N-of-1 Trial in Person with Pontine Stroke Receiving Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to Improve Hand Function.

Stroke characteristics vary widely between individuals making it difficult to assess the value of stroke rehabilitation interventions. To eliminate inter-subject variability, this study used an N-of-1 randomized, controlled design to explore the efficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in one unique individual with pontine stroke. We hypothesized that five days of active 6-Hz primed, low-frequency rTMS to the contralesional primary motor area (M1), combined with finger movement tracking training, would accomplish greater gains in hand function than sham rTMS combined with tracking training.

Sparse codes for speech predict spectrotemporal receptive fields in the inferior colliculus.

We have developed a sparse mathematical representation of speech that minimizes the number of active model neurons needed to represent typical speech sounds. The model learns several well-known acoustic features of speech such as harmonic stacks, formants, onsets and terminations, but we also find more exotic structures in the spectrogram representation of sound such as localized checkerboard patterns and frequency-modulated excitatory subregions flanked by suppressive sidebands. Moreover, several of these novel features resemble neuronal receptive fields reported in the Inferior Colliculus (IC), as well as auditory thalamus and cortex, and our model neurons exhibit the same tradeoff in spectrotemporal resolution as has been observed in IC.

Comprehensive determinant mapping of the hepatitis C-specific CD8 cell repertoire reveals unpredicted immune hierarchy.

While CD8 cells are thought to play an important role in the control hepatitis C infection, low frequencies of virus-specific cells and high numbers of potential determinants have made it challenging to obtain direct and comprehensive data regarding fine specificity and clonal size of the CD8 cells involved. Most assays suited for measuring CD8 cell frequencies require prior knowledge of immune dominant peptides. While there are excellent algorithms for predicting MHC-peptide binding strength for particular class I alleles, it is unknown how accurate these algorithms are in predicting the actual determinant recognized in an individual coexpressing other class I alleles.

Port site metastasis of ovarian carcinoma remote from laparoscopic surgery for benign disease.

Background: The use of laparoscopic surgical procedures has continued to expand due to the many advantages that this surgical approach offers. However, as we continue to realize the benefits and expand the scope of laparoscopic procedures, new complications may occur.

Case: This is the case of a 77-year-old gravida 2 para 2 who underwent exploratory laparotomy and surgical staging with optimal cytoreduction for Stage IIIC papillary serous ovarian carcinoma in February 1998.

HIV long-term non-progressors maintain brisk CD8 T cell responses to other viral antigens.

Objective: To examine the specificity of heightened CD8 cell responses in HIV-1-infected long-term non-progressors.

Design: Cross-sectional study examining CD8 cell responses to hepatitis C virus (HCV) peptides in HCV-HIV LTNP (n = 6), HCV-HIV progressors (n = 11), HCV singly infected patients (n = 32), HCV singly infected patients with self-limited disease (n = 10), HIV singly infected progressors (n = 7) and HCV-negative, HIV-negative controls (n = 10).

Methods: The frequency of HCV-reactive interferon gamma-producing cells in peripheral blood was assayed by enzyme linked immunospot assay using a panel of 61 HCV-1-derived peptides.