Phonatory reaction times of rheumatoid arthritic and normal females

This study examined the degree to which rheumatoid arthritis affects a speaker's ability to accomplish rapid vocal fold adjustments. The phonatory initiation, phonatory termination, and manual reaction times of 14 rheumatoid arthritic (RA) and 14 normal (NL) speakers were compared during a morning and an afternoon session. In addition, electroglottographic (EGG) measures (0 Hz-10 kHz bandwidth and 30 Hz-10 kHz bandwidth) allowed us to explore the components of each subject's reaction times. For two speech reaction-time tasks, temporal measures that reflected primarily mechanical adjustments of the vocal folds were significantly longer in the RA group than in the NL group. The two groups also differed significantly on manual response time, phonatory initiation time, and medial movement initiation time. Neither group displayed evidence of laryngeal morning stiffness.     

Technical fixes and other problems in saving lives in the world's poorest countries

4 types of impediments are suggested to the 3 kinds of technology that now promise great advances for health conditions in poor countries, i.e., the classical public health measures, the miracle drugs and machines of modern medicine, and the emerging processes of the new biology. These barriers -- the inherent limitations of technology, economic constraints on implementation, social and cultural obstacles to adoption, and the political processes of the health system -- are reviewed in an effort to clarify the role of technology in saving lives in the world's poorest countries. To start, it is necessary to recognize the inherent limitations of technical innovations in reducing mortality rates. A new drug, such as praziquantel, may be effective in humans in combatting the parasite responsible for schistosomiasis, yet as long as water supplies and snails remain contaminated and poor sanitation and water use habits persist, the cycle of disease transmission also may persist, meaning people can be reinfected. Disease control is affected critically by the interaction of society with the environment. Thus, the effectiveness of certain privately produced drugs in controlling disease depends on implementing the appropriate public health measures. Technology also has shown limited capability to eradicate diseases. The 1st and only successful case of intentional disease elimination is smallpox. Regarding economics, only 0.95% of the gross national product (GNP) in 22 low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa went for the government's health budget. Government expenditures on health are limited. Poor countries traditionally have depended heavily on foreign assistance to provide health supplies, and recent cutbacks in US foreign aid have cut into the health programs of poor countries. The lack of a strong social infrastructure presents a major obstacle to the application of health technology in poor nations. Social behavior and cultural patterns also can interfere with the appropriate use of technology to improve health. The political forces within a country affect the role of technology in improving health conditions, and the politics of foreign assistance works to shape the health system of poor nations. Politics interferes most directly with health delivery in cases of social instability and open war. In sum, new technology is only 1 element in resolving the health problems of a society. Social as well as technical research needs to be conducted in the poor countries and in the world academies.     

Nitrous oxide does not exacerbate pulmonary hypertension or ventricular dysfunction in patients with mitral valvular disease

Using the rapid-response thermistor pulmonary artery catheter and transoesophageal echocardiography, this study examined the effects of 100 per cent oxygen, 70 per cent nitrous oxide/30 per cent oxygen, and 70 per cent nitrogen/30 per cent oxygen on the pulmonary circulation and ventricular function in ten patients with pulmonary hypertension. In comparison with baseline measurements, nitrous oxide administration resulted in small but statistically significant (P less than 0.05) changes in mean arterial pressure (76 +/- 14 to 67 +/- 12), mean pulmonary arterial pressure (37 +/- 14 to 33 +/- 13 mmHg), and cardiac output (3.7 +/- 1.4 to 3.2 +/- 1.1 L.min-1). Seventy per cent nitrogen resulted in no significant changes from baseline. The repeat 100 per cent oxygen measurements were nearly identical to the nitrous oxide measurements. It is concluded that nitrous oxide does not exacerbate pulmonary hypertension or ventricular dysfunction during high-dose fentanyl anaesthesia in patients with mitral valvular disease.     

Fat embolism syndrome following bone marrow harvesting

A case of fat embolism syndrome is reported following an uncomplicated bone marrow harvest. The presenting symptoms were restlessness, shortness of breath and arterial hypoxemia. A lung perfusion scan ruled out the presence of a lung thromboembolism. The patient received supportive therapy and recovered within a few hours. We speculate that the larger gauge needle (13 vs 15) used to aspirate the bone marrow may have represented increased trauma to the iliac crest leading to fat embolism.     

Psychiatric comorbidity and suicidality among intravenous drug users.

BACKGROUND: Prevalence of lifetime psychiatric comorbidity and history of attempted suicide among intravenous drug users was investigated. METHOD: One thousand sixty-two relatives of hospitalized alcoholics, felons, and control subjects were administered a structured interview that gathered data on lifetime psychiatric symptoms and psychoactive drug use. Psychiatric diagnoses were based on interview information, medical records, and family history data. Comparisons were made between 411 subjects who used no illicit drugs, 329 cannabis users, 230 subjects who had used psychoactive drugs other than cannabis more than five times but had never injected drugs, and 92 intravenous drug users. RESULTS: Any history of injecting drugs increased the odds of being diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder by a factor of 21.01, alcoholism by 4.42, and unipolar depression by 3.02. A diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder increased the odds of having injected drugs by a factor of 27.19, while diagnoses of alcoholism or unipolar depression conveyed odds for injecting drugs of 4.62 and 3.70, respectively. Intravenous drug use was associated with an 8.27-fold increase in odds for a suicide attempt compared with no drug use. CONCLUSION: Rates of alcoholism, depression, and antisocial personality disorder, but not other psychiatric disorders (other than drug dependence), are significantly elevated in intravenous drug users. Moreover, among drug users, the decision to inject is differentially made by those with antisocial personality disorder. A history of suicide attempt is common among intravenous drug users, but injecting appears to convey little additional risk above substantial but non-intravenous drug use.     

Neural coding of spatial phase in V1 of the macaque monkey

We examine the responses of single neurons and pairs of neurons, simultaneously recorded with a single tetrode in the primary visual cortex of the anesthetized macaque monkey, to transient presentations of stationary gratings of varying spatial phase. Such simultaneously recorded neurons tended to have similar tuning to the phase of the grating. To determine the response features that reliably discriminate these stimuli, we use the metric-space approach extended to pairs of neurons. We find that paying attention to the times of individual spikes, at a resolution of approximately 30 ms, and keeping track of which neuron fires which spike rather than just the summed local activity contribute substantially to phase coding. The contribution is both quantitative (increasing the fidelity of phase coding) and qualitative (enabling a 2-dimensional "response space" that corresponds to the spatial phase cycle). We use a novel approach, the extraction of "temporal profiles" from the metric space analysis, to interpret and compare temporal coding across neurons. Temporal profiles were remarkably consistent across a large subset of neurons. This consistency indicates that simple mechanisms (e.g., comparing the size of the transient and sustained components of the response) allow the temporal contribution to phase coding to be decoded.