Extensive Reviews

The Mighty Powers of Chuckles, Giggles, Guffaws

Verda Tunaligil — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Laughter is increasingly acknowledged for its therapeutic potential, offering a noninvasive, cost-effective, and accessible method for enhancing both physical and mental health. Research draws attention to the numerous advantages, including stress relief, immune system improvement, cardiovascular benefits, pain reduction, and mood enhancement. Laughter stimulates immune cells like natural killer cells and T cells, improves endorphin production, lowers cortisol levels, and contributes to resilience in health, disease, overall well-being. Studies show laughter’s effectiveness in reducing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, with significant gains observed in vulnerable groups such as cancer patients and the elderly. Laughter yoga and therapeutic laughter programs promote mental health, demonstrating improved life quality and pain tolerance. Laughter plays an essential role in fostering social unity by strengthening relationships and encouraging cooperation. It has been shown to have positive impact on cognitive functioning, particularly in lowering dementia risk among older adults. Cardiovascular health also benefits from laughter, improving blood circulation and lowering blood pressure. Despite encouraging findings, challenges such as inconsistent intervention methods and limited study quality persist, calling for further research to establish laughter as a reliable therapeutic tool. This review emphasizes the growing evidence supporting laughter’s contribution to comprehensive health, advocating for its broader use in health care and mental health contexts. As a universally accessible, noninvasive treatment, laughter represents a transformative force in public health, enhancing physical health, emotional well-being, social ties, and overall resilience.

Molecular Functions and Potential Utilization of Zinc Finger Proteins in Protozoan Parasites

Benard Aswani Ouna — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Zinc finger proteins (ZFP) are metalloproteins whose zinc atom interacts with side chains of specific histidines and cysteines of the zinc finger motif, generating functional three dimensional structures. A good number of these proteins from different species are similar while others are divergent in structure and function. Existing literature on the structural features, functions of these proteins and their potential to be targeted for drug development or used as molecular tools in parasitic protozoa was explored. Evidence from reviewed articles revealed that, just like in other eukaryotes, these proteins function in various parasite cellular processes such as: transcription, RNA editing, mRNA processing & export and, mRNA turn-over among others. Some of them had the same structural features and function as their homologues in other eukaryotes including their hosts. However, there were others which had divergent structure and function. Some studies on drug development aiming at replacing the zinc atom reported positive results in some parasites such as Giardia lamblia, Trichomonas vaginalis and Leishmania donovani among others. However, though this is promising, the off- target challenge that can cause side effects, must be solved before wide application can be achieved. Successful engineering of these proteins and their use in genome editing was also reported in Plasmodium falciparum. Since zinc finger nucleases are a powerful research and medical tool, repurposing of the divergent ZFPs can be useful in the drug target and therapy discovery. For this to succeed, more knowledge on the specific functions of more parasite ZFPs and how their functions are regulated is needed.

Clarifying the Distinction Between Review Articles and Survey Research

Adam A Bahishti — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Extensive Reviews continues to receive numerous submissions that fall outside its publication scope, particularly in the form of survey research, case studies, and other empirical formats submitted as review articles. As the managing editor, I have observed that many authors misunderstand the fundamental differences between a review article and a survey article. This editorial seeks to clarify the conceptual and methodological distinctions between review articles and survey research, and to restate the journal’s scope for acceptable submissions. I intend to help authors better understand what constitutes a review article and encourage contributions that align with the journal’s scope, namely, the publication of in-depth, critical, and literature-based scholarly reviews. Clear understanding of article types not only supports the integrity of the journal but also enhances the efficiency of the peer review process. I hope this clarification will improve submission quality and promote a better understanding of article types within academic publishing.