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Biomedical subjects

B Gordon

Publications and source records attributed to B Gordon.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources
PubMed1986

Visual behavior of monocularly deprived kittens treated with 6-hydroxydopamine.

Several investigators have reported that treating the visual cortex with 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) preserves the ability of a monocularly deprived eye to drive cells in the visual cortex. If 6-OHDA provides useful protection from the effects of monocular deprivation, it should also prevent the behavioral blindness that normally accompanies monocular deprivation. To test this prediction we compared the visual behavior of monocularly deprived kittens pretreated with 6-OHDA with that of kittens similarly deprived, but not drug-treated. Kittens were trained on a visual discrimination task before drug treatment or suture. Starting at about 5 weeks of age the kittens were given 6-OHDA via ventricular cannula, given vehicle solution, or given no treatment at all. At about 6 weeks of age all kittens were monocularly deprived for one week. When the deprived eye was opened at 7 weeks of age, most kittens not receiving 6-OHDA were blind when tested with the deprived eye. In contrast, none of the kittens receiving 6-OHDA intraventricularly were blind when tested with the deprived eye. 6-OHDA had no effect on performance with the non-deprived eye. We conclude that 6-OHDA protects vision through the monocularly deprived eye without impairing vision through the non-deprived eye.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Reconceptualizing assumptions about community mental health.

Beliefs that patients fall between the cracks in the transition from hospital to community services, that the aftercare population is shut out of community mental health agencies, and that services are duplicated to a high degree continue to be widely accepted. Using data from a study of a publicly funded mental health aftercare system in a major urban county, the authors reconceptualize these and similar assumptions about mental health aftercare. It appears that the primary focus of concern should be on the nature and quantity of the services being delivered rather than on increasing the proportion of patients connecting with them. Current services appear to be largely oriented toward helping the patient maintain a borderline existence in the community. Instead, much more emphasis is needed on meaningfully rehabilitating patients and reducing their chronic need for professional support.

Attitude↗
PubMed1986

Doses of 6-hydroxydopamine sufficient to deplete norepinephrine are not sufficient to decrease plasticity in the visual cortex.

These experiments were designed to test Kasamatsu and Pettigrew's (1979, 1983, and see below) hypothesis that plasticity in the visual cortex requires cortical norepinephrine (NE). Kittens were treated with various doses of intraventricular 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) or vehicle solution. Cortical NE content was measured with high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection. We sutured the right eyes of some kittens approximately 6 weeks of age for 1 week and recorded from the left visual cortex of these kittens at the end of the week of suture. We measured the ability of the deprived eye to drive cortical cells in animals that received either 0.2 or 4.8 mg of 6-OHDA, and also in control animals that received only vehicle solution. We concluded that a particular dose of 6-OHDA decreased plasticity if it increased (relative to controls) the ability of the deprived eye to drive cortical cells. Doses of 6-OHDA as small as 0.2 mg were sufficient to produce approximately maximal depletion of NE but did not decrease cortical plasticity. Doses of 4.8 mg or more did decrease cortical plasticity, although not as much as was reported by Kasamatsu and Pettigrew. We conclude that 6-OHDA can alter cortical plasticity but the decrease in plasticity does not result from NE depletion.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

Association of fragile X syndrome with autism.

The fragile X syndrome has been associated with autism. Blood samples from 37 autistic children and a control group were negative for fragile X chromosome. Large numbers of nonrandom autosomal lesions were observed in both the autistic and control groups.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Hyperammonemia in Alzheimer's disease.

Postprandial blood ammonia levels were significantly higher in 22 patients with Alzheimer's disease than in 37 control subjects. In the Alzheimer group, fasting blood ammonia levels were significantly higher in patients whose EEGs showed triphasic waves than in patients without this change. The direction of change from fasting to postprandial blood ammonia levels was also significantly different between these two groups.

Aged↗
PubMed1985

Neuropsychiatric dysfunction in primary Sjögren's syndrome.

Neuropsychiatric complications developed in 40 patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome, none of whom met American Rheumatologic Association criteria for systemic lupus erythematosus. Twenty-five patients had psychiatric abnormalities, the commonest of which were affective disturbances. Of 30 patients tested, 23 had an abnormal pattern in the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the commonest pattern being a "conversion V." In general, patients presented with hysteroid dysphoric features. Of 16 patients undergoing cognitive function testing, 7 showed mild memory impairment with attention and concentration deficits. On clinical evaluation, 27 patients had neurologic abnormalities unattributable to other causes (central and peripheral nervous system in 16 and 19 patients respectively). There was a significant correlation between psychiatric disturbances and neurologic dysfunction, suggesting a possible organic basis for psychiatric dysfunction. The diagnosis of primary Sjögren's syndrome should be considered in patients with unexplained neuropsychiatric illness.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Neglected aspects in the management of acne.

Acne is the result of excessive grease on the skin. The successful treatment of acne depends essentially on the degreasing of the skin to an extent which produces peeling, which is the observable index of adequate treatment. The use of antibiotics is supplementary to degreasing and peeling. Degreasing is best achieved by thrice daily washing with Neutrogena acne cleansing soap, followed by the application of a benzoyl peroxide preparation of a suitable strength. If necessary, further degreasing can be achieved by cleansing with isopropyl alcohol after washing with the Neutrogena soap.

Acne Vulgaris↗
PubMed1984

Discharged state hospital patients' characteristics and use of aftercare: effect on community tenure.

A study of a publicly funded mental health system determined that the use of aftercare services by discharged patients had the effect of extending community tenure. Patients' clinical characteristics, particularly number of previous hospitalizations, had only minimal effect and patients' demographic characteristics had essentially no impact on community tenure. Increasing the variety and intensity of rehabilitation-oriented types of service rather than increasing the frequency of supportive contacts through individual therapy and case management appears to hold the greatest promise for extending community tenure.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Assessing the service needs of the discharged psychiatric patient.

In recent years the chronically mentally ill have come to be regarded as a heterogeneous population with a diversity and multiplicity of needs. Social workers assessed a cohort of psychiatric patients being discharged from two state hospitals in terms of their postdischarge service needs. The findings confirmed that these patients needed not only basic mental health services of chemotherapy and counseling but also social rehabilitative services and specialized services such as substance abuse counseling. The data have been utilized by agencies and state and county governmental entities to document the need for new programs and to reorder service priorities. To start a planning process, recommendations on the study findings are being distributed to mental health and human service agencies and family coalitions on a communitywide basis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Immunochemical localization of proteins in the intestinal mucosa of children with diarrhea.

Chronic diarrhea in children is a common and often frustrating problem confronting allergists, pediatricians, and gastroenterologists. We know very little about the mechanism and immunology of this problem. This study used an immunoperoxidase staining technique to evaluate the small bowel biopsy specimens of 15 children with chronic diarrhea. Ten children had diarrhea related to a specific food ingestion, and five had prolonged diarrhea without identification of an offending food. The new finding was the deposition of stain beneath the mucosal cells in the area of the basement membrane of the small bowel mucosa. Anti-IgG and anti-bovine serum albumin (BSA) were the antibody reagents most often associated with the detection of tissue deposits. Deposits of stain were found when the inflammatory system was active as determined by the presence of increased numbers of inflammatory walls in the mucosa.

Animals↗
PubMed1983

Closed- and open-class lexical access in agrammatic and fluent aphasics.

Bradley, Garrett, and Zurif (Bradley, Computational distinctions of vocabulary type. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, MIT Press; Cambridge, MA, 1978; Biological studies of mental processes, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1980) have suggested that closed-class word access is normally mediated by a different route than the open-class one, and that the loss of this closed-class route might account for agrammatism. However, in an earlier study (Gordon & Caramazza, Brain and Language, 15, 143-160, 1982) we were not able to confirm a meaningful difference between closed- and open-class word frequency responsiveness of the type Bradley (unpublished dissertation, 1978) had seemed to find in normal subjects. We have now done a direct comparison of closed-class frequency sensitivity in agrammatic and nonagrammatic aphasics, to directly test Bradley and colleagues' hypotheses and to avoid some of the experimental problems with between-class frequency comparisons. We find that closed-class words behave similarly whether or not the subject is agrammatic. Therefore, the differences between agrammatic and nonagrammatic aphasics must arise at a deeper level (or levels) of lexical processing than the one probed by the frequency sensitivity effect.

Aphasia↗