Disruption of reflexive attention and eye movements in an individual with a collicular lesion.

The superior colliculus (SC) plays a central role in the control of saccadic eye movements and has also been implicated in control of covert spatial attention. While there is a growing body of evidence from studies of awake behaving primates that supports these proposals, direct evidence from humans has been sparse. In the present study we tested a patient with thiamine deficiency and a lesion of the SC, who performed both eye movement tasks (prosaccades and antisaccades, with or without a gap) and a covert spatial attention task assessing inhibition of return (IOR).

Fizeau digital interferometry with a diffraction-generated spherical wave for testing focusing optics.

A sufficiently small, reflective spherical particle at the focus of a test lens can replace the spherical autostigmatizing mirror in Fizeau digital interferometry, which is used for testing focusing optics. This small particle serves as a secondary coherent point source in the test arm and generates by diffraction a spherical wave that is used to produce the test beam. The relationships between the diffraction-generated wave and the size and shape of the diffracting element are discussed and also used to properly select the diffracting element.

Susceptibility to experimental interstitial lung disease is modified by immune- and non-immune-related genes.

To evaluate the concept that genetic factors modulate susceptibility to agents that cause interstitial lung disease, animal models of interstitial lung disease caused by bleomycin or by inhalation of organic particulates (ovalbumin or bovine gamma globulin after specific immunization) were studied in strains of mice with different genetic backgrounds. Because immune processes have been implicated in modulating the susceptibility to agents that cause interstitial lung disease, we also compared congenic, resistant strains (strains with the same background but with different H-2 haplotypes) for their sensitivity to the same agents. In bleomycin-induced disease, the degree of lung disease was different in some of the different strains of mice and, in some strains, was related to H-2 locus genes since all strains with H-2b haplotypes were high responders, whereas most of the strains with H-2a, H-2d, and H-2k haplotypes were low responders.