Working memory load improves diagnostic performance of smooth pursuit eye movement in mild traumatic brain injury patients with protracted recovery.

Smooth pursuit eye movements have been investigated as a diagnostic tool for mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). However, the degree to which smooth pursuit differentiates mTBI patients from healthy controls (i.e.

Resident physicians' perspectives on health care reform.

Objective: To investigate the perspectives of resident physicians, in otolaryngology and other specialties, with respect to various health care reform proposals. Also, to determine if these opinions vary between residents training to become general medical doctors versus surgeons and specialists and between those with various levels of educational debt.

Study Design And Participants: Survey of resident physicians across the United States.

Use of a microdebrider for subepithelial excision of benign vocal fold lesions.

Objectives: We present a series of patients who underwent excision of subepithelial lesions using a laryngeal microdebrider.

Methods: A retrospective review was carried out of all patients who between June 2005 and April 2009 underwent microlaryngoscopy and excision of vocal fold lesions by the senior author using a microdebrider. The patients' demographics,past medical history, preoperative and postoperative videostroboscopy findings,and surgical pathology findings were reviewed.

Perinatal nutritional iron deficiency permanently impairs hippocampus-dependent trace fear conditioning in rats.

Many studies show that iron deficient (ID) children are at risk for poor cognitive development. This suggests that learning and cognitive centers in the brain, such as the hippocampus, may be compromised by developmental ID. The present study used a heart rate trace fear conditioning procedure in rats to show that perinatal nutritional ID impairs hippocampus-dependent learning.

Trace fear conditioning is reduced in the aging rat.

Auditory trace fear conditioning is a hippocampus-dependent learning task that requires animals to associate an auditory conditioned stimulus (CS) and a fear-producing shock-unconditioned stimulus (US) that are separated by an empty 20-s trace interval. Previous studies have shown that aging impairs learning performance on hippocampus-dependent tasks. This study measured heart rate (HR) and freezing fear responses to determine if aging impairs hippocampus-dependent auditory trace fear conditioning in freely moving rats.