Browsing by Subject "healing"

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    PTSD/12
    (2021) Russo, Scott; Jefferson, Corey; Kinsman, Patrick; Doty, Stephanie Sue
    My art explores the question, what does a person’s facial expression attempt to inform us about what may be going on inside? What feelings are being experienced? How and more curiously why, are the feelings arranged into a particular expression on the face? This question has fueled my curiosity for many years and has influenced much of my figurative work. I consider human facial expressions to be a form of semiotic. Our facial expressions are crucial to maintaining social engagement with others. The face can form expressions used to communicate feelings and emotions without words or sound. Facial expressions can be warm and welcoming, cold, and distant, apathetic, or indifferent, we can sense happiness on a person’s face or anger and fear. My work endeavors to translate human emotion through what I call “the landscape of the human face”. The recent pandemic has given my work a new challenge. As most have donned masks, my interest in reading expression has been reduced to only eyes. The amazing thing is that with two thirds of the human face covered by a mask covering the nose and mouth, the intended emotion is still completely understandable and conveyed through only the eyes. As the mask somehow causes us to now look at each other more closely as we communicate, we may pay closer attention and in turn become more aware of a person’s emotional state, something that may have been otherwise overlooked by the simultaneous reading of the whole face, eyes nose and mouth. Sometimes less is more. Although the recent pandemic has curtailed our “normal” social engagement it may have heightened the intensity of our limited communication. The mask may have offered a shield of sorts, providing more confident. communication through perceived anonymity.
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    Role of inflammation in right ventricular damage and repair following experimental pulmonary embolism in rats
    (2008-10) Watts, John Albert, Jr; Gellar, Michael Aaron; Obraztsova, Maria; Kline, Jeffrey A.; Zagorski, John
    Right ventricular (RV) dysfunction is associated with poor clinical outcome following pulmonary embolism (PE). Previous studies in our laboratory show that influx of neutrophils contributes to acute RV damage seen in an 18 h rat model of PE. The present study describes the further progression of inflammation over 6 weeks and compares the neutrophil and monocyte responses. The RV outflow tract became white in colour by day 1 with influx of neutrophils (tissue myeloperoxidase activity increased 17-fold) and mononuclear cells with characteristics of M1 phenotype (high in Ccl20, Cxcl10, CcR2, MHCII, DNA microarray analysis). Matrix metalloproteinase activities were increased and tissue was thinned to produce a translucent appearance in weeks 1 through 6 in 40% of hearts. RV contractile function was significantly reduced at 6 weeks of PE. In this later phase, there was accumulation of myofibroblasts, the presence of mononuclear cells with M2 characteristics (high in scavenger mannose receptors, macrophage galactose lectin 1, PDGFR1, PDGFRβ), enrichment of the subendocardial region of the RV outflow tract with neovesels (α-smooth muscle immunohistochemistry) and deposition of collagen fibres (picrosirius red staining) beginning scar formation. Thus, while neutrophil response is associated with the early, acute inflammatory events, macrophage cells continue to be present during the proliferative phase and initial deposition of collagen in this model, changing from the M1 to the M2 phenotype. This suggests that the macrophage cell response is biphasic.