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The Cry Of The Poor: Anthropology Of Suffering And Justice In Health Care From A Latin American Liberation Approach, Alexandre Andrade Martins Apr 2017

The Cry Of The Poor: Anthropology Of Suffering And Justice In Health Care From A Latin American Liberation Approach, Alexandre Andrade Martins

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation examines the connection between poverty and health inequalities from a liberation theological ethics perspective. It uses Simone Weil’s and Latin American liberation theology’s approaches to suffering and social justice as theoretical sources to address health inequalities and the suffering of the poor because of social injustice, vulnerability to diseases, and lack of healthcare assistance. First of all, these approaches are examined from how they shape an anthropology of suffering that enable us to understand the suffering of the poor and, at the same time, to recognize them as agents of their own liberation and struggle for justice in …


Regulation Of System Xc-By The Neuropeptide Pacap: Implications For Glutamate Transmission In Drug Addiction, Linghai Kong Apr 2017

Regulation Of System Xc-By The Neuropeptide Pacap: Implications For Glutamate Transmission In Drug Addiction, Linghai Kong

Dissertations (1934 -)

Drug addiction is a chronic brain disorder characterized by heightened relapse susceptibility. Drug-induced aberrant glutamate signaling in corticostriatal circuitry contributes to behaviors in virtually every preclinical model of drug seeking and correlates with drug craving in human. Here, we propose that glutamate signaling is a product of integrated activity between neurons and astrocytes, such that disruptions within astrocytes can stem from abnormal neuronal signaling (e.g., altered corticostriatal firing) and be the source of additional disruptions in other neuronal circuits. The astrocytic mechanism studied in these experiments is system xc- (Sxc) since drug-induced changes to this non-vesicular glutamate release mechanism contribute …