Search PubMedSearch

Biomedical subjects

J Atkinson

Publications and source records attributed to J Atkinson.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

Effect of chronic clonidine treatment and its abrupt cessation on mean blood pressure of rats with a normal or an elevated blood pressure.

1. Clonidine (6 mg of base/l of water) was given as drinking fluid to normotensive rats or rats with established or early hypertension. 2. Spontaneous hypertensive rats (6 months old: average dose of clonidine, 0.6 mg 24 h-1 kg-1) showed a sustained fall in blood pressure over 3 weeks. 3. The same clonidine solution given for 6 weeks to two-kidney Goldblatt rats with early-stage hypertension (average dose of clonidine: 1 mg 24 h-1 kg-1) or spontaneously hypertensive rats (clonidine dose: 1 mg) induced a fall in mean blood pressure, but no change in normotensive rats. 4. Replacement of clonidine by water induced hypertension and lability which led to death in hypertensive but not in normotensive rats.

Animals

The role of circulating renin in drinking in response to isoprenaline.

1. In nephrectomized rats, S.C. (0.12 mg. kg body wt.(-1)) or intracerebroventricular (I.C.V.: 0.03 mg. kg(-1)), isoprenaline failed to elicit drinking. However, when preceded (5-20 min) by a non-dipsogenic dose of I.V. pig renin, S.C. isoprenaline induced a marked, and I.C.V. isoprenaline a smaller drinking response. 2 hr after I.V. renin, S.C. isoprenaline no longer caused drinking.2. Pig renin did not enhance drinking in response to 0.12 mg. kg(-1) isoprenaline S.C. in intact or sham-operated rats.3. Isoprenaline (0.12 mg. kg body wt.(-1), S.C.) caused a larger fall of blood pressure in unanaesthetized nephrectomized than in intact unanaesthetized rats, but it was not the resulting hypotension that interfered with the nephrectomized rats' ability to drink, since intact rats with similar falls in blood pressure drank avidly in response to large doses of isoprenaline.4. Since the rate of inactivation of pig renin in nephrectomized rats was not modified by isoprenaline, drinking in nephrectomized animals in response to renin+isoprenaline was not attributable to increased plasma renin levels.5. Since isoprenaline induces drinking in the presence of circulating renin, but in the absence of renin release from kidneys, renin plays a permissive role in isoprenaline-induced drinking. Angiotensin and isoprenaline may interact at the level of intracranial receptors.

Animals

Hexobarbital blood levels and effects on EEG in the presence and absence of caffeine.

The interaction of caffeine and hexobarbital in the rat with spinal cord transection was studied. Duration of hexobarbital effect on the brain was taken as the time from the injection of hexobarbital (i.v.) to the return of pre-injection cortical voltage. Hexobarbital distribution and elimination was estimated by application of a two-compartmental model to values for blood hexobarbital concentration (determined by a direct gas chromatographic method after extraction). Caffeine caused a shift in the dose-response curve for hexobarbital but no changes in hexobarbital distribution and elimination. Results are interpreted on the basis of a central interaction of caffeine with hexobarbital at a brain receptor level.

Animals

Contrast sensitivity of the human neonate measured by the visual evoked potential.

Visual evoked potentials (VEPs) were recorded from a total of 97 1- to 10-day-old infants, with phase-reversing sinusoidal grating stimuli. The grating contrast or spatial frequency for which 50% of infants gave a statistically significant VEP was taken as a measure of threshold. This procedure yielded an estimate of neonatal acuity of 0.85 cycles/degree and an optimal contrast threshold of 50%. VEPs from an older infant showed good agreement with behavioral measures of sensitivity on the same individual. Comparison of the neonatal VEP results with behavioral data from 5-week-old infants, suggests little change in visual performance over the first month of life.

Evoked Potentials

Infant astigmatism measured by photorefraction.

Photorefraction of a sample of 93 infants of ages 1 day to 12 months showed that 63 percent of the subjects had astigmatism of 0.75 diopter or greater, and 12 percent greater than 2 diopters. Seventy percent of these astigmatisms were in the horizontal-vertical meridians. By comparison, only 8 percent of a sample of 26 adults tested by the same method showed astigmatism (all 0.75 to 1 diopter). The high incidence of infant astigmatism has implications for critical periods in human visual development and for infant acuity.

Adult

Comparison of effects of quinidine and dihydroquinidine on canine heart.

Various cardiac effects of quinidine and dihydroquinidine were tested in isolated dog hearts and in vivo in dogs. No significant differences were found in the negative inotropic, chronotropic, and dromotropic effects. Dihydroquinidine was more potent than quinidine in decreasing coronary arterial pressure.

Animals

The cardiovascular effects of caffeine in various forms.

We have investigated the influence of various procedures which alter the solubility of caffeine on its physiological effects. Pretreatment of caffeine prior to injection by a) addition of sodium salicylate or sodium benzoate, b) increase in temperature or c) preliminary dissolution in hydrochloric acid, did not change the cardiovascular effects when injected i.v. at equivalent doses in urethane-anaesthetized rats. Addition of chlorogenic acid, a molecule found in coffee and other plants and reported to modify, by complexation, the physiological effects of caffeine, had no significant effect on the depressor responses to caffeine but did diminish caffeine-induced tachycardia at high doses of caffeine (10 and 30 mg/kg i.v.).

Animals

[The effect of coffee and coffee components on the stomach muscle].

The isolated stomach muscle strip preparation works well when given pure compounds which are stable and non-toxic. When complex test mixtures such as coffee are used, however, the results are more difficult to interpret. This is probably due to non-specific effects of such mixtures, e.g. induction of changes in organ bath pH, etc. In spite of the above remark, differences in the effects of decaffeinated and normal instant coffees were clearly seen. The so-called "wholesome" coffees gave results identical to those obtained with normal instant coffee. In general, coffee induced muscle contraction followed by relaxation. Choline (possibly together with potassium) would appear to be responsible for the contractions observed, and caffeine for the relaxation.

Animals

Steroscopic discrimination in infants.

The ability to make discrimiations of binocular disparity was investigated in 2-month-old infnats by two methods: (a)fixation preference between patterns differing in the disparity they contained, and (b)recovery from habituation of high-amplitude sucking when there was a change in disparity in the visual reinforcer. The stimuli were random-dot steregrams. The results for both mthods indicated that at least some infants of this age could perform steroscopic discriminations and that both techniques were feasible for development for longitudinal studies of steroscopic vision.

Depth Perception