Attenuation of visual reafferent signals in the parietal cortex during voluntary movement.

It is well established that the cortical processing of somatosensory and auditory signals is attenuated when they result from self-generated actions compared with external events. This phenomenon is thought to result from an efference copy of motor commands used to predict the sensory consequences of an action through a forward model. The present work examined whether attenuation also takes place for visual reafferent signals from the moving limb during voluntary reaching movements.

[Information recorded by maternity ward staff in permanent pediatric health records].

Objectives: To study the frequency with which maternity ward staff complete the perinatal information section of infants' permanent pediatric health records.

Methods: In 2000, 71 pediatricians in private practice and on staff in a general pediatric ward in a tertiary hospital in Paris carried out an observational study to assess which indicators were reported at what rates. Pediatricians were also asked which information about the perinatal admission they would find helpful in these records.

Antivertigo medications and drug-induced vertigo. A pharmacological review.

The approach to drug treatment of vertigo is almost exclusively symptomatic. There are 3 major goals for drug treatment of vertigo. The first one is to eliminate the hallucination of motion.

[Glucose intolerance and post-stimulatory hypoglycemia secondary to a probably congenital intrahepatic portacaval anastomosis].

Recurrent malaise in a 63 year old woman were found to be due to hypoglycaemic episodes. During a 5 hour oral glucose tolerance test, the "impaired glucose tolerance" type initial hyperglycaemic wave was followed by a post-stimulative hypoglycaemia. Serum C-peptide levels were normal during the test, but the insulin response which was initially normal became excessive, with a consequent decrease of the C-peptide/insulin ratio, similar to that usually observed in hepatic malfunction.

[The concept of protein profile].

From their own experience of the simultaneous immunonephelometry of eight serum proteins, the authors propose a definition of protein profile from the point of view both of laboratory technique and interpretation. The assay should be performed quickly and the results expressed diagrammatically in normalised values, in such a way that the relative variation in protein levels can be easily visualised. A protein profile should thus comprise a minimum of proteins to be measured, chosen according to protein physiopathology and the type of abnormality under investigation.

[Neonatal renal papillary necrosis].

Renal papillary necrosis was detected early by plasma and urine analyses in a neonate with the respiratory distress syndrome. The intravenous urogram demonstrated characteristic features of the condition. Initial symptoms were polyuria, urinary salt loss and haematuria, but the only residual abnormality was a mild defect in urinary concentrating ability.