Working memory and the suppression of reflexive saccades.

Conscious behavioral intentions can frequently fail under conditions of attentional depletion. In attempting to trace the cognitive origin of this effect, we hypothesized that failures of action control--specifically, oculomotor movement--can result from the imposition of fronto-executive load. To evaluate this prediction, participants performed an antisaccade task while simultaneously completing a working-memory task that is known to make variable demands on prefrontal processes (n-back task, see Jonides et al., 1997). The results of two experiments are reported. As expected, antisaccade error rates were increased in accordance with the fronto-executive demands of the n-back task (Experiment 1). In addition, the debilitating effects of working-memory load were restricted to the inhibitory component of the antisaccade task (Experiment 2). These findings corroborate the view that working memory operations play a critical role in the suppression of prepotent behavioral responses.     

Diagnosis and management of a wooden orbital foreign body: case report.

The case history of a patient with a retained wooden orbital foreign body is presented. The report illustrates the diagnostic limitations of orbital CAT scanning and ultrasonography. Systemic corticosteroid therapy facilitated the localisation and surgical removal of the foreign body.     

Effect of gold sodium thiomalate on murine lymphocyte functions.

The in vitro effects of gold sodium thiomalate (GTM) on various murine splenic lymphocytic functions were tested. The presence of GTM in cultures of splenic cells suppressed anti-hapten responses to both thymus-independent and thymus-dependent antigens. GTM also suppressed the in vitro generation of cytotoxic effector cells as well as the mitogenic response to both T cell and B cell mitogens. This suppression could not be reversed by the addition of irradiated spleen cells. Spleen cells exposed to GTM for 4 hr prior to culture also exhibited similarly suppressed functions, although their functional capacity could be fully restored by the addition of irradiated spleen cells. These results show that GTM inhibits both humoral and cellular immune mechanisms and appears to act primarily at the accessory (macrophage) cell level, with perhaps a secondary effect on T lymphocytes.     

Proximal gastric vagotomy: interim results of a randomized controlled trial.

In a randomized controlled trial 50 patients with duodenal ulcer treated by proximal gastric vagotomy (P.G.V.) without drainage were compared with 50 who underwent selective vagotomy and gastrojejunostomy. The clinical results were assessed in 99 patients one to four years after operation. Patients who had undergone P.G.V. had significantly less dumping, nausea, and bile vomiting and fared better in their overall clinical grading. The postoperative Visick grading of the 50 patients with P.G.V. was similar to that of 56 controls with no known gastrointestinal disease who had not undergone operation. The results obtained in the patients who had had P.G.V. without drainage were compared with those of a further group of 24 patients subjected of P.G.V. with gastrojejunostomy, and the better results obtained in the former group were thought to be due to elimination of the drainage procedure. The average follow-up period of the trial was just over two years, but there were no indications that the recurrent ulceration rate after P.G.V. would be any higher than after other types of vagotomy and drainage.