Language development at 3 years in pre-term children of birth weight below 1000 g

Language development at 3 years of pre-term children born below 1000 g birth weight was compared with full-term controls matched for social background. The pre-term group used less complex expressive language and showed lower receptive understanding, auditory memory and verbal reasoning. Language outcome was related to intraventricular haemorrhage but not to global indication of postnatal illness such as number of days on the ventilator. Average verbal intelligence in environmentally low risk, extremely low birth weight children is an insufficient indicator of complex language functioning.     

Brief report: A case of autism associated with del(2)(q32.1q32.2) or (q32.2q32.3)

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder presenting in the first 3 years of life. Deficits occur in the three core areas of communication, social interaction, and behavior. The causes of autism are unknown, but clinical genetic studies show strong evidence in favor of a genetic etiology. Molecular genetic studies report some association with candidate genes, and candidate regions have emerged from several genome-wide linkage studies. Here we report a clinical case of autism with a deletion on chromosome 2 in a young male with high-functioning autism. The deletion seems to correspond with regions emerging from linkage studies. We propose this as a possible candidate region in the search for autism genes.     

Predicting surgical outcome in temporal lobe epilepsy patients using MRI and MRSI

OBJECTIVE: To develop a classifier that uses MR data to predict surgical outcome in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). METHODS: Eighty-one patients with medically refractory TLE who underwent surgical treatment were studied. Patients underwent comprehensive presurgical investigation, including ictal video-EEG recording, 1H MRS imaging, and volumetric MRI. Outcome was measured using Engel's classification system, condensed into two outcome groups. Two approaches were taken. First, outcome was defined as experiencing worthwhile improvement with >90% reduction of seizure frequency (Classes I, II, and III) or not (Class IV). A second approach was to define outcome as experiencing freedom from seizures following surgery (Class I) or not (Classes II, III, and IV). For each approach, a Bayesian classifier was constructed to predict outcome by calculating the probability of a patient's pattern of results from spectroscopic analysis of the temporal lobes and volumetric analysis of the amygdala and hippocampus being associated with the various outcome groups. RESULTS: The worthwhile improvement classifier correctly predicted the surgical outcomes of 60 of 65 (92%) of patients who experienced worthwhile improvement and 10 of 16 (63%) of patients who did not. The seizure-free classifier correctly predicted the surgical outcomes of 39 of 52 (75%) of patients who became seizure free and 21 of 29 (72%) of patients who did not. CONCLUSION: MR features are important markers of surgical outcome in patients with TLE and can provide assistance in identifying surgical candidates.     

颅内动脉瘤栓塞后并发脑缺血的原因分析

1 临床资料我们总结2004-02/2004-06在第四军医大学唐都医院神经外科住院行栓塞治疗颅内动脉瘤患者27(男12,女15)例,年龄32～72岁.     

Are there really alternatives to the use of fetal tissue from elective abortions in transplantation research?

Researchers believe fetal tissue can be easily transplanted into and cure people with incurable debilitating diseases such as Parkinson's disease. In 1988, the Reagan Administration stopped funding transplantation research of fetal tissue from induced abortions. An advisory panel later decided that it is an acceptable public policy as long as certain conditions a re met. Yet the Bush Administration continued the ban. In 1992, it erroneously claimed that transplantation research could use alternative sources of fetal tissue. 1 alternative is fetal tissue obtained from ectopic pregnancies. Yet spontaneously aborted ectopic pregnancies tend not to produce recognizable or viable in culture fetal tissue and if they do the tissue has been ischemic for days. Ectopic pregnancies requiring surgical sterilization tend to be morphologically abnormal. The only likelihood of viable fetal tissue form ectopic pregnancies is a fetus with myocardial contractility before surgery. The administration also recommended use of fetal tissue from spontaneous abortions but these fetuses often have a major chromosomal or other fatal defect. Researchers cannot use chromosomally abnormal fetal tissue since it growth, development, and function are unreliable. Expulsion of the necrotic fetus tends to occur a couple of weeks after death. The Bush Administration also proposed use of tissue from stillbirths but their tissue tends to be nonviable and the tissue, even if it were viable, is generally not at the developmental stage needed for transplantation. The placenta and yolk sac were other suggested alternatives, but the placenta is likely to be less immunogenic than embryonic tissue. It can help develop certain cell lines which produce insulin or neurotransmitters like dopamine, however. The yolk sac could replace fetal liver cells in transplantation. Nevertheless the only advantage of using the suggested alternatives is the perception of them raising less ethical concern than fetal tissue from an induced abortion.     

Accuracy of passive ankle joint positioning during quiet stance in young and elderly subjects

Age-related postural deficits elicit compensatory mechanisms such as ankle dorsiflexion in the elderly. To gain further insight into this problem, the ability to match an ankle angle during quiet stance was studied in 12 elderly and 12 young subjects. Following an initial single limb angular perturbation presented in the ±4° range, a subject had to return a tilt platform to level, as determined by the nonperturbed limb. Elderly subjects exhibited significant positive (0.9°) over-shoot of the level position, in contrast to young subjects who matched ankle angle with a mean error of −0.1°. The elderly group also exhibited an increase in positioning error for angular displacements in the range between −1 and +1°. The results document age-related postural changes in ankle positioning which might affect postural stability in older adults.