Recognizing syntactic errors in Chinese and English sentences: Brain electrical activity in Asperger's syndrome

This study investigates electroencephalographic (EEG) oscillatory activity in the brain for bilingual participants with Asperger's syndrome (AS) and bilingual healthy control participants during visual recognition of syntactic errors in traditional Mandarin Chinese (native) and English (foreign) sentences. Reading performance is similar for the two groups in both languages. While reading Mandarin Chinese, the control group showed a left-hemispheric specialization within the 400–600 ms interval in delta synchronization. However, delta synchronizations were widely distributed in all scalp regions and lasted longer than 600 ms in the AS group. One possible interpretation of our data is the hypothesis that the AS group has more difficulty in brain organization of semantic and syntactic processes than the control group when reading their native language, because Chinese syntactic structure requires more work to be done by the perceiver. Nevertheless, other brain mechanisms (e.g., top-down regulation), can partially compensate for this difficulty, allowing AS subjects to attain the same level of response activity as the controls.     

The impact of periodontitis on oral health‐related quality of life: a review of the evidence from observational studies

Modern population based oral health management requires a complete understanding of the impact of disease in order to provide efficient and effective oral health care and guidance. Periodontitis is an important cause of tooth loss and has been shown to be associated with a number of systemic conditions. The impact of oral conditions and disorders on quality of life has been extensively studied. However, the impact of periodontitis on quality of life has received less attention. This review summarizes the literature on the impact of periodontitis on oral health‐related quality of life (OHRQoL). Relevant publications were identified after searching the MEDLINE and EMBASE electronic databases. Screening of titles and abstracts and data extraction was conducted. Only observational studies were included in this review. Most of the reviewed studies reported a negative impact of periodontitis on OHRQoL. However, the reporting standards varied across studies. Moreover, most of the studies were conducted in developed countries.     

Impact of trainee involvement with robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy

Robotic-assisted surgery has been rapidly adopted within urology practice. As a result, academic centers are challenged with the burden of how to effectively train residents and fellows to perform robotic-assisted surgery without compromising outcomes. We evaluated the perioperative outcomes of trainee involvement with robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) within our healthcare organization. We retrospectively reviewed RARP cases performed at our institution between September 2008 and December 2010 using a single da Vinci robotic platform. Trainees consisted of urology residents and fellows who operated with staff surgeons on select operating days, whereas two staff surgeon teams performed RARP on alternate days. We compared clinicopathologic variables including operating time, estimated blood loss, surgical margin rates, and complication rates between the trainee and staff-only surgeon groups. Overall, 1,019 RARP surgeries were performed within the study period and trainees participated in 162 cases (16 %). Clinical characteristics were similar between men undergoing surgery with a trainee and those without. Positive surgical margin rates were lower for patients with pT2 disease for cases with trainee involvement (11 vs. 19 %, p = 0.02), although overall margin rates and margin rates for patients with pT3 disease were similar between the groups (p = 0.34). Surgical cases involving trainees were longer (241 vs. 200 min, p < 0.001) and resulted in higher estimated blood loss (190 vs. 120 mL, p < 0.001) than the two staff surgeon cases. However, transfusion rates as well as intraoperative and postoperative complication rates did not differ significantly between groups. In conclusion, surgical margin rates were lower in teaching cases for patients with pT2 disease. Importantly, trainee involvement in RARP is safe, with similar perioperative outcomes to staff-only surgical cases. This information may be useful for training and surgical planning.