Anchorage of mature conifers: resistive turning moment, root-soil plate geometry and root growth orientation.

Eighty-four mature Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst), silver fir (Abies alba Mill) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) trees were winched over to determine the maximum resistive turning moment (M(a)) of the root-soil system, the root-soil plate geometry, the azimuthal orientation of root growth, and the occurrence of root rot.

Atmospheric CO enrichment of alpine treeline conifers.

•   Experimental CO enrichment of mature Larix decidua and Pinus uncinata trees and their understory vegetation was used to test the carbon limitation hypothesis of treeline formation at the alpine treeline in Switzerland. •   Forty plots (each 1.1 m ) were established; half of them were exposed to elevated (566 ppm) atmospheric CO using a free air CO enrichment (FACE) system releasing pure CO , and the other half were treated as controls at current ambient [CO ].

Computer assisted retraining of attentional impairments in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of a computer based retraining of specific impairments of four different attentional domains in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Methods: Twenty two outpatients with multiple sclerosis received consecutively a specific training comprising 12 sessions in each of the two most impaired attention functions. The baseline of attentional deficits, the performance after each training period, and the course of performance in the next nine weeks was assessed by a computerised attention test battery.

Reduced glucose metabolism in the frontal cortex and basal ganglia of multiple sclerosis patients with fatigue: a 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography study.

To investigate the pathophysiology of fatigue in MS, we assessed cerebral glucose metabolism (CMR-Glu) in 47 MS patients using PET and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose. Applying the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), we first compared MS patients with severe fatigue (MS-FAT, n = 19, FSS > 4.9) and MS patients without fatigue (MS-NOF, n = 16, FSS < 3.

Central adaptations in aerobic circuit versus walking/jogging trained cardiac patients.

This study was done to determine (a) whether in coronary artery disease (CAD) left ventricular (LV) adaptations differed after 6 months of walking/jogging (legs-only, LO) versus aerobic circuit training (arms and legs, AL) versus a control group, and (b) whether a transfer of fitness to the untrained arms in the LO group was related to superior LV adaptations. Peak oxygen uptake for arm and leg ergometry and for cycle ergometry using radionuclide cardiac angiography were performed before and after training. Leg and arm VO2peak increased significantly by 13% in the AL group, and by 13% and 7%, respectively, for the LO group.

Exercise-induced stress injuries to the femur.

Seventy-one athletes with 74 stress injuries to the femur were studied using a case-controlled design. Forty-three were females (26.6 yrs) and 28 were males (31.

Cortical glucose metabolism in Huntington's disease.

We measured cortical glucose metabolism with positron emission tomography in 39 patients with Huntington's disease (HD) and in 34 controls. In the 23 patients with symptoms for less than 5 years, there was a 15% decrease in metabolism in frontal and inferior parietal cortex. In 16 patients with symptoms for more than 5 years, all cortical areas (except temporal) were significantly involved, with metabolic rates 25 to 30% below those of controls.

A method for comparing different procedures of estimating regional glucose metabolism using fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a method for determining whether a particular procedure for estimating regional metabolism using the deoxyglucose tracer analogue yields better data than another in terms of subsequent statistical analysis. The method is based on a simple model of regional cerebral glucose metabolism with three potential sources of metabolic variability, namely individual differences in cerebral metabolic rate, consistent regional differences and error. When the literature rate constants were compared to a dynamic procedure for estimating regional rate constants in patients with Huntington's Disease, the literature values were clearly superior in that the error component was approximately half (18.

The role of bone scintigraphy in the evaluation of talar dome fractures.

We undertook a retrospective study of 122 patients with ankle pain to determine the accuracy of bone scintigraphy using 99mTc-methylene diphosphonate (MDP) for detection of osteochondral talar dome fractures (OCTDF). Plain radiographs, which were available in 97 patients, had not revealed any abnormality in the talar dome. Bone scintigraphy was followed by CT, which was considered to be the reference test in diagnosing OCTDF.

Osteitis pubis in athletes. Infection, inflammation or injury?

Medical records of 59 patients (9 females and 50 males), who presented to sports medicine clinics at the Australian Institute of Sport and the University of British Columbia between 1985 and 1990 and who were diagnosed as suffering osteitis pubis, were reviewed and comparison of data obtained was made with the literature. Women average 35.5 years of age (30 to 59 years) and men 30.

Cardiovascular adaptations in Andean natives after 6 wk of exposure to sea level.

Six male Quechua Indians (34.0 +/- 1.1 yr, 159.

The FDG/PET methodology for early detection of disease onset: a statistical model.

The development of appropriate statistical methodologies for neuroimaging studies is dependent upon the research question of interest. Often studies are analyzed with techniques that may not be appropriate for the research question but are accepted owing to convention, familiarity, or apparent statistical sophistication. Neuroimaging data are particularly complex owing to (a) the high number of potential dependent variables (i.

Single photon emission computed tomography using 99mTc-HM-PAO in the routine evaluation of Alzheimer's disease.

Regional cerebral blood flow was studied in 7 patients with clinically suspected Alzheimer's disease and 10 normal controls by single photon computed emission tomography (SPECT) using HM-PAO. All patients with Alzheimer's disease and no controls had parietal lobe hypoperfusion which was usually bilateral. In patients with more severe dementia hypoperfusion extended into the frontal lobes.

Isolated fractures of the capitate: use of nuclear medicine as an aid to diagnosis.

Fractures of the capitate are considered to be uncommon injuries of the wrist, however, delay in diagnosis may result in prolonged disability and avascular necrosis. Two cases are reported in which an isolated fracture of the capitate was diagnosed with a 99mTc-MDP nuclear medicine bone scan and confirmed with CT scan or repeated conventional x-rays. These two cases illustrate that an isolated fracture of the capitate should be considered in an individual presenting with persistent wrist pain of traumatic origin, even when conventional x-ray views are negative.

Femoral stress abnormalities: improved scintigraphic detection with frog-leg view.

To identify a better scintigraphic imaging technique for detecting proximal femoral stress abnormalities, 51 consecutive patients with hip pain and the clinical suspicion of stress injury underwent three-phase bone scanning with technetium-99m methylene diphosphonate. Delayed scanning included anterior and frog-leg views of the hips. Fifteen patients had focal stress abnormalities of the femoral neck or lesser trochanter; all were detected with the frog-leg view, but only seven were detected with the standard anterior view.

The combined use of positron emission tomography and DNA polymorphisms for preclinical detection of Huntington's disease.

Twenty-three persons at risk for Huntington's disease (HD) have been studied using a polymorphic human linked DNA marker (D4S10) and positron emission tomography (PET). We determined the likelihood of inheritance of the gene for HD in 13 persons, using DNA polymorphism studies. Of these, eight persons had a greater than 90% probability of being presymptomatic heterozygotes for HD.

Positron emission tomography in the early diagnosis of Huntington's disease.

We studied 10 patients with early Huntington's disease and 7 normal age-matched controls with positron emission tomography (PET) using fluorodeoxyglucose. Subjects had little or no caudate nucleus atrophy and had not received any medications. The results demonstrated that hypometabolism of glucose preceded tissue loss.

PET studies of cerebral glucose metabolism in idiopathic torticollis.

Regional cerebral glucose metabolism was studied in 16 patients with idiopathic torticollis, using positron emission tomography. Analysis of subcortical regions revealed no consistent focal abnormality of cerebral metabolic rate for glucose, but there was a bilateral breakdown of the normal relationships between the thalamus and basal ganglia. The findings suggest disruption of the pallidothalamic projections in this focal dystonia and may imply a disturbance of GABA.

Positron emission tomography in patients with clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's disease.

Fourteen patients who had clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's disease with mild to severe dementia (mean age 69.1 years) were evaluated by calculation of local cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (LCMR-gl) based on uptake of 18F-2-fluoro-2-deoxyglucose (FDG) detected with positron emission tomography (PET). PET scanning showed that the patients had significantly lower LCMR-gl values than 11 age-matched neurologically normal volunteers (mean age 66.