Amiodarone triggered Kounis syndrome complicated by refractory cardiac arrest rescued with VA-ECMO.

Key Clinical Message: An interesting case that shows an infrequent cause of cardiorespiratory arrest such as coronary vasospasm due to intravenous amiodarone induced Kounis syndrome. It highlights the usefulness of circulatory support with ECMO in the scenario of CPR.

Abstract: A patient with atrial fibrillation was admitted for an elective electrical cardioversion.

Acute Mitral Regurgitation Secondary to Spontaneous Left Atrial Appendage Occluder Migration.

A patient underwent left atrial appendage occlusion due to recurrent stroke despite new oral anticoagulant therapy. The patient later presented with severe acute mitral regurgitation secondary to occluder device migration, which was retrieved percutaneously from the descending aorta via the femoral artery. Mitral surgical repair was required and successfully performed.

Psychologically inspired anticipation and dynamic response for impacts to the head and upper body.

We present a psychology-inspired approach for generating a character' s anticipation of and response to an impending head or upper body impact. Protective anticipatory movement is built upon several actions that have been identified in the psychology literature as response mechanisms in monkeys and in humans. These actions are parameterized by a model of the approaching object (the threat) and are defined as procedural rules.

Role of caspase-3 activation in cerebral ischemia-induced neurodegeneration in adult and neonatal brain.

These studies have addressed the role of caspase-3 activation in neuronal death after cerebral ischemia in different animal models. The authors were unable to show activation of procaspase-3 measured as an induction of DEVDase (Asp-Glu-Val-Asp) activity after focal or transient forebrain ischemia in rats. DEVDase activity could not be induced in the cytosolic fraction of the brain tissue obtained from these animals by exogenous cytochrome c/dATP and Ca2+.