Optical coherence tomography of the macular ganglion cell layer in children with neurofibromatosis type 1 is a useful tool in the assessment for optic pathway gliomas.

Background: Optic pathway glioma (OPG) is a feared complication to neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) since it can cause visual impairment in young children. The main goal of screening is to detect symptomatic OPGs that require treatment. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been suggested as a tool for detection of neuro-retinal damage.

Visuo-motor integration, vision perception and attention in mTBI patients. Preliminary findings.

Patients with mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) often report difficulties in motor coordination and visuo-spatial attention. However, the consequences of mTBI on fine motor and visuo-motor coordination are still not well understood. We aimed to evaluate whether mTBI had a concomitant effect on fine motor ability and visuo-motor integration and whether this is related to visual perception and visuo-spatial attention impairments, including patients at different symptoms stage.

Developmental trajectories of global motion and global form perception from 4 years to adulthood.

Literature on the development of global motion and global form perception demonstrated their asynchronous developmental trajectories. However, former studies have failed to clearly establish the critical period of maturation for these specific abilities. This study aimed to analyze the developmental trajectories of global motion and global form discrimination abilities by controlling for basic visual functions and general cognitive ability and to present the global motion and global form normative scores.

Motion Perception and Form Discrimination in Extremely Preterm School-Aged Children.

This population-based study evaluated motion and form perception in 71 children born extreme premature (EPT; < 27 gestational weeks), aged 6.5 years, as compared to a matched group of 79 control children born at term. Motion and form perception were evaluated by motion coherence and form coherence tests.

The influence of horizontal convergence on slow oscillatory eye movements during visual fixation.

Purpose: Slow oscillatory eye movements (SOMs) occur simultaneously with tremor, drifts, and microsaccades during visual fixation. In a previous study, the amplitude of SOM was found to be affected by the visual characteristics of the stimuli. This indicates a perceptual influence on the control of the movement.

Keep away from danger: dangerous objects in dynamic and static situations.

Behavioral and neuroscience studies have shown that objects observation evokes specific affordances (i.e., action possibilities) and motor responses.

Motion perception in children with foetal alcohol syndrome.

Aim: To evaluate the visual magnocellular pathway by a coherent motion perception test in children with foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).

Methods: Eighty-nine children (49 with verified FAS and 40 without FAS) aged from 10 to 16 years were included into the study. Both the study and the control group were children living in orphanages.

Changes of saccadic eye movements in thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy.

Purpose: To establish whether or not the dynamics of saccadic eye movements are significantly changed in patients with different stages of thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO) and, subsequently, if analysis of saccades could serve as an additional diagnostic tool for early detection of inflammatory activity in TAO.

Methods: Thirty-seven patients with TAO and 10 age- and gender-matched control subjects were investigated. The patients were divided into four groups according to the stage of the disease: (i) early mild disease (n = 10), (ii) early severe disease (n = 11), (iii) long-standing restrictive disease (n = 10) and (iv) proven auto-immune hyperthyroidism without any signs of TAO (n = 6).

Coherence motion perception in developmental dyslexia: a meta-analysis of behavioral studies.

The magnitude of the association between developmental dyslexia (DD) and motion sensitivity is evaluated in 35 studies, which investigated coherence motion perception in DD. A first analysis is conducted on the differences between DD groups and age-matched control (C) groups. In a second analysis, the relationship between motion coherence threshold and reading ability is considered.

Attentional engagement deficits in dyslexic children.

Reading acquisition requires, in addition to appropriate phonological abilities, accurate and rapid selection of sublexical orthographic units by attentional letter string parsing. Spatio-temporal distribution of attentional engagement onto 3-pseudoletter strings was studied in 28 dyslexic and 55 normally reading children by measuring attentional masking (AM). AM refers to an impaired identification of the first of two sequentially presented masked objects (O1 and O2).

Succinylcholine activation of human horizontal eye muscles.

Purpose: Succinylcholine (Sch) can induce contracture in slow, multiply innervated muscle fibres of the extraocular muscles in animals of different species. Slow muscle fibres also exist in human eye muscle but their physiological properties have not been studied.

Methods: Isometric tension development was recorded in the lateral and medial rectus muscles in 12 patients operated under general anaesthesia.

Isometric force development in human horizontal eye muscles and pulleys during saccadic eye movements.

Purpose: The connective tissue elements forming the check ligaments and portals of the human eye muscles have recently been ascribed with a pulley function. Active positioning of the pulleys over orbital layer contraction during eye movements has been suggested. Other studies have instead demonstrated fibrous tissue connections between all parts of the muscle and the pulleys.

The effect of on-line high-flux hemofiltration versus low-flux hemodialysis on mortality in chronic kidney failure: a small randomized controlled trial.

Background: Given the paucity of prospective randomized controlled trials assessing comparative performances of different dialysis techniques, we compared on-line high-flux hemofiltration (HF) with ultrapure low-flux hemodialysis (HD), assessing survival and morbidity in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD).

Study Design: An investigator-driven, prospective, multicenter, 3-year-follow-up, centrally randomized study with no blinding and based on the intention-to-treat principle.

Setting & Participants: Prevalent patients with ESRD (age, 16 to 80 years; vintage > 6 months) receiving renal replacement therapy at 20 Italian dialysis centers.

Emotion recognition and expression in young obese participants: preliminary study.

This study of the presence of alexithymic characteristics in obese adolescents and preadolescents tested the hypothesis of whether they showed impaired recognition and expression of emotion. The sample included 30 obese young participants and a control group of 30 participants of normal weight for their ages. Stimuli, 42 faces representing seven emotional expressions, were shown to participants who identified the emotion expressed in the face.

Eye muscle force development in thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy in different stages of disease.

Purpose: Ocular motility disturbances are common in patients with thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO). A quantitative evaluation of the isometric force of the eye muscles in TAO might be useful in the detection of early stages of this disease.

Methods: A total of 32 patients with TAO were divided into three groups according to whether they had mild active, pronounced, active, or longstanding, inactive disease.

Magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound measurements of extraocular muscles in thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy at different stages of the disease.

Purpose: To assess extraocular muscle (EOM) involvement in thyroid-associated orbitopathy (TAO) of different stages with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound techniques.

Methods: A total of 32 patients with TAO were divided into three groups according to whether they had mild active, pronounced active or longstanding inactive disease. Six patients with Graves' disease but no clinical signs of TAO and 10 healthy control subjects were also studied.

Drift in ocular torsion during sustained head tilt.

Purpose: A head tilt towards the shoulder (roll) induces an ocular counter-roll (OCR), i.e. torsion in the opposite direction to the head.

Drift in ocular counterrolling during static head tilt.

A decreasing drift of the counter-rolled eye position (OCR) during head tilt was recently described. The underlying mechanism is not known. OCR in eleven healthy subjects was recorded (Search coil, Skalar) during a head tilt paradigm in two test conditions.

Fixation stability in normal children.

Fixation stability was found to increase with increasing age (4-15 years) in normal children, but there was no directional preponderance in fixation location.

Transthoracic endosonography for the intraoperative localization of lung nodules.

Background: Transthoracic ultrasonography has been advocated for the localization of lung nodules during video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) for nonperipheral nodules.

Methods: Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for lung nodules was performed in 54 consecutive patients. Preoperative computed tomography (CT) diagnosed 65 lesions.

Blood volume controlled hemodialysis in hypotension-prone patients: a randomized, multicenter controlled trial.

Background: Recently we have devised and tested a biofeedback system for controlling blood volume (BV) changes during hemodialysis (HD) along an ideal trajectory (blood volume tracking, BVT), continuously modifying the weight loss rate and dialysate conductivity. This multicenter, prospective, randomized, crossover study aimed to clarify whether BVT (treatment B) can improve hypotension-prone patients' treatment tolerance, compared with conventional hemodialysis (treatment A).

Methods: Thirty-six hypotension-prone patients enrolled from 10 hemodialysis (HD) centers were randomly assigned to either of the study sequences ABAB or BABA, each lasting four months.