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Biomedical subjects

A Harrington

Publications and source records attributed to A Harrington.

31 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1991

Construction of a Bacteriophage-Resistant Derivative of Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis 425A by Using the Conjugal Plasmid pNP40.

Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis 425A is an atypical strain which excretes a high concentration of alpha-acetolactate when grown in milk. The conjugative lactococcal plasmid pNP40, which encodes phage and nisin resistance, was introduced to strain 425A by conjugation, using resistance to phage and nisin as a selection. No phage-nisin resistance mutants were encountered. Transconjugants display complete resistance at both 21 and 39 degrees C to those phage previously identified as lytic for 425A. Transconjugants lose their resistance characteristics when spontaneously cured of pNP40. The commercially important property of 425A-production of high levels of alpha-acetolactic acid-is unaffected by the presence of pNP40.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1989

"Whole brain" politics and brain laterality research.

The paper discusses a recent international conference in Munich (FRG) on brain-laterality research. An open letter on the goals of the conference is considered. In this letter, the "automatic" moral and intellectual decay of "left brain" modern society was predicted, and a clarion call for the reinsertion of "whole brain" values into our over-mechanized culture was sounded. Discussion of the conference itself focuses on the political and social risks involved in selling irrationalist ideologies - even well-meaning ones - in the name of science. The paper calls for a more responsible attitude among modern brain-laterality researchers who would participate in scientific conferences that blur the distinction between description and social prescription.

Brain↗
PubMed1989

[Psychiatry and the history of the localization of psychological functions].

The problem of the localisation of mental functions in the brain is historically analysed with special attention to its implications for psychiatry. The aim is not to discuss the historical details of the relationship between psychiatric models of madness and neurological models of brain functioning, but to cast some light on the broad intellectual and social framework within which the relationship became possible in the first place. It is argued that debates about the localizability of psychological processes are always more than just debates about structure-function correlation, and must in fact be ultimately understood as part of the much larger historical attempt within the natural sciences to "naturalize" man and his mind. Emphasis is laid on the extent to which different positions within the localisation debate have been influenced by unspoken social (political, religious) and philosophical factors, and questions are raised about the implications of this fact for modern neuropsychology and neuropsychiatry.

Brain↗
PubMed1988

Metals and magnets in medicine: hysteria, hypnosis and medical culture in fin-de-siècle Paris.

It is well known that the end of the nineteenth century represented a 'golden age' of hysteria and hypnosis research under Jean-Martin Charcot in Paris, but the extent to which metals and magnets figured in this strange and provocative world has been very incompletely told. This paper offers itself as a first corrective to this neglect. In 1876 a certain elderly physician and mesmerist, Victor Burq, asked the Parisian Société de Biologie formally to establish the validity of his so-called 'metallotherapy' (later 'metalloscopy') treatment for hysteria. The paper argues that Charcot's participation in the investigation of Burq's work--undertaken in conjunction with two other leading French neurologists, Amédée Dumontpallier and Jules Bernard Luys--served as a major catalyst in arousing the great neurologist's interest in hypnosis in the first place, and was subsequently responsible for several of his key beliefs about the underlying physiological link between hypnosis and hysteria. It is also shown how these early metalloscopy studies--and especially the discovery by Charcot and his colleagues of so-called metalloscopic 'transfer'--opened the door to the rise of a neo-mesmeric, and increasingly occult, branch of hypnosis research in French psychiatry, which has to date, in the secondary literature, gone almost wholly unremarked.

France↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Feedback-controlled laser-mediated cartilage reshaping.

OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate feedback-controlled laser-mediated cartilage reshaping using dynamic measurements of tissue optical properties and radiometric surface temperatures. DESIGN: Flat cartilage specimens were reshaped into curved configurations using a feedback-controlled laser device. MATERIALS: Fresh porcine nasal septum, stripped of perichondrium and cut into uniform strips (25 x 10 x 1.5-2.1 mm) with a custom guillotine microtome. INTERVENTIONS: Cartilage specimens secured in a cylindrical reshaping jig (2.5 cm in diameter) and irradiated with an Nd:YAG laser (lambda = 1.32 microns, 25 W/cm2, 50-Hz pulse repetition rate). During laser irradiation, radiometric surface temperature was measured along with changes in forward-scattered light from a diode probe laser (lambda = 650 nm, 5 mW), using a lock-in detection technique. Sequential irradiation of the specimen outer surface was made (3 laser passes). Characteristic changes in tissue temperature and light-scattering signals were used to terminate laser irradiation. RESULTS: Effective reshaping was accomplished for both thin (1.5-mm) and thick (2.1-mm) specimens. Following reshaping, specimens were stored in saline solution at 4 degrees C for 21 days. No return to the original flat configuration was noted during this period. CONCLUSIONS: The prototype device effectively reshapes flat native porcine cartilage into curve configurations. The use of optical and thermal signals provides effective feedback control for optimizing the reshaping process.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Disordered recognition and perception of human faces in acute schizophrenia and experimental psychosis.

Three disorders of facial recognition and perception in acute schizophrenia and mescaline-induced psychosis are described and illustrated using original clinical and experimental material: "affective prosopagnosia" or stress-related dysfunctional face recognition; "physiognomization" of the environment or persistent illusions and hallucinations of nonspecific faces; and the "mirror phenomenon" or the experience of inner alienation from one's reflected face, which is perceived as independently alive, sinister, and generally physically distorted. It is proposed that neuropsychology suggests relationships between these phenomena that might otherwise be less apparent. No final neurobiological solution to the problem of dysfunctional facial perception and recognition in psychosis is presented, but various insights and suggestive models from the neurosciences are discussed. Attention is also paid to the conditions under which one might need to combine neuropsychological approaches with hermeneutically oriented analyses.

Acute Disease↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A neuropsychological perspective on dual diagnosis.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether patients experiencing both a major psychiatric disorder and a concurrent substance abuse problem (dual diagnosis) manifest greater neuropsychological dysfunctions than patients experiencing a major psychiatric disorder alone. Differences in diagnostic variability and fluidity between dual diagnosis and non-dual diagnosis patients and the occurrence of polysubstance abuse among the dual diagnosis patients were also investigated. The hypotheses were tested by retrospectively reviewing the psychiatric records of 50 dual diagnosis patients and comparing them to 36 chronically hospitalized non-dual diagnosis psychiatric patients. Results revealed that dual diagnosis patients manifested significantly greater neuropsychological impairments than non-dual diagnosis patients and that dual diagnosis patients showed a greater range of diagnoses and diagnostic fluidity than non-dual diagnosis patients. Results also revealed that over one-half of the dual diagnosis patients abused a variety of different substances. An etiological role of neuropsychological dysfunction in the development of the dual diagnosis syndrome in at least a subgroup of dual diagnosis patients is suggested. More specifically, it is suggested that the neuropsychological dysfunctional pattern that is described may represent an organic substrate of a nonspecific vulnerability to developing both (atypical) psychoses and (poly) substance abuse.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A comparative study of neonates' umbilical cord management .

The aim of this study was to establish the effect of treating neonates' umbilical cords with chlorhexidine 0.5% in alcohol 70% on cord separation time and to observe the clinical and microbiological consequences of not treating the cords of healthy neonates. The treated group contained 466 babies whose cords were treated with chlorhexidine, 424 babies were not treated. Microbiological colonisation patterns of the cords of babies in both groups were monitored both for purposes of this investigation and to ensure that no untoward consequences resulted from non-treatment. The research showed that treatment prolonged separation time by 1.7 days, which was significant at the level of p = 0.000, and that normal colonisation was delayed in the treated group.

Chlorhexidine↗