Biofarma - Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal of Biology, Pharmacy and Health

Autism spectrum disorders

A. Hervás Zúñiga, N. Maraver García, M. Salgado Peña, L. Sánchez Santos — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Case Presentation

Reason for consultation

Pablo's family goes to the pediatrician with their son, 2 years and 11 months old, because they are concerned about aspects of his development.

Anamnesis

The parents explain that Pablo's development was apparently normal until 12-13 months of age: he looked, laughed, crawled at 9 months, played hide-and-seek, etc. From that age on, the parents began to worry because their son's gaze diminished, he did not say "daddy" or "mommy", became more serious, stopped eating some solid foods, etc.

THE DIAGNOSIS OF ALZHEIMER'S AND COGNITIVE DISORDER

Rondineli S Souza, Dawn Renee Menegucci — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Patients from various backgrounds come to the Psychosocial Care Centres in their respective regions in Brazil, where care is provided on spontaneous demand from patients or through referral from a specialized primary medical unit, be it an emergency or clinical/psychiatric hospitalization, and inevitably the professional who sees this patient needs to lead to a diagnosis or initially base it on a clinical judgment, as part of the first assessment of the condition. When the demand is for a judgment of dementia, which is based on the assumption of chronic, global and generally irreversible degeneration of cognition, although based on the clinical diagnosis, it is important to proceed to confirmation through laboratory and imaging tests, which will serve to identify the treatable causes. However, clinical decision-making about what to do next with a patient depends much more on clinical judgment, to establish the severity of the symptoms and the factors affecting the patient's life, as well as their real hopes for treatment with the available and approved drug therapies and the outcome they expect.

Biotechnology

BRUNO LEUZINGER — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Biotechnology has been used by the human species since ancient times. This is because, in its broadest sense, biotechnology comprises the application of microorganisms, plants and animals to obtain processes and products of interest to society. Thus, ever since we used microorganisms to ferment bread, beverages, and other foods, we were already performing biotechnology. As time went by and science advanced, new technological tools were developed and started to complement biotechnology as we know it today.

GENOME AND GENETIC VARIATIONS OF CORONAVIRUSES

António A. N. Alcochete — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The knowledge of genetics, using innovative technologies and methodologies that allow the analysis and comparison of multiple genomes of viruses, vectors and hosts, as a function of time and space is very informative because it allows the understanding of the origin, evolution and geographical dispersion of the disease.