Coronary angiographic scoring systems: an evaluation of their equivalence and validity.

Background: Multiple scoring systems have been devised to quantify angiographic coronary artery disease (CAD) burden, but it is unclear how these scores relate to each other and which scores are most accurate. The aim of this study was to compare coronary angiographic scoring systems (1) with each other and (2) with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-derived plaque burden in a population undergoing angiographic evaluation for CAD.

Methods: Coronary angiographic data from 3600 patients were scored using 10 commonly used angiographic scoring systems and interscore correlations were calculated.

Effect of intensive atorvastatin therapy on coronary atherosclerosis progression, composition, arterial remodeling, and microvascular function.

Background: There is a discrepancy between the marked reduction in adverse events with statins and their modest effect on atheroma regression. We hypothesized that, in a Western population, high-dose atorvastatin will result in alterations in coronary atheroma composition, phenotype, and microvascular function.

Methods: Serial coronary radiofrequency intravascular ultrasound (VH-IVUS), coronary flow reserve (CFR), and hyperemic microvascular resistance (HMR) were performed at baseline and after 6 months of treatment with 80 mg atorvastatin in 20 patients with moderate coronary artery disease (CAD).

Standard chest radiograph predicts left ventricular lead location in chronic resynchronization therapy patients more accurately than intraoperative fluoroscopy.

Introduction: Targeting the proper left ventricular lead site is important in cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) procedures, as suboptimal lead locations may result in a lack of clinical response. Left ventricular lead locations are typically confirmed using fluoroscopy (fluoro) with AP, RAO, and LAO orientations. However, standard fluoro may inadequately delineate true left ventricular lead locations, due to insufficient angulation or extreme cardiac rotation.

Racial and ethnic differences in the management of childhood asthma in the United States.

Objectives: We examined racial and ethnic differences in the management of childhood asthma in the United States and the extent that care conformed to clinical best practices.

Methods: Two years of pooled data from the National Health Interview Survey were analyzed using logistic regression. The sample included all children between ages 2 and 17 years who had asthma currently and had been diagnosed with asthma by a doctor or health professional (n = 1757; 465 African-American, 212 Mexican-American, 190 Puerto Rican and other Hispanic, 806 white, non-Hispanic, and 84 children of other and multiple races and ethnicities).

Coronary microvascular dysfunction is associated with higher frequency of thin-cap fibroatheroma.

Objective: Both coronary microvascular dysfunction and epicardial plaque vulnerability have been associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes. However, whether microvascular dysfunction is a predictor of plaque vulnerability is not known. We hypothesized that microvascular dysfunction is associated with greater systemic inflammation and is a predictor of virtual histology-intravascular ultrasound (VH-IVUS)-defined coronary thin-cap fibroatheromas.

Postoperative delirium: etiology and management.

Purpose Of Review: Postoperative delirium is a pervasive and complicated process that poses numerous challenges for the perioperative physician and entails significant consequences for the patient.

Recent Findings: Postoperative delirium affects on average 36.8% of surgical patients, ranging from 9 to 87% depending on age, setting, type of surgery and other risk factors.

Testing and feedback effects on front-end control over later retrieval.

In 2 experiments, we explored differences in cognitive control at retrieval on a final test to better understand the mechanisms underlying the powerful boost in recall of previously tested information. Memory retrieval can be enhanced by front-end control processes that regulate the scope of retrieval or by later processes that monitor retrieval to screen out incorrect candidates. In Experiment 1, prior testing with feedback improved front-end control over retrieval compared with restudy, but there was no difference in postretrieval monitoring processes.

Treatment trends for haemophilia A and haemophilia B in the United States: results from the 2010 practice patterns survey.

Frequent evaluation of haemophilia treatment is necessary to improve patient care. The 2010 Practice Patterns Survey (PPS) investigated current trends in haemophilia treatment in the United States, as reported by nurses. The aim was to document practice patterns for haemophilia A and haemophilia B Survey questionnaires were sent to nurses at haemophilia treatment centres (HTCs) across the United States.

Memory Training Interventions: What has been forgotten?

Memory training for older adults often produces gains that are limited to the particular memory tasks encountered during training. We suggest that memory training programs may be misguided by an implicit "generalist" assumption-memory training on a couple of memory tasks will have a positive benefit on memory ability in general. One approach to increase memory-training benefits is to target training for the everyday memory tasks for which older adults struggle.

Contemporary clinical applications of coronary intravascular ultrasound.

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) provides valuable information on the coronary vascular lumen and wall and has been an important tool in the cardiac catheterization laboratory for over 2 decades. The major utility of IVUS relates to optimizing stent deployment, particularly in complex lesions. In percutaneous coronary intervention with bare-metal stents, IVUS guidance reduces restenosis.

Test-enhanced learning in the classroom: long-term improvements from quizzing.

Three experiments examined whether quizzing promotes learning and retention of material from a social studies course with sixth grade students from a suburban middle school. The material used in the experiments was the course material students were to learn and some of the dependent measures were the actual tests on which students received grades. In within-subject designs, students received three low-stakes multiple-choice quizzes in Experiments 1 and 2 and performance on quizzed items was compared to that on items that were presented twice (Experiment 2) or items that were not presented on the initial quizzes (Experiments 1 and 2).

Whoops, I did it again: commission errors in prospective memory.

Prospective memory research almost exclusively examines remembering to execute an intention, but the ability to forget completed intentions may be similarly important. We had younger and older adults perform a prospective memory task (press Q when you see corn or dancer) and then told them that the intention was completed. Participants later performed a lexical-decision task (Phase 2) in which the prospective memory cues reappeared.

A characterization of individual differences in prospective memory monitoring using the Complex Ongoing Serial Task.

Prospective memory--remembering to retrieve and execute future goals--is essential to daily life. Prospective remembering is often achieved through effortful monitoring; however, potential individual differences in monitoring patterns have not been characterized. We propose 3 candidate models to characterize the individual differences present in prospective memory monitoring: attentional focus, secondary memory retrieval, and information thresholding.

A meta-analysis of the Dark Triad and work behavior: a social exchange perspective.

We reviewed studies of the Dark Triad (DT) personality traits--Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy-and meta-analytically examined their implications for job performance and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Relations among the DT traits and behaviors were extracted from original reports published between 1951 and 2011 of 245 independent samples (N = 43,907). We found that reductions in the quality of job performance were consistently associated with increases in Machiavellianism and psychopathy and that CWB was associated with increases in all 3 components of the DT, but that these associations were moderated by such contextual factors as authority and culture.

Structural correlates of prospective memory.

Prospective memory (PM) includes the encoding and maintenance of an intention, and the retrieval and execution of this intention at the proper moment in the future. The present study expands upon previous behavioral, electrophysiological, and functional work by examining the association between grey matter volume and PM. Estimates of grey matter volume in theoretically relevant regions of interest (prefrontal, parietal, and medial temporal) were obtained in conjunction with performance on two PM tasks in a sample of 39 cognitively normal and very mildly demented older adults.

Intramuscular VEGF activates an SDF1-dependent progenitor cell cascade and an SDF1-independent muscle paracrine cascade for cardiac repair.

The skeletal muscle is endowed with an impressive ability to regenerate after injury, and this ability is coupled to paracrine production of many trophic factors possessing cardiovascular benefits. Taking advantage of this humoral capacity of the muscle, we recently demonstrated an extracardiac therapeutic regimen based on intramuscular delivery of VEGF-A(165) for repair of the failing hamster heart. This distal organ repair mechanism activates production from the injected hamstring of many trophic factors, among which stromal-derived factor-1 (SDF1) prominently mobilized multi-lineage progenitor cells expressing CXCR4 and their recruitment to the heart.

A sham drug improves a demanding prospective memory task.

Every day, people rely on prospective memory--our ability to remember to perform a future action--to carry out myriad tasks. We examined how a sham cognitive enhancing drug might improve people's performance on a prospective memory task. We gave some people (but not others) the sham drug, and asked everyone to perform a high-effort prospective memory task.

Coronary artery wall shear stress is associated with progression and transformation of atherosclerotic plaque and arterial remodeling in patients with coronary artery disease.

Background: Experimental studies suggest that low wall shear stress (WSS) promotes plaque development and high WSS is associated with plaque destabilization. We hypothesized that low-WSS segments in patients with coronary artery disease develop plaque progression and high-WSS segments develop necrotic core progression with fibrous tissue regression.

Methods And Results: Twenty patients with coronary artery disease underwent baseline and 6-month radiofrequency intravascular ultrasound (virtual histology intravascular ultrasound) and computational fluid dynamics modeling for WSS calculation.

Revealing list-level control in the Stroop task by uncovering its benefits and a cost.

Interference is reduced in mostly incongruent relative to mostly congruent lists. Classic accounts of this list-wide proportion congruence effect assume that list-level control processes strategically modulate word reading. Contemporary accounts posit that reliance on the word is modulated poststimulus onset by item-specific information (e.

Intravascular imaging findings in severe coronary vasospasm.

Appropriate diagnosis of patients with chest pain and no significant angiographic coronary artery disease remains challenging. We present the case of a 65-year-old woman with recurrent chest pain that was triggered by exertion as well as emotional stress. She underwent coronary angiography and intravascular ultrasound which demonstrated no atherosclerosis.

The role of plasma aminothiols in the prediction of coronary microvascular dysfunction and plaque vulnerability.

Background: Although oxidative stress is considered a key pathogenic step in mediating vascular dysfunction and atherosclerosis development, their association has not been evaluated in human coronary circulation in vivo. Accordingly, we hypothesized that higher oxidative stress would be associated with abnormal coronary epicardial structure and microvascular function.

Methods: We measured coronary flow velocity reserve (CFVR) and hyperemic microvascular resistance (HMR) as indices of microvascular function, and epicardial plaque volume and necrotic core using intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) in 47 patients undergoing cardiac catheterization.

Effects of testing on learning of functions.

Is learning of a complex functional relationship enhanced by trying to predict what output will go with a given input, as compared to studying an input-output pair? We examined learning of a bilinear function and transfer to new items outside the trained range. Subjects either saw the input-output pairs (study-only condition) or attempted to guess the output and then saw the pair (test/study condition). The total study times were equated, and motivation was enhanced with a monetary bonus.

Dissociative effects of orthographic distinctiveness in pure and mixed lists: an item-order account.

We apply the item-order theory of list composition effects in free recall to the orthographic distinctiveness effect. The item-order account assumes that orthographically distinct items advantage item-specific encoding in both mixed and pure lists, but at the expense of exploiting relational information present in the list. Experiment 1 replicated the typical free recall advantage of orthographically distinct items in mixed lists and the elimination of that advantage in pure lists.