The concentrations of LH and FSH were measured in eight male newborn babies, aged 4-6 h, before and after the administration of 25 micrograms synthetic LHR. A comparison was performed with six control newborns receiving normal saline. Both LH and FSH rose significantly in all subjects after LHR administration. Their values were significantly higher than those observed during the control study. These data demonstrate sensitivity of the pituitary gonadotropes to synthetic LHR and a pubertal-type response to LH in the early hours of human life.

The effects of 50 μg synthetic thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) intravenously on thyrotropin (TSH), prolactin (PRL) and growth hormone (GH) levels were studied in 8 normal male newborns during the first hours of life. Mean plasma GH concentrations were similar to baseline values during the period of study; on the contrary, plasma PRL and TSH values increased in all infants after TRH administration. These data demonstrate a normal pituitary reserve of PRL and TSH in the early period of human life.

Integrated models are able to combine several sources of data into a single analysis using joint likelihood functions, fostering the consistency of assumptions among analyses and the ability to diagnose goodness of fit and model-misspecification. Owing to their capacity to consistently combine diverse information, integrated models could detect the variability induced by external drivers, such as various environmental drivers, on key components of the stock dynamics (e.g. recruitment) in cases where these external drivers are relevant but not yet identified or incorporated into the modelling exercise. This diagnosing power could then be used to explore causality between fishery dynamics, as estimated by the integrated model, and external drivers. To achieve this aim, a correlation analysis is neither necessary nor sufficient to prove causation. An alternative statistical concept, Granger-causality, provides a framework that uses predictability, rather than correlation, to give more evidence of causation between time-series variables.A two-step procedure to investigate external forcings in stock dynamics is proposed. First, an integrated model is implemented to detect anomalies that cannot be explained by the internal dynamics of the stock. Then, in a second step, Granger-causality is used to detect the external origin of these anomalies. This two-step procedure is explored using the European anchovy in the Gulf of Cádiz as an example population where the external (environmental) drivers are well documented. The fishery dynamics is first estimated through an age-length model (Gadget). Then Granger-causality is used to assess the predictive power of different environmental drivers on recruitment. The results indicate that this is a powerful procedure, although also with important limitations, to determine predictability and that it can be implemented in a wide variety of stocks and external drivers. Moreover, once Granger-causality has been identified, it is shown that it can be used to forecast by making few modifications of the integrated model used for diagnosis.

PRL secretion was evaluated in 30 human newborns during the early hours of life. Both levodopa and pyridoxine administration failed to suppress PRL release in all subjects. Synthetic TRH elicited a constant, prompt increase in PRL levels. No significant changes were observed after somatostatin injections. These results demonstrate normal pituitary PRL reserve in newborns. The failure to respond to levodopa and pyridoxine administration might reflect partial immaturity of the pituitary dopaminergic receptors.

40 full-term newborn infants with erythrocyte glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-PD) deficiency were used for a study concerning the effectiveness of agar per os in preventing severe hyperbilirubinemia. 20 randomly selected neonates were given agar(l g/kg/day) orally in 4 daily doses from their 1st to their 5th day of life. 20 infants were not treated and served as controls. Three exchange transfusions were performed in the experimental as well as in the control group. According to these results, agar does not seem to be effective in preventing severe hyperbilirubinemia, which frequently occurs in newborn infants with erythrocyte G-6-PD deficiency.