Office care of the premature infant

The family physician should follow the small premature infant in the neonatal intensive care center and review the baby's problems and risk factors. In the office, special attention is required in monitoring the infant. Proper hospital and office care greatly improve the prognosis.     

Laterality of cross-modal spatial processing

This study examined the laterality of spatial-form perception in normal adults using a cross-modal matching paradigm involving visual and tactile processing. Randomly generated eight-point and 12-point Vanderplas and Garvin (1959) patterns were used as the stimuli. In a visual-to-tactile task, a lateralized visual pattern was followed immediately by a haptic task requiring subjects to discriminate which of two simultaneously felt shapes matched the visual pattern. In a tactile-to-visual task, subjects decided which of two simultaneously felt shapes matched a lateralized visual pattern presented after haptic manipulation. There were no main effects for laterality or for sex differences. Matching accuracy was better in the visual-to-tactile task and for less complex stimuli. A visual field by feeling hand interaction showed best recognition accuracy when visual-feeling hand combinations on the same side of the body were used in the two matching tasks. These data reflect a stimulus-response compatibility explanation of spatial-form perception that is consistent with a behavioral and not a cerebral asymmetry model.     

Peripheral neuropathies during treatment with cisplatin: clinical and electrophysiologic study of 11 cases

Eleven patients with bronchial epidermoid carcinoma and undergoing treatment with cis-D.D.P. (II) were kept under electrophysiological and clinical surveillance. No other neurotoxic medication was added. The total dose of cis-D.D.P. was 300 mg/m2 over a period of three months: namely, three courses of 100 mg/m2 distributed over 5 days. Following the pretreatment check-up, the patients were divided into two groups: those without any electrophysiological abnormality (group A), and those without clinical abnormality but with a delayed latency H of the Hoffmann Reflex (group B). Patients in group A showed a slowing down of the motor nerve conduction velocity of the Median and Peroneal Nerves after a course of 100 mg, without accompanying worsening of the conduction velocity after 300 mg/m2, and prolongation of the distal latency of the sensory Median Nerve after 300 mg/m2; in group B, no significant change of electrophysiological clinical features were noted. In the two groups a non-significant reduction in amplitude of evoked responses were noted. These findings are more consistent with an axonal injury than with functional myelin injury. The authors review the existing literature and discuss the physiopathologic mechanisms of cis-D.D.P. peripheral neuropathies.     

Disabled and nondisabled infants' interactions with their mothers

This study investigated social interactions between infants and mothers, comparing dyads with physically disabled infants and dyads with nondisabled infants. The groups were matched on mental and motor development, sex, socioeconomic status, birth order, and maternal education. Each infant-mother dyad was videotaped at home during a 10-minute period of free play, and blind observers subsequently transcribed infants' and mothers' behaviors. In general, the groups were remarkably similar in their interaction patterns. However, a few differences emerged: Mothers of infants with physical disabilities were significantly more commanding than were comparison mothers. Nondisabled infants tended to engage in more eye contact than did infants with physical disabilities. And whereas mothers of nondisabled infants responded to interactive play with interactive play, mothers of infants with physical handicaps tended to respond with commands and verbalizations. These results suggest reciprocal influences between infants and mothers in both groups and highlight emerging maternal behavior patterns that may interfere with the development of communication and independence in handicapped young children.     

DNA binding of a 38,000-dalton herpes-simplex-virus-2-specific protein

Western transfer and immunoenzymatic staining with affinity-purified monospecific antiserum was used to detect a 38-Kd protein that bound to native and denatured DNA cellulose. This protein has previously been shown to be a delayed early herpes simplex virus type-2 specific protein.     

Wheat Germ Agglutinin is Mitogenic, Non-Mitogenic and Anti-Mitogenic for Human Lymphocytes

Wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) was found to stimulate DNA synthesis in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells at relatively low concentrations and to inhibit DNA synthesis at higher concentrations. Both actions were inhibited by oligomers of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. Significant mitogenic activity was dependent on the use of human (as opposed to fetal calf) serum to supplement the culture medium. Purified T cells responded to WGA very weakly and the incorporation of thymidine into non-T cells in response to WGA was less than the lectin-free control. The full ability of T cells to respond to WGA was restored by the addition of monocytes, but not by any other blood cells. Interleukin 2 partially restored the ability of T cells to respond to WGA; interleukin 1 was less effective. WGA displayed a strong synergistic action with the tumour promoter, 12-O-tetradecanoyl-13-acetate (TPA), in stimulating DNA synthesis in separated T (but not non-T) cell fractions, and in unfractioned mononuclear cells. These results reconcile most of the conflicting reports in the literature concerning the interaction of WGA with human lymphocytes.