Perceived impacts of stressful events on train driver performance.

Acute stress exposure can significantly impact a train driver's capacity to maintain safe train operations. However, research examining how train drivers perceive the impacts of acute stressors is limited. This study investigated train driver perceptions regarding performance impacts of stressful events and potential strategies for reducing negative impacts.

Exercise-induced mitral regurgitation is a predictor of morbid events in subjects with mitral valve prolapse.

Objectives: This study attempted to determine whether a subset of patients with mitral valve prolapse and no mitral regurgitation at rest will develop mitral regurgitation during exercise and have a higher than anticipated risk of morbid cardiovascular events.

Background: Mitral regurgitation in patients with mitral valve prolapse identifies a subset of patients at higher risk for morbid events. However, mitral regurgitation in patients with mitral valve prolapse may be intermittent and could go unrecognized.

Transesophageal echocardiography: normal variants and mimickers.

An accurate diagnosis of cardiac pathology using TEE is contingent upon the ability to recognize and differentiate normal cardiac structures and normal variants from pathologic conditions. We describe several normal cardiac structures commonly imaged using TEE of the atria, interatrial septum, aorta, valves, and extracardiac spaces that may mimic diverse pathologic states, such as intracardiac tumor and thrombus, valvular vegetations, mitral and tricuspid valve prolapse, atherosclerotic plaque, and aortic dissection. Methods to aid in the differentiation of normal cardiac structures from pathology are offered.

Comparison of cardiac dimensions by transesophageal and transthoracic echocardiography.

Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has advanced rapidly as a valuable cardiovascular diagnostic technique. As the use of TEE increases, so does the importance of well-defined normal cardiac measurements. Presently, few data exist on the accuracy of M-mode TEE-derived measurements.

Restoration of orbicularis oculi function by contralateral orbicularis oculi innervated muscle flap vs neuromuscular pedicle technique.

In preliminary experiments with dogs and cats, unilateral paralysis of the orbicularis oculi muscle group was produced by a section of the seventh nerve that included the posterior auricular branch. Either one of two procedures was then employed in attempts to reinnervate the paralyzed eyelid. In one group of animals, a neuromuscular pedicle was employed and in another, a contralateral orbicularis innervated muscle flap was used.