Bedside Manner 2020: An Inventory of Best Practices.

Bedside manner, a doctor's deportment with a patient, encompasses all aspects of the patient interaction, including all verbal and nonverbal communication strategies. Bedside manner can be a powerful adjunct for healing. In academic medical centers, trainees generally learn bedside manner by observing their attendings and mentors-in other words, as part of the "hidden curriculum.

Induction of enhanced acoustic startle response by noise exposure: dependence on exposure conditions and testing parameters and possible relevance to hyperacusis.

There has been a recent surge of interest in the development of animal models of hyperacusis, a condition in which tolerance to sounds of moderate and high intensities is diminished. The reasons for this decreased tolerance are likely multifactorial, but some major factors that contribute to hyperacusis are increased loudness perception and heightened sensitivity and/or responsiveness to sound. Increased sound sensitivity is a symptom that sometimes develops in human subjects after acoustic insult and has recently been demonstrated in animals as evidenced by enhancement of the acoustic startle reflex following acoustic over-exposure.

Mapping and morphometric analysis of synapses and spines on fusiform cells in the dorsal cochlear nucleus.

Fusiform cells are the main integrative units of the mammalian dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN), collecting and processing inputs from auditory and other sources before transmitting information to higher levels of the auditory system. Despite much previous work describing these cells and the sources and pharmacological identity of their synaptic inputs, information on the three-dimensional organization and utltrastructure of synapses on these cells is currently very limited. This information is essential since an understanding of synaptic plasticity and remodeling and pathologies underlying disease states and hearing disorders must begin with knowledge of the normal characteristics of synapses on these cells, particularly those features that determine the strength of their influence on the various compartments of the cell.