Fracture of the intercondylar eminence of the tibia: a review of 35 patients.

Thirty-five patients (28 children and seven adults) were reviewed six months to 22 years after sustaining the common childhood fracture of the intercondylar eminence of the tibia. The aim was to assess both short-term and long-term results and prognosis by clinical and radiological examination and to discover whether conservative treatment was adequate for those severe fractures where a fragment of the tibial crest had been totally displaced. All the less severe fractures and 14 of the 17 severe fractures were treated conservatively.

Source derivation in clinical routine EEG.

A special multi-electrode derivation of the EEG signal was recently described by Hjorth (1975b). It is more selective than bipolar and common average reference derivations and is called source derivation. The present study aimed at testing the new method in routine EEG work and comparing the results with these obtained with conventional recording technique.

Postural effects on muscle nerve sympathetic activity in man.

1. Pulse-synchronous bursts of multi-unit sympathetic activity (MSA) were recorded in peroneal muscle nerve fascicles in eight healthy subjects when lying, sitting and standing. The sympathetic activity was quantitated by counting the number of bursts in the mean voltage neurogram/min.

Effects of the Jendrassik manoeuvre on muscle spindle activity in man.

Twenty-eight mechanoreceptive units identified as primary or secondary spindle afferents were sampled from muscle nerve fascicles in the median, peroneal, and tibial nerves of healthy adult subjects. The responses of these units to sustained passive muscle stretch, to passive stretching movements, to tendon taps, and electrically-induced muscle twitches were studied while the subject performed repeated Jendrassik manoeuvres involving strong voluntary contractions in distant muscle groups. The manoeuvres had no effect upon the afferent spindle discharges as long as there were no EMG signs of unintentional contractions occurring in the receptor-bearing muscle and no mechanotransducer signs of unintentional positional changes altering the load on that muscle.

Muscle spindle activity in alternating tremor of Parkinsonism and in clonus.

Single unit activity in spindle afferent nerve fibres from the finger flexors, the anterior tibial muscle, and the calf muscles was recorded intraneurally with tungsten microelectrodes in patients with Parkinsonism with resting tremor and in spastic patients with clonus. During tremor of Parkinsonism, involving the receptor bearing muscles, the Ia afferent fibre discharge patterns were similar to those seen previously in healthy subjects during voluntary fast alternating finger or foot movements: besides the stretch discharges occurring during the relaxation phases, discharges also occurred during the contraction phases. Such contraction discharges, presumed to originate from intrafusal muscle fibre contractions, were not seen in the spastic patients during clonus.