Glucose insulin potassium infusion improves systolic function in patients with chronic ischemic cardiomyopathy.

Objective: We assessed the effects of glucose-insulin-potassium (GIK) by echocardiography in stable patients with ischemic dysfunction.

Methods: Twelve male patients with stable coronary disease (SCD) and ejection fraction (EF) <45% were studied for systolic function. GIK (glucose 30%, 300 insulin units and KCl 6 g/l) was infused at 1 ml/kg per h over 20 min.

Continuum model for low temperature relaxation of crystal steps.

High and low temperature relaxation of crystal steps are described in a unified picture, using a continuum model based on a modified expression of the step-free energy. Results are in agreement with experiments and Monte Carlo simulations of step fluctuations and monolayer cluster diffusion and relaxation. In an extended model where mass exchange with neighboring terraces is allowed, step transparency and a low temperature regime for unstable step meandering are found.

Oscillatory driving of crystal surfaces: a route to controlled pattern formation.

We show that the oscillatory driving of crystal surfaces can induce pattern formation or smoothening. Depending on driving conditions, step bunching and meandering, mound formation, or surface smoothening may be seen in the presence of a kinetic asymmetry at the steps or kinks. We employ a step model to calculate the induced mass flux along misoriented surfaces, which accounts for surface dynamics and stability.

Unstable step meandering with elastic interactions.

We report on theoretical investigations of the influence of step interactions due to elasticity on unstable step meandering during molecular beam homoepitaxy. It is shown that elasticity causes coarsening of the cellular structure of the meander found in a previous work. The time dependence of step roughness is found to be robust, behaving as t(1/2).

A performance-dependent adjustment of the retention interval in a delayed non-matching-to-position paradigm differentiates effects of amnestic drugs in rats.

Operant delayed non-matching-to-position (delayed non-matching-to-position) tasks have been widely used as tests of working memory in rats, but have suffered some loss in sensitivity to differentiating selective mnemonic from non-mnemonic deficits due to floor and ceiling effects. To circumvent this problem, a novel delayed non-matching-to-position was developed in which the retention interval was adjusted on a trial-by-trial basis to hold performance accuracy at an intermediate value. The present study assessed the effects of three amnestic drugs in this delayed non-matching-to-position.

Specificity of memory measures in an adjusting delayed nonmatching-to-position task for rats.

While the delayed nonmatching-to-position (DNMTP) behavioral paradigm has often been used by neuroscientists to assess working memory in rats, its measure of working memory is compromised by floor and ceiling effects. Specifically, these floor and ceiling effects undermine the ability to detect a significant interaction in a two-factor repeated-measures ANOVA, which is required in order to conclude that impaired performance has resulted from disrupted working memory and not from a change in another psychological process (i.e.

Heroin body packing: three fatal cases of intestinal perforation.

Death from heroin body packing has been well described in the forensic literature. Most fatalities are due to drug leakage and consequent acute heroin toxicity. Recently, drug traffickers have become more sophisticated in their packaging, and the risk of rupture of drug packets is more remote.

Psychiatric and neurologic predictors of psychogenic pseudoseizure outcome.

Objective: To investigate the patterns of occurrence of psychogenic pseudoseizures (PPS) of 45 consecutive patients during a 6-month period after diagnosis, and to determine whether psychiatric and neurologic variables identified previously in PPS patient series can predict their recurrence after diagnosis, and whether any of these variables are associated with a particular outcome pattern.

Method: Postdiagnosis PPS recurrence was assessed twice: during the first month and during a period ranging from the second to the sixth month. Outcome was categorized as follows: class I, complete cessation of PPS; class II, PPS only during one of the two observation periods; and class III, persistent PPS during the two observation periods.

Infection with GB virus C/hepatitis G virus among blood donors and hemophiliacs in Martinique, a Caribbean island.

GB virus C/hepatitis G virus (GBV-C/HGV) RNA was detected by reverse transcription-polymer- ase chain reaction with primers derived from the nonstructural region 3 (NS3) in 9 (4.1%) of 221 blood donors and 2 of 20 (10%) hemophilia patients in Martinique, French West Indies. Anti-E2 antibodies were found in sera from 33 (14.

Deficits in delayed memory following cerebral malaria: a case study.

Cerebral malaria is a common disease, but there have not been any reports or investigations of long-term neurological or neuropsychological outcome. We present a case in which severe deficits in delayed memory and naming ability are observed 10 years after the patient contracted cerebral malaria. Neuropsychological testing and medical imaging are both consistent with temporal lobe/hippocampal dysfunction, which corroborates earlier animal research that cerebral malaria is particularly likely to lead to interrupted blood circulation in this area.

Landau-Kleffner syndrome. Treatment with subpial intracortical transection.

Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS) is an acquired epileptic aphasia occurring in childhood and associated with a generally poor prognosis for recovery of speech. It is thought to be the result of an epileptogenic lesion arising in speech cortex during a critical period of development. Utilizing a new surgical technique designed to eliminate the capacity of cortical tissue to generate seizures while preserving the normal cortical physiological function, we have treated 14 children with aphasia, seizures and a severely abnormal EEG by multiple subpial transection of the epileptogenic cortex.

Tailored anterior temporal lobectomy. Relation between extent of resection of mesial structures and postsurgical seizure outcome.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between the extent of resection of mesial temporal structures and postsurgical seizure outcome in a group of patients who had undergone a tailored anterior temporal lobectomy.

Methods: Twenty-four patients with unilateral interictal and ictal foci restricted to anterior/mesial temporal regions underwent resection of mesial and temporal lateral structures, the extent of which was tailored by intraoperative electrocorticographic findings and functional mapping of eloquent cortex. The extent of resection was determined with postoperative magnetic resonance imaging scans, using a semiquantitative method, based on a 20-compartment model of the temporal lobe.

Significance of unilateral ear extinction on the dichotic listening test.

The association between unilateral ear extinction on the dichotic listening test and the lateralization of epileptogenic foci was examined in a sample of 49 seizure patients undergoing preoperative evaluation for epilepsy surgery. Results from patients who were left hemisphere dominant for speech indicated that right ear impairment was always predictive of a unilateral left hemisphere focus, but left ear extinction was associated with unilateral lesions of either hemisphere. In this patient sample, dichotic listening performance reflected an interaction of both lateralized foci and hemispheric preference of language processing.

[Granular cell tumor of the gingiva in the newborn. Report of a case in Martinique].

The authors report a case of a gingival granular cell tumor, also called "congenital epulis", occurring in a female newborn. It is a rare congenital, benign tumor of uncertain histogenesis, with marked predilection for female newborn. The tumor arises, as a polypoid mass, on the gingiva of the anterior maxillary or mandibular alveolar ridge.

Vitamin A supplementation and increased prevalence of childhood diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections.

There is uncertainty over whether vitamin A supplementation reduces morbidity among children with subclinical deficiency of the vitamin. Hence a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of the effect of vitamin A supplementation on childhood morbidity was conducted among 11,124 children aged 6-83 months in the northwest of Haiti. After a random start, children were sequentially assigned by household units to receive either megadose vitamin A or placebo in three distribution cycles 4 months apart.

Neurologic complications of critical medical illnesses.

Objectives: To identify the neurologic complications of critical medical illnesses, and to assess their effect on mortality rates and on medical ICU and hospital lengths of stay.

Design: Prospective clinical evaluation of all medical ICU admissions for 2 yrs.

Setting: A 14-bed, general medical intensive and coronary care unit in a large university hospital.

Epileptiform activity in chronically isolated cerebral cortex in humans.

The ability of neuronally isolated human cerebral cortex to sustain epileptiform rhythms over long time intervals is unknown. We report here two patients after functional hemispherectomy for infantile hemiplegia and infantile meningoencephalitis. Both patients had intractable seizures.