Urine polymerase chain reaction as a screening tool for the detection of congenital cytomegalovirus infection.

Objectives: To define the incidence of congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in a defined population in Israel as diagnosed by urine polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and to assess the utility of this method for screening for congenital CMV infection.

Design: A convenient sample of urine specimens from asymptomatic newborns were subjected to CMV PCR. Positive results were validated by urine tube culture and by determination of serum CMV IgM antibodies.

The effect of exercise training in a cold environment on thermoregulation in adult and aged C57BL/6J mice.

We studied the effect of exercise training in cold environment (six weeks of daily, one-hour runs on a treadmill at ambient temperature of 6 +/- 1 degrees C at 60-65% of VO2max) on cold-induced metabolic heat production, heat loss, and cold tolerance in adult and aged C57BL/6J male mice. In adult mice, exercise training in cold environment resulted in greater cold-induced heat production and cold tolerance without changes in heat loss, similar to the effects of daily cold exposure without exercise. In aged mice, daily cold exposures did not affect cold tolerance and cold-induced heat production, but exercise training in the cold resulted in greater cold-induced heat production and cold tolerance.

The effect of exercise training in cold on shivering and nonshivering thermogenesis in adult and aged C57BL/6J mice.

To understand the mechanisms of improvement of cold-induced heat production in aged mice following exercise training, the relative contributions of shivering and nonshivering thermogenesis to cold-induced metabolic responses were assessed in adult and aged C57BL/6J male mice, which inhabited sedentarily at room temperature, or were subjected either to a regimen of moderate intensity exercise training at 6 degrees C, or to sedentary repeated exposures to the same temperature. The main findings were that (1) aged mice had greater cold-induced nonshivering thermogenesis, but lower shivering than adult mice; (2) exercise training in a cold environment enhanced cold-induced nonshivering thermogenesis in adult mice, but suppressed it in aged animals; (3) exercise training in a cold environment increased shivering thermogenesis in both age groups, but this increase was much greater in aged mice; (4) the increase of cold-induced shivering thermogenesis was mainly responsible for increased cold tolerance in aged mice after exercise training in a cold environment.

Corticostriatal mechanisms of behavior.

This article presents the results of three series of experiments on cats, dogs, and lower primates, performed to investigate the structural, neurophysiological, and mediator mechanisms of the corticostriatal systems involved in the organization of behavior. Morphological studies of corticostriatal connections showed that along with the diffuse distribution of afferent terminals within the striatum, there were also elements of topical organization defined by anteroposterior and mediolateral gradients. Neurophysiological experiments on dogs and lower primates were used to study the spike activity of the prefrontal region of the cortex and the head of the caudate nucleus during training to conditioned first- and second-order reflexes and during the solution of complex problems involving delayed spatial selection.

Neurophysiological mechanisms of cortical-subcortical interactions in the organization of behavior.

Experimental data are discussed within the framework of the fundamental areas of studies of the neurophysiological mechanisms of behavior. The first of these is the study of the activity of individual neurons, which is characterized by plastic rearrangements based on synaptic, molecular (neurochemical), and submolecular (genetic) processes. The second area is the study of the activity of neuron systems, which unite the cells of different microgroups, and of systems including neural elements of different brain structures.

Change in heat loss as a part of adaptation to repeated cold exposures in adult and aged male C57BL/6J mice.

Previous studies have shown that adult mice increase cold-induced heat production as a result of repeated exposures to cold, but that aged mice do not. The objective of the present study was to investigate changes in heat loss during repeated cold exposures in adult and aged C57BL/6J mice. Mice were partially restrained for three hours at 6 degrees C, three times at one-week intervals.

Heat loss during cold exposure in adult and aged C57BL/6J mice.

Metabolic heat production (MHP), colonic temperature (Tco), and nonevaporative (dry) heat loss were measured in ADULT and AGED C57BL/6J male mice during cold exposure. Dry heat loss was assessed as a differential temperature (Td) between incoming and outgoing air through the chamber for indirect calorimetry. The average Td during cold exposure normalized to surface area for ADULT mice was significantly higher than that for the AGED animals (0.

[The corticostriatal mechanisms of behavior].

Experiments in dogs, cats and monkeys revealed that, along with the diffuse principle of afferent terminal arrangement within the striatum, there exist some features of terminal organisation by the anterior-posterior and medio-lateral gradients. The data obtained suggest that the prefrontal cortex and the caudate nucleus head maintain programming of intentions and the evaluation of performed actions.

[Neurophysiological mechanisms of the cortical-subcortical interrelationships in the organization of behavior].

Specific intersystem relationships seem to exist characterising interrelationships among neurons within pools of which plasticity of a single neuron is able to maintain integration processes of the whole system. The neurons under study seem to become united into various functional blocks during different phases of conditioned behaviour which determines a formation of a dominant condition of the centres and vectors of a specific behavioural action in a given situation and at a given time.

Structure of neuronal activity of the caudate nucleus of monkeys during decision-making and the realization of the motor program in different variants of a delayed spatial choice task.

In this paper the results of investigations of the participation of caudate nucleus neurons in the decision-making process and the process of organization of the program of a future motor response during the performance by Macaca mulatta monkeys of a delayed spatial choice tasks of varying degrees of complexity are presented. The presence in the caudate nucleus of spatially selective neurons, which are subdivided into two groups, was established: the position of conditional signals is reflected in the activity of one of the groups, and the direction of the future motor response is reflected in the activity of the other. The decision-making process is reflected in the impulse activity of neurons of the head of the caudate nucleus in two of its aspects: as the formation or choice of a specific motor program (spatially selective activity) and as a transitional factor from the instructive to the executive phase of the behavior.

[The structure of the neuronal activity of the caudate nucleus in monkeys making a decision and realizing the motor program in different variants of a task of delayed spatial choice].

Spatial-selective neurons were found in the monkey caudate nucleus, the neurons being divided into two groups: one of them reflects the location of conditioned signals, the other--the direction of future motor response. The decision-making process is reflected in the unit activity in two aspects: as formation or choice of a concrete motor program, and as a transitory moment from instructive to executive phase of the behaviour.

[The neuronal activity of the caudate nucleus in monkeys during the realization of delayed behavior].

A greater part (64%) of recorded neurones of the caudate nucleus head changed its activity at various stages of fulfillment by the monkey of the task of delayed spatial choice. Most of them (46.5% of all studied) reacted at key depressing and/or taking food from the feeder.

[Hypo- and hyperdiagnosis of senile dementia and Alzheimer's disease in psychiatric practice].

A total of 714 brains from patients of predominantly advanced age who died in mental (n = 546) and somatic (n = 168) institutions have been examined macro- and microscopically. It has been found on the basis of accurate postmortem verification of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and senile dementia (SD) that in 20% of cases psychiatrists erroneously diagnose feeblemindedness in old age and in about the same proportion of cases they fail to diagnose the actual disease (most often AD and SD). The author has revealed a marked hyperdiagnosis of hypophrenias of vascular genesis at the expense of AD and SD whose rates are obviously underreported and which play a greater role in gerontopsychiatric practice than is generally accepted.

[Muli-infarct dementia].

Two hundred and fifty-five cases of dementia of advanced age were studied. In 142 of them (56%) the clinical diagnosis was vascular dementia. In 55 the anatomical diagnosis was senile dementia or Alzheimer's disease and in only 40 cases with established multiple infarcts (in 38 cases they were localized in the area of the subcortical ganglia) the diagnosis was multiinfarction dementia.

[Ultrastructure of epileptic foci in temporal epilepsy].

An electron microscopy study was conducted on the material of biopsies from the removed epileptic foci localized in the hippocamp and fields 21 and 38 of the temporal cortex of 11 patients with temporal epilepsy. There was the constant presence of so-called dark and altered light neurocytes whose cytoplasm had experienced considerable changes and was saturated with various inclusions. The axons and dendrites of the cells underwent peculiar degeneration.

[Special forms of ultrastructural changes in dendrites and axons in the human and cat brain].

The investigation has been performed in the human brain of persons at the age of 75-87 years, in the auditory cortex of old cats and in bioplates obtained from epileptic foci of the hippocamp and the temporal cortex of 11 patients suffering from temporal epilepsy (at the age of 12-29 years). Distal parts of the dendrites contain a large amount of myelin-like membranous and electron opaque inclusions. In most cases these dendrites have no axodendritic contacts.

The morphological basis of age-induced memory changes.

The results are presented of a layer-by-layer electron microscopic study of the cortex (40th area) in persons aged 78, 79, and 83 years whose anamneses did not include any neuropsychic disorders and who had died during surgical intervention These findings are examined in the light of current hypotheses about the morphological substrate of the mechanisms of memory. Cortical changes are uncovered which, according to these hypotheses, lie at the basis of the memory mechanisms. These include changes of the cytoplasm, neurocytes, dendrites, spines, axons, and their terminals.

[Relation between the degree of severity of the dementia and the extent of the manifestation of the pathomorphological changes in the cerebral cortex in senile dementia and Alzheimer's disease].

A study of 169 patients with senile dementia and Alzheimer's disease included history collection and the examination of the temporal pole. In the preparations impregnated according to Bilshovsky (in strictly the same volume of the cortex), senile plaques, neurofibrillar nodes and neurofibrillar skeletons were counted. Subsequently, the degree of the pathomorphological changes in each case was scored.

[Age-related changes in interneuronal synapses in human cerebral cortex].

In 5 persons that did not suffer from any psychical or neurological illnesses, at the age of 75-83 years, ultrastructure of dendrites, axons and axonal terminals was studied in the 40th field of the cerebral cortex, layer after layer. Various forms of changes in the dendrites were revealed demonstrating certain degenerative alterations in them and their loss of synaptic contacts with the axonal terminals. Two types of the axonal changes were followed.

[Hereditary demyelination in mutant quaking mice (electron microscopy study)].

Light and electron microscopic examinations of the nervous system in autosomal recessive mutant Quaking mice varying in ages from 12 days to 4 months revealed significant dysmyelination in which one of the most important morphological manifestations consisted of formation of "watery" astrocytes. The primary edema of astrocytes extended to other cerebral structures and produced their vacuolation, as a result of which significant disorders in the normal process of myelogenesis were observed, such as a decrease in the total volume of the white matter because of underdevelopment of myelin, disorders of the function of myelin-forming cells, oligodendrocytes. Pathological changes were also observed in some neurons and synapses.