extensively in behavioral, electrophysiological, molecular and, more recently, neuroimaging studies. However, macaque MRI has unique technical differences relative to human MRI, such as the geometry of highly parallel receive arrays, which must be addressed to optimize imaging performance. A 22‐channel receive coil array was constructed...

Effect of mineralogical and microstructural properties on surface roughness and gloss of some ornamental marbles subjected to polishing process

Published: May 23, 2013

Author(s): S. Gürcan, R. M. Goktan, A. Yıldız

Journal: X-Ray Spectrometry

High surface finish quality of the produced slabs is generally desirable in the stone processing industry. This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation into the effects of mineralogical‐petrographical and chemical variables on the surface roughness and glossiness of some selected ornamental marbles subjected to grinding–polishing processes. For this purpose, a series of grinding–polishing procedures were performed on...

Concept and role of extreme objects in PCA/SIMCA

Published: May 23, 2013

Author(s): Alexey L. Pomerantsev, Oxana Ye Rodionova

Journal: Journal of Chemometrics

For the construction of a reliable decision area in the soft independent modeling by class analogy (SIMCA) method, it is necessary to analyze calibration data revealing the objects of special types such as extremes and outliers. For this purpose, a thorough statistical analysis of the scores and orthogonal distances is necessary. The distance values should be considered as any data acquired in the experiment, and their distributions are...

An embedded four‐channel receive‐only RF coil array for fMRI experiments of the somatosensory pathway in conscious awake marmosets

Published: May 22, 2013

Author(s): Daniel Papoti, Cecil Chern‐Chyi Yen, Julie B. Mackel, Hellmut Merkle, Afonso C. Silva

Journal: NMR in Biomedicine

fMRI has established itself as the main research tool in neuroscience and brain cognitive research. The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a non‐human primate model of increasing interest in biomedical research. However, commercial MRI coils for marmosets are not generally available. The present work describes the design and construction of a four‐channel receive‐only surface RF coil array with excellent signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) specifically...

Unedited in vivo detection and quantification of γ‐aminobutyric acid in the occipital cortex using short‐TE MRS at 3 T

Published: May 22, 2013

Author(s): Jamie Near, Jesper Andersson, Eduard Maron, Ralf Mekle, Rolf Gruetter, Philip Cowen, Peter Jezzard

Journal: NMR in Biomedicine

Short‐TE MRS has been proposed recently as a method for the in vivo detection and quantification of γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the human brain at 3 T. In this study, we investigated the accuracy and reproducibility of short‐TE MRS measurements of GABA at 3 T using both simulations and experiments. LCModel analysis was performed on a large number of simulated spectra with known metabolite input concentrations. Simulated spectra were generated ...