1038/leu.2011.109; published online 24 May 2011″
“Background: The psychostimulant khat (Catha edulis Forsk), is a herbal drug cultivated and chewed as a recreational and socializing drug in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula for centuries. Due to increasing air transportation and the loosening of customs restrictions, it is now readily available in the Western Countries mainly used by immigrants from khat growing areas causing a concern to policy-makers.

Objective: We conducted this review to further gain an insight to the neuropharmacological effects of khat. Methodology: PubMed search engine with key terms ‘khat’ or ‘qat’ or ‘mirra’

or’qaad/jaad’ or ‘cathinone’ selleck was used to obtain articles relevant to khat chewing. In total 284 English written articles published from 1959 to 2007 were screened.

Results: Most of the studies focused on cathinone, the postulated active psychostimulant alkaloid in khat. There

were few studies which investigated the entire plant extract in either in vitro or animal studies. In the majority of the studies it was reported that both cathinone and cathine, another psychoactive constituent, have actions that are similar to those of amphetamine.

Conclusions: It seems that the well investigated khat alkaloids have many features similar to amphetamines; however there is a need for a more thorough examination of khat itself in well designed in vitro, animal and human studies with a range of comparator Staurosporine chemical structure drugs before confirming the claim that khat is a “”natural amphetamine”". (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.”
“Susceptibility-weighted image (SWI) is one of the most sensitive methods for detect microbleeding and useful for evaluation of traumatic brain

damage. The purpose of this study is to delineate the characteristics and importance of supratentorial deep white matter hemorrhages detected by SWI in cases of traumatic brain damage.

Twenty-one consecutive cases with severe traumatic head injury were included in the current study. MRI examinations were made 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase within 1 month after injury. We evaluated the degree and distribution of the supratentorial hemorrhages on SWI retrospectively. We classified the degree of bleeding into four grades: “”small hemorrhage,”" “”single bead-like hemorrhage,”" “”convergent-type hemorrhage,”" and “”massive hemorrhage.”" We then correlated the degree and distribution of the hemorrhage to clinical outcomes. We also evaluated the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) image of lobes with “”convergent-type hemorrhage.”"

Existence of “”massive hemorrhage”" correlated with a poor outcome, that is, worse than “”severely disabled”" on the Glasgow Outcome Scale. The number of lobes affected by “”convergent-type hemorrhage”" also correlated with poor outcome. There were 45 lobes with “”convergent-type hemorrhage”" and 27 of them showed increased diffusivity on ADC images.