Carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) is used commonly as a non-invasive test for assessment of degree of atherosclerosis. The present study, in a tertiary care centre of Eastern India was aimed to determine the relation between CIMT and the known and novel risk factors of ischemic stroke. Of the 62 patients studied, 82% were hypertensive and 61% were smokers, 95% were above 50 years of age. Seventy one percent of our patients had high CIMT. CIMT was signifi cantly related to high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), fi brinogen, LDL levels and age of the patient. By logistic regression analysis, hsCRP, fi brinogen and age were signifi cantly associated with high CIMT. When the patients have elevation of both hsCRP and fi brinogen, the risk of high CIMT were even higher. Our study highlights the needs for better screening in high risk patients.

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OBJECTIVE: We examined the effect of risk alleles of polymorphisms of three schizophrenia risk genes that mediate monoamine signalling in the brain on regional brain volumes of schizophrenia and healthy control subjects. The risk alleles and the gene polymorphisms studied were: Val allele of catechol o-methyltransferase (COMT) rs4680 polymorphism; short allele of 5-hydroxy tryptamine transporter linked polymorphic region (5HTTLPR) polymorphism; and T allele of 5-hydroxy tryptamine 2A (5HT2A) rs6314 polymorphism. METHODS: The study was carried out on patients with recent onset schizophrenia (n=41) recruited from the outpatient department of National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India and healthy control subjects (n=39), belonging to South Indian Dravidian ethnicity. Individual and additive effects of risk alleles of the above gene polymorphisms on brain morphometry were explored using voxel-based morphometry. RESULTS: Irrespective of phenotypes, individuals with the risk allele T of the rs6314 polymorphism of 5HT2A gene showed greater (at cluster-extent equivalent to family wise error-correction [FWEc] p<0.05) regional brain volumes in the left inferior temporal and left inferior occipital gyri. Those with the risk alleles of the other two polymorphisms showed a trend (at p<0.001, uncorrected) towards lower regional brain volumes. A trend (at p<0.001, uncorrected) towards additive effects of the above 3 risk alleles (subjects with 2 or 3 risk alleles vs. those with 1 or no risk alleles) on brain morphology was also noted. CONCLUSION: The findings of the present study have implications in understanding the role of individual and additive effects of genetic variants in mediating regional brain morphometry in health and disease.
Alleles ; Brain* ; Catechol O-Methyltransferase ; Humans ; India ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) ; Negotiating* ; Neurosciences ; Outpatients ; Phenotype ; Schizophrenia*

Antibodies, Viral ; Antibody Formation ; BNT162 Vaccine ; COVID-19/prevention & control* ; Female ; Humans ; Milk, Human ; Pilot Projects ; RNA, Messenger ; Vaccination