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Biomedical subjects

E Taylor

Publications and source records attributed to E Taylor.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Complicated appendicitis: is there a minimum intravenous antibiotic requirement? A prospective randomized trial.

The proper duration of postoperative intravenous (IV) antibiotics in patients suffering complicated (perforated or gangrenous) appendicitis is debatable. Some advocate a set minimum number of IV antibiotic days whereas others discontinue IV antibiotics depending on the patient's clinical course regardless of the length of therapy. Our objective was to determine whether there are differences in morbidity and resource utilization between the two treatment methodologies. Ninety-four patients with intraoperative findings of complicated appendicitis were included. In all patients IV antibiotics were discontinued on the basis of clinical factors. However, Group 1 patients were given a minimum 5-day IV antibiotic course whereas Group 2 patients had no minimum IV antibiotic requirement. Group 1 patients received more IV antibiotics than Group 2 patients did (5.9 vs 4.3 days; P = 0.014). Infectious complications were not statistically different between the two groups (13.0% in Group 1 and 12.5% in Group 2). Average hospital stay was also not statistically different between the two groups. The data suggest that a protocol with no minimum IV antibiotic requirement in patients with complicated appendicitis does not increase morbidity. Furthermore, the protocol arm with no minimum IV antibiotic requirement led to less IV antibiotic use but did not significantly decrease hospital stay.

Administration, Oral↗

Psychotherapeutics and the problematic origins of clinical psychology in America.

The problematic place of psychotherapy within the larger history of scientific psychology is reviewed, especially in the absence of any definitive history of clinical psychology yet written. Although standard histories of psychology imply that psychotherapy was somehow derived from the tradition of German laboratory science, modern historiography reveals a dramatically different story. Personality, abnormal, social, and clinical psychology have their roots in an international psychotherapeutic alliance related more to French neurophysiology, and this alliance flourished for several decades before psychoanalysis. Reconstruction of the American contribution to this alliance, the so-called Boston school of abnormal psychology, suggests an era of medical psychology in advance of today. Note is also made of the possible misattribution of Lightner Witmer as the father of clinical psychology.

History, 19th Century↗

Dissolved organic matter inhibition of sonochemical degradation of aqueous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Sonochemical degradation of aqueous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) was found to be rapid in the absence of other dissolved compounds (k = 0.006-0.015 s-1). In the presence of 20 mg Cl-1 fulvic acid, first-order PAH degradation rate constants decreased from 2.3- to 3.7-fold. Similar results were obtained with added benzoic acid, a crude analog for fulvic acid. In natural waters, PAH degradation was almost completely inhibited. Analysis of the kinetic behavior and reaction products indicates that PAHs are most likely degraded through a radical cation mechanism. Hydroxyl radical appeared to play an insignificant role in the degradation. Inhibited degradation was probably the result of either altered cavitation processes or isolation of the PAH away from cavitation sites.

Benzopyrans↗

Developmental neuropsychopathology of attention deficit and impulsiveness.

Recent research on the disorders of attention and activity has indicated inherited variants of genes controlling aspects of neurotransmission, abnormalities of structure and function in regions of frontal lobes and basal ganglia, failures to suppress inappropriate responses, and a cascade of failures in various kinds of cognitive performance and organization of behavior. This review integrates the neurodevelopmental findings with findings from developmental psychopathology. It outlines several developmental tracks by which constitutional factors interact with the psychological environment. In one set of tracks, altered brain states lead to cognitive alteration. An understimulating environment is evoked by (and may be genetically associated with) an inattentive and cognitively impulsive style during early childhood. In another track, impulsive and inattentive behavior shows direct continuity through childhood into late adolescence. In yet another track, impulsiveness evokes (and may be genetically associated with) critical expressed emotion from parents and inefficient coping strategies, which in turn contribute to the development of antisocial conduct. This formulation emphasizes the need for several types of research: the mapping of biological findings onto different components of disorder, the combination of genetically informative designs with direct measurement of relevant aspects of the environment, and the use of longitudinal studies to examine predictive and mediating factors separately for different aspects of outcome.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗

Global, voxel, and cluster tests, by theory and permutation, for a difference between two groups of structural MR images of the brain.

We describe almost entirely automated procedures for estimation of global, voxel, and cluster-level statistics to test the null hypothesis of zero neuroanatomical difference between two groups of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Theoretical distributions under the null hypothesis are available for 1) global tissue class volumes; 2) standardized linear model [analysis of variance (ANOVA and ANCOVA)] coefficients estimated at each voxel; and 3) an area of spatially connected clusters generated by applying an arbitrary threshold to a two-dimensional (2-D) map of normal statistics at voxel level. We describe novel methods for economically ascertaining probability distributions under the null hypothesis, with fewer assumptions, by permutation of the observed data. Nominal Type I error control by permutation testing is generally excellent; whereas theoretical distributions may be over conservative. Permutation has the additional advantage that it can be used to test any statistic of interest, such as the sum of suprathreshold voxel statistics in a cluster (or cluster mass), regardless of its theoretical tractability under the null hypothesis. These issues are illustrated by application to MRI data acquired from 18 adolescents with hyperkinetic disorder and 16 control subjects matched for age and gender.

Adolescent↗

Hypofrontality in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder during higher-order motor control: a study with functional MRI.

OBJECTIVE: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to investigate the hypothesis that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with a dysfunction of prefrontal brain regions during motor response inhibition and motor timing. METHOD: Generic brain activation of seven adolescent boys with ADHD was compared to that of nine comparison subjects equivalent in sex, age, and IQ while they were performing a stop task, requiring inhibition of a planned motor response, and a motor timing task, requiring timing of a motor response to a sensory cue. RESULTS: The hyperactive adolescents showed lower power of response in the right mesial prefrontal cortex during both tasks and in the right inferior prefrontal cortex and left caudate during the stop task. CONCLUSIONS: ADHD is associated with subnormal activation of the prefrontal systems responsible for higher-order motor control. Functional MRI is a feasible technique for investigation of neural correlates of ADHD.

Adolescent↗

Abdominal compartment syndrome: does intra-cystic pressure reflect actual intra-abdominal pressure? A prospective study in surgical patients.

BACKGROUND: Abdominal compartment syndrome is defined as the adverse physiologic effects of increased intra-abdominal pressure. Prolonged, unrelieved pressure may lead to respiratory compromise, renal impairment, cardiac failure, shock, and death. Abdominal compartment syndrome is diagnosed by measuring intra-cystic pressure as a reflection of intra-abdominal pressure. To examine the validity of the technique, we conducted a prospective study in surgical patients by directly measuring bladder and abdominal pressures simultaneously during laparoscopic cholecystectomy using a previously described technique. RESULTS: In the present model, the bladder had higher baseline pressures than did the abdomen. Measurements across the bladder wall were not identical, but had high positive correlation coefficient when evaluated on an individual basis. Global analysis of the data for all patients showed a weak correlation coefficient. CONCLUSION: In the present study model, intra-cystic pressure did not reflect actual intra-abdominal pressure. In spite of some limitations in the study design, we feel that further research is warranted to identify other possible variables that may play a role in the relationship between the urinary bladder and the abdominal cavity pressures, providing better means for diagnosis of abdominal compartment syndrome.

Journal Article↗

Synchronization, anticipation, and consistency in motor timing of children with dimensionally defined attention deficit hyperactivity behaviour.

We tested the hypothesis that children with hyperactive behaviour are impaired in the temporal organization of their motor output. The performance of 11 boys, scoring above a cut-off on standard scales of overactivity and inattention, was compared to that of controls in progressively more complex Motor-timing tasks. The tasks administered required self-paced and externally paced Sensorimotor Synchronization and Sensorimotor Anticipation. Deficits at a perceptual level were investigated with a Time-discrimination task. As hypothesized, we found that hyperactive children had no deficits in their perception of time but were impaired in timing their motor output. Hyperactive children were more inconsistent than controls in maintaining a freely chosen tapping rhythm, in synchronizing and in anticipating their motor response to external visual stimulation.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗

Psychosocial adversities underestimated in hyperkinetic children.

Abnormal psychosocial factors, assessed both clinically and by raters blind to clinical presentation, were examined in 21 hyperkinetic and 26 conduct disordered children. Blind raters found the frequency of psychosocial adversities to be similar in the two disorders. By contrast the clinical rater, who did know the diagnosis of patients, rated adverse psychosocial situations as much lower in hyperkinetic children than in children with conduct disorder. Logistic regression showed, particularly in the category of abnormal intrafamilial relationships (Lack of warmth in parent child relationship, Hostility or scapegoating of the child, Intrafamilial discord among adults), effects of the interaction between rater and knowledge of diagnosis. Clinical raters should be aware of abnormal psychosocial situations in hyperkinetic children and assess possible adverse effects on parents and children. Researchers should be aware of a possible bias in research interviews.

Adult↗

Hyperactivity and reading disability: a longitudinal study of the nature of the association.

In order to investigate the possible causal relationships between hyperactivity and educational underachievement that might account for their frequent co-occurrence, four groups of boys, defined by the presence or absence of hyperactivity and specific reading retardation, were identified in an epidemiological study of 7 8-year-old children. They were examined in detail by means of parental interviews and psychological tests and reassessed 9 years later at the age of 16-18 years on a similar range of measures. The findings provided little support for the idea that persistent reading disabilities either lead to the development of hyperactivity de novo or increased the likelihood that hyperactivity, when present, would persist. Similarly, although features of hyperactivity persisted to follow-up, there was little evidence that they either lead to the development of reading disabilities or increased the likelihood that reading disabilities, when present, would persist. Socioeconomic adversity and a history of speech therapy were more common in the group with both hyperactivity and reading disability, but the strength of these associations made it unlikely that these factors could account for the frequent co-occurrence of the two conditions.

Adolescent↗

Somatic deletion mapping on chromosome 10 and sequence analysis of PTEN/MMAC1 point to the 10q25-26 region as the primary target in low-grade and high-grade gliomas.

The 10q25-26 region between the dinucleotide markers D10S587 and D10S216 is deleted in glioblastomas and, as we have recently shown, in low-grade oligodendrogliomas. We further refined somatic mapping on 10q23-tel and simultaneously assessed the role of the candidate tumor suppressor gene PTEN/MMAC1 in glial neoplasms by sequence analysis of eight low-grade and 24 high-grade gliomas. These tumors were selected for partial or complete loss of chromosome 10 based on deletion mapping with increased microsatellite marker density at 10q23-tel. Three out of eight (38%) low-grade and 3/24 (13%) high-grade gliomas exclusively target 10q25-26. We did not find a tumor only targeting 10q23.3, and most tumors (23/32, 72%) showed large deletions on 10q including both regions. The sequence analysis of PTEN/MMAC1 revealed nucleotide alterations in 1/8 (12.5%) low-grade gliomas in a tumor with LOH at l0q21-qtel and in 5/21 (24%) high-grade gliomas displaying LOH that always included 10q23-26. Our refined mapping data point to the 10q25-26 region as the primary target on 10q, an area that also harbors the DMBT1 candidate tumor suppressor gene. The fact that we find hemizygous deletions at 10q25-qtel in low-grade astrocytomas and oligodendrogliomas - two histologically distinct entities of gliomas - suggests the existence of a putative suppressor gene involved early in glial tumorigenesis.

Amino Acid Substitution↗

Temporary vehicle impoundment in Ohio: a replication and confirmation.

Driving while suspended by individuals who have been convicted of an impaired driving offense is a significant highway safety problem. Such offenders present four times the risk of involvement in a fatal crash at a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) over 0.10. A previous report by the authors demonstrated that a vehicle immobilization program in Franklin County (Columbus), Ohio, significantly reduced driving-under-the-influence (DUI) recidivism rates for multiple DUI offenders. This study evaluated a somewhat different application of the same law in Hamilton County (Cincinnati), Ohio, where vehicles were impounded rather than immobilized, and obtained similar results--a reduction in repeat DUI offenses by multiple offenders both while their vehicles were being held by the police and after they were returned to the offenders.

Accidents, Traffic↗

Prefrontal involvement in "temporal bridging" and timing movement.

Brain activity exclusively related to a temporal delay has rarely been investigated using modern brain imaging. In this study we exploited the temporal resolution of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterise, by sinusoidal regression analysis, differential neuroactivation patterns induced in healthy subjects by two sensorimotor synchronization tasks different in their premovement delay of either 0.6 s or 5 s. The short event rate condition required rhythmic tapping, while the long event rate condition required timing of intermittent movements. Left rostral prefrontal cortex, medial frontal cortex, SMA and supramarginal gyrus demonstrated increased MR signal intensity during low frequency synchronization, suggesting that these brain regions form a distributed neural network for cognitive time management processes, such as time estimation and motor output timing. Medial frontal cortex showed a biphasic pattern of response during both synchronization conditions, presumably reflecting frequency-independent motor output related attention. As predicted, sensorimotor and visual association areas demonstrated increased MR signal intensity during high frequency synchronization.

Adult↗