10 great things about chemotherapy.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to E Taub.
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The unaffected upper extremity of chronic stroke patients was restrained in a sling during waking hours for 14 days; on ten of those days, these patients were given six hours of practice in using the impaired upper extremity. An attention-comparison group received several procedures designed to focus attention on use of the impaired upper extremity. The restraint subjects improved on each of the laboratory measures of motor function used--in most cases markedly. Extensive improvement, from a multi-year plateau of greatly impaired motor function, was also noted for the restraint group in the life situation and these gains were maintained during a two-year period of follow-up. For the comparison group only one measure showed small to moderate improvement, and this was lost during the follow-up period; there was essentially no overlap between the individuals of the two groups. Thus, prolonged restraint of an unaffected upper extremity and practice of functional movements with the impaired limb proved to be an effective means of restoring substantial motor function in stroke patients with chronic motor impairment identified by the inclusion criteria of this project.
A family is presented in which congenital stridor due to laryngomalacia was evident in 9 individuals through 3 generations. This report confirms the autosomal dominant transmission of at least one type of laryngomalacia.
Chronic deafferentation of skin and peripheral tissues is associated with plasticity of representational maps in cerebral cortex and with perturbations of sensory experience that include severe "central" pain. This study shows that in normal monkeys the nonnociceptive, lemniscal component of the somatosensory pathways at spinal, brainstem, and thalamic levels is distinguished by cells and fibers immunoreactive for the calcium-binding protein parvalbumin, whereas cells of the nociceptive component at these levels are distinguished by immunoreactivity for 28-kDa calbindin. Long-term dorsal rhizotomies in monkeys lead to transneuronal degeneration of parvalbumin cells at brainstem and thalamic sites accompanied in the thalamus by a down-regulation of gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptors and an apparent increase in activity of calbindin cells preferentially innervated by central pain pathways. Release from inhibition and imbalance in patterns of somatosensory inputs from thalamus to cerebral cortex may constitute subcortical mechanisms for inducing changes in representational maps and perturbations of sensory perception, including central pain.
After limited sensory deafferentations in adult primates, somatosensory cortical maps reorganize over a distance of 1 to 2 millimeters mediolaterally, that is, in the dimension along which different body parts are represented. This amount of reorganization was considered to be an upper limit imposed by the size of the projection zones of individual thalamocortical axons, which typically also extend a mediolateral distance of 1 to 2 millimeters. However, after extensive long-term deafferentations in adult primates, changes in cortical maps were found to be an order of magnitude greater than those previously described. These results show the need for a reevaluation of both the upper limit of cortical reorganization in adult primates and the mechanisms responsible for it.
An Arab Moslem kindred is reported in which six abnormal male fetuses were born in three closely related sibships. They had amelia, malformed head and other severe skeletal and visceral malformations. The similarities and differences between the developmental and inherent characteristics found in our patients and in families with Roberts syndrome are discussed.
A previous experiment (Herzfeld & Taub, 1977) demonstrated that slide projections and explicit suggestions relating to thermal experiences can significantly augment temperature self-regulations training (.5 degrees F, p less than .05). however, the experimental design was thought to result in an underestimate of the magnitude of the effect, since each subject served as his own control and could therefore make use on nonsuggestion training days of material provided on training days. In this experiment, separate groups of subjects either were given feedback combined with the suggestion procedure on each of 8 training days or were given feedback alone. The mean temperature self-regulation of the suggestion group (2.01 degrees F) was significantly better than the self-regulation (.73) of the nonsuggestion group (t test, p less than 0.01), a difference of 1.28 degrees F.
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Five subjects were instructed to alter the temperature of the dominant hand (two increase, three decrease) with the aid of an augmented feedback display. On baseline days and on alternate training days, subjects were presented with slide projections and heard a tape-recorded sentence during every other intertrial interval during a 15-minute discrete trial period. On baseline days, the imagery and suggestions were neutral in nature; on training days they suggested thermal conditions appropriate to the subject's task. Subjects displayed a significantly larger temperature change in the instructed direction on suggestion than on nonsuggestion training days.
A technique has been developed that enables most humans to establish rapid self-regulatory control of their own skin temperature when provided with immediate visual feedback information concerning variations in local skin temperature. Training took place during 15-min periods within 45-min sessions. Clear evidence of learning was usually manifested within 4 sessions. After acquisition occurred, mean change per session was approximately 2.2 degrees F, ranging up to 6.5 degrees F. Training was continued with some subjects who were taught to alter temperature in opposite directions during successive periods on the same day. After practice, these subjects routinely displayed ranges of 9-14 degrees F within 15 min.
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Six monkeys subjected to forelimb deafferentation on day of birth (two blinded and four not blinded) spontaneously developed use of the affected limbs for support of body weight, ambulation, and clasping objects. The sighted animals also used them for climbing and reaching toward objects. Thumb-forefinger prehension did not emerge spontaneously but could be brought into existence through training. In another series of experiments, 5 of 11 monkey fetuses, exteriorized two-thirds of the way through gestation and given forelimb deafferentation, survived through caesarian delivery and at least 5 months of infancy. Although all were quadriparetic due to postoperative mechanical deformation of the cervical region, they were able to use the affected limbs to make postural adjustments and for standing and rudimentary ambulation. The results indicate that, after birth, neither spinal reflexes nor local somatosensory feedback and vision are necessary for the development of most types of movement performed by the forelimb musculature in monkeys. Continuance of the prenatal research should permit determination of the role of somatic sensation in the intrauterine development of behavior.
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