The authors present psychoacoustic and electrophysiologic data concerning a patient with partial damage to the auditory nerve, presumably from a dilated arterial vessel. The lesion was described and documented during neurosurgery for vestibular nerve decompression. Pure tone thresholds, psychoacoustical tuning curves, speech reception ability for spondaic words, maximum word recognition performance for monosyllabic NU-6 word lists, and performance on the synthetic sentence identification test in the ipsilateral and contralateral competing message modalities were normal. Findings consistent with eighth nerve dysfunction, absent contralateral acoustic reflexes, absent or unrecognizable early evoked potentials occurring in the first 10 msec, brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs), and slight rollover of the performance intensity function for monosyllabic words were obtained on the involved side. In spite of the grossly abnormal BAEPs, two late, presumably cortical, auditory evoked potential components, which occur in the 60 to 250-msec range--vertex potential and T complex--were present and normal. The findings indicate that the perceptual processes needed for speech reception and recognition and for the appearance of later, presumably cortical-evoked potentials can be preserved despite partial damage to the auditory nerve.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Aspirin induces apoptosis through release of cytochrome c from mitochondria.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) reduce the risk for cancer, due to their antiproliferative and apoptosis-inducing effects. A critical pathway for apoptosis involves the release of cytochrome c from mitochondria, which then interacts with Apaf-1 to activate caspase proteases that orchestrate cell death. In this study we found that treatment of a human cancer cell line with aspirin induced caspase activation and the apoptotic cell morphology, which was blocked by the caspase inhibitor zVAD-fmk. Further analysis of the mechanism underlying this apoptotic event showed that aspirin induces translocation of Bax to the mitochondria and mitochondrial release of cytochrome into the cytosol. The release of cytochrome c from mitochondria was inhibited by overexpression of the antiapoptotic protein Bcl-2 and cells that lack Apaf-1 were resistant to aspirin-induced apoptosis. These data provide evidence that the release of cytochrome c is an important part of the apoptotic mechanism of aspirin.

Amino Acid Chloromethyl Ketones↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Angiographic features of lateral cervical masses.

An audible bruit may represent a clue to the vascular nature of the lesion. Angiography is definitely indicated in the presence of pulsatile cervical masses with or without an associated bruit, and should be more widely utilized in the future for evaluation of cervical masses. In addition to the nature of the mass, angiography may also be of value in outlining the extent of the mass and its relationship to major vessels. Magnification and subtraction angiographic techniques with their improved detail may play an important role in clarifying the etiology of cervical masses, and hence facilitate the plan of therapy. If reasonable uncertainty as to the clinical diagnosis exists, angiography should be considered a diagnostic aid.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

An unusual parotid tumor.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Adenocarcinoma, Papillary↗