Susceptibility to high-altitude pulmonary edema is associated with a more uniform distribution of regional specific ventilation.

High-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) is a potentially fatal condition affecting high-altitude sojourners. The biggest predictor of HAPE development is a history of prior HAPE. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shows that HAPE-susceptible (with a history of HAPE), but not HAPE-resistant (with a history of repeated ascents without illness) individuals develop greater heterogeneity of regional pulmonary perfusion breathing hypoxic gas (O = 12.

The Cushing-Dandy conflict—the Dandy family perception of the discord.

The rivalry between Harvey Cushing and Walter Dandy has long fascinated neurosurgeons. Once a mentor to Dandy, Cushing saw his pupil's cunning prowess in the laboratory and unique surgical skill rival his own, and he took years to embrace some of Dandy's innovations, the most well-known of which was the technique of ventriculography. In this report, Dandy's great grandson draws on his family archives and personal letters of Dandy to lineate the evolution of the Dandy-Cushing relationship.

Dead space mask eliminates central apnea at altitude.

Travelers to high altitude may have disturbed sleep due to periodic breathing with frequent central apneas. We tested whether a mask with added dead space could reduce the central apneas of altitude. 16 subjects were recruited, age 18-35, residing at 4600 ft (1400 m).

Modulation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical axis by caffeine.

Although caffeine is the most consumed psychoactive substance in the world, the extents of many of its effects are unknown. High doses of caffeine have been shown to activate the HPA axis while the effects of low to moderate doses have usually not been described in detail. Moreover, although several lines of evidence suggest that low doses of caffeine may restrain some negative affective states, the possible modulatory role of caffeine on HPA axis activation induced by a stressful stimulus has not been described.