Color vision and Frithiof Holmgren's discordant retinal microstimulation findings.

Frithiof Holmgren was a nineteenth-century Swedish professor of physiology who, after a sabbatical year at Helmholtz's laboratory in Heidelberg, devoted himself to studies of color vision and color blindness. Following Blix's successful demonstration of cutaneous receptor specificity by means of point stimulation, he decided to apply an analogous technique for psychophysical examination of the human retina. His findings appeared to support the Young-Helmholtz hypothesis of three primary colors and invalidated Hering's alternative four color opponent hypothesis.

Cortical processing of lateral skin stretch stimulation in humans.

Direction discrimination of a moving tactile stimulus requires intact dorsal columns and provides a sensitive clinical test of somatosensory dysfunction. Cortical mechanisms are poorly understood. We have applied tangential skin pulls to the right lower leg during functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Tactile directional sensitivity and postural control.

People are good at telling the direction of a moving tactile stimulus and this capacity provides a sensitive clinical test of somatosensory disturbances. Tactile directional sensitivity depends on two different kinds of somatosensory information, i.e.

Cox's chair: 'a moral and a medical mean in the treatment of maniacs'.

Two hundred years ago Joseph Cox published his book on the treatment of insanity. His novel technique was rotating the body in a specially designed chair. Initially modest and later extravagant claims were made for the therapeutic benefit of 'Cox's chair'.

White matter disease in magnetic resonance imaging predicts cerebral complications after coronary artery bypass grafting.

Background: The aim of the present study was to assess neurologic and neuropsychologic complications in 104 patients randomized to coronary artery bypass grafting or spinal cord stimulation. An additional objective of the study was to assess whether preoperative white matter disease might predict cerebral complications, as previous studies have shown that there is a relationship between white matter disease and neuropsychologic decline after coronary artery bypass grafting.

Methods: The patients were subjected to neurologic examination before and six months after intervention.