Self-reported responsiveness to direct-to-consumer drug advertising and medication use: results of a national survey.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing of pharmaceuticals is controversial, yet effective. Little is known relating patterns of medication use to patient responsiveness to DTC. METHODS: We conducted a secondary analysis of data collected in national telephone survey on knowledge of and attitudes toward DTC advertisements.

Basic organization principles of the VOR: lessons from frogs.

Locomotion is associated with a number of optical consequences that degrade visual information processing in the absence of appropriate compensatory movements. The resulting retinal image flow is counteracted by coordinated eye-head reflexes that are initiated by optokinetic and vestibular inputs. The contribution of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) for stabilizing retinal images is relatively small in amplitude in frogs but important in function by compensating for the non-linearities of the neck motor system.

Activity-related postlesional vestibular reorganization.

The synaptic convergence patterns of semicircular canal and macular afferent nerve inputs onto second-order vestibular neurons reorganize in adult frogs after a change in the activity of vestibular nerve afferent fibers. Axotomized afferent nerve fibers become silent after a vestibular nerve lesion, and second-order vestibular target neurons become disfacilitated. These changes initiate an activity-related process that was studied in detail in vitro two months after a section of the ramus anterior (RA) of N.

Postlesional vestibular reorganization improves the gain but impairs the spatial tuning of the maculo-ocular reflex in frogs.

The ramus anterior (RA) of N.VIII was sectioned unilaterally. Two months later we analyzed in vivo responses of the ipsi- and of the contralesional abducens nerve during horizontal and vertical linear acceleration in darkness.

Gradual and reversible central vestibular reorganization in frog after selective labyrinthine nerve branch lesions.

Postlesional reorganization of vestibular afferent and commissural inputs onto second-order vestibular neurons was studied in the isolated brain after unilateral section of the N.VIII, of the ramus anterior (RA) of N.VIII, of the utricular (UT) or of the anterior vertical and horizontal canal nerves in combination.