Advances in Medicine and Biology. Volume 194

This volume includes eight chapters which describe recent advances in medicine and biology. Chapter One summarizes new therapeutics for the treatment of optic neuritis, a condition involving primary inflammation, demyelination, and axonal injury of the optic nerve. Chapter Two uses animal models of viral myocarditis to study the natural history, genetics, pathogenesis, and clinical manifestation of viral myocarditis in humans. Chapter Three evaluates the functions of fibroblast growth factors in physiological mechanisms, their role in maintaining homeostatic balance, their role in signal transduction regulation, metabolism and interactions between organisms, and their relationship with diseases. Chapter Four investigates the potential of antibiotics to fight against the inherently nonspecific adaptation mechanisms of bacteria. Chapter Five deals with new methodologies for drug development to counter the evolution of mechanisms to resist antibiotics such as efflux pumps in bacteria that cause infectious disease. Chapter Six concerns the development of new therapeutic strategies regarding the involvement of brain neuropeptides in alcohol use disorder. Chapter Seven examines growth promotion and changes in functional constituents through arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi symbiosis in Asian ginseng. Finally, Chapter Eight explicates procedures for postoperative care in thoracic surgery.