How visual information influences dual-task driving and tracking.

The study examined the impact of visual predictability on dual-task performance in driving and tracking tasks. Participants (N = 27) performed a simulated driving task and a pursuit tracking task. In either task, visual predictability was manipulated by systematically varying the amount of advance visual information: in the driving task, participants drove at night with low beam, at night with high beam, or in daylight; in the tracking task, participants saw a white line that specified the future target trajectory for 200, 400 or 800 ms.

[New methods for effective prevention of thromboembolism in surgical medicine exemplified by trauma surgery].

Under conventional prevention (pharmacological and physical) of thromboembolism 30-40% of surgical patients develop deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Mechanical methods significantly increase the efficacy of prophylaxis for thromboembolism: these include intermittent pneumatic compression, A-V impulse systems and ankle motion devices. For all trauma patients it is advisable that conventional prophylaxis of thromboembolism be supplemented with elements of mechanical prophylaxis in order to reduce the continuing high thrombosis rate significantly.

Influence of the novel inotropic agent levosimendan on isometric tension and calcium cycling in failing human myocardium.

Background: Levosimendan was shown to increase calcium sensitivity by a novel mechanism and to inhibit phosphodiesterase III activity in animal myocardium.

Methods And Results: We investigated the influence of levosimendan on isometric contractions and calcium transients (aequorin method) in muscle strips from human hearts with end-stage failing dilated or ischemic cardiomyopathy (n=27). Data were compared with the effects of the phosphodiesterase inhibitor milrinone (n=9).

Increased expression of erbB3 in colorectal cancer is associated with concomitant increase in the level of erbB2.

ErbB3 is a transmembrane signaling molecule that shares close structural homology with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), erbB2, and erbB4. They have all been implicated in cell transformation and tumor pathogenesis, but very little is known about the role of erbB3 in normal colon and colorectal cancer. Therefore, in the current study, we determined whether erbB3 is found in normal human colon and whether its expression is altered in colorectal cancer.

Over-expression of ICAM-1, VCAM-1 and ELAM-1 might influence tumor progression in colorectal cancer.

Adhesion molecules might play a role in tumor progression. We investigated expression of the adhesion molecules ICAM-1, VCAM-1 and ELAM-1 in 24 primary colorectal carcinomas using immuno-histochemistry and Northern blot analysis. Normal colonic tissue from the same patients served as controls.

Alterations in intracellular calcium handling associated with the inverse force-frequency relation in human dilated cardiomyopathy.

Background: The present study was performed to test the hypothesis that the altered force-frequency relation in human failing dilated cardiomyopathy may be attributed to alterations in intracellular calcium handling.

Methods And Results: The force-frequency relation was investigated in isometrically contracting ventricular muscle strip preparations from 5 nonfailing human hearts and 7 hearts with end-stage failing dilated cardiomyopathy. Intracellular calcium cycling was measured simultaneously by use of the bioluminescent photoprotein aequorin.

Effects of calcium sensitizers on intracellular calcium handling and myocardial energetics.

Calcium sensitizers may influence myocardial energetics by their action on calcium turnover and on crossbridge behavior. Using a myothermal method, the effects of the Ca2+ sensitizer EMD-53998 on calcium cycling, crossbridge behavior, and myocardial energy turnover were compared with the effects of an increase in extracellular calcium from 1.25 to 7.

Influence of sorbitol and mannitol on the reactions of kidney excretory function evoked by arterial chemoreceptor stimulation with almitrine in anaesthetized and artificially ventilated cats.

The reactions of renal hemodynamics, as well as of excretory and concentrating function (clearance-technique) in response to arterial chemoreceptor stimulation by almitrine bismesylate were studied in 3 groups of chloralosed, relaxed, and constantly ventilated cats. In 2 groups of chemoreceptor-intact animals an osmotic diuresis was induced by intravenous infusion of an isoionic solution containing equivalent amounts of either sorbitol or mannitol. Under similar conditions the 3rd series of experiments was carried out in cats under mannitol diuresis but with deafferented arterial chemoreceptors.

Influence of infusion of deoxycorticosterone acetate on the responses of kidney function elicited by stimulation of the peripheral arterial chemoreceptors with almitrine bismesylate in anaesthetized rats.

In two groups of male, normotensive, spontaneously breathing rats in chloralose-urethane anaesthesia the peripheral arterial chemoreceptors were stimulated by intravenous infusion of almitrine bismesylate (0.25 mg/kg). The experiments were carried out in moderate osmotic diuresis.