Recollections of Michael L. Lewin, M.D.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M H Goldstein.
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Performance in identifying nine vowels from static images of a speaker's mouth was studied experimentally for neural networks and human subjects. Data obtained indicated that they had essentially the same rate of correct identifications overall and vowel by vowel. The estimate of the probability of correct identification and 95% confidence limits were determined for each of the nine vowels.
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These cases illustrate a new concept in lip repair. This approach recognizes the great inherent elasticity of the oral cavity and takes advantage of the florid blood supply of the region. Recent laboratory studies of Taylor et al., as well as the works of Manchot and Salmon, are combined with anthropologic observations of tribal customs to formulate another way of looking at lip reconstruction. Triangularization of surgical defects, lip switching, and mobilization of distant flaps are avoided by taking advantage of stretched local tissues. Preoperative expansion is discussed as a future option.
The main goal of this study was to investigate the efficacy of four vibrotactile speechreading supplements. Three supplements provided single-channel encodings of fundamental frequency (F0). Two encodings involved scaling and shifting glottal pulses to pulse rate ranges suited to tactual sensing capabilities; the third transformed F0 to differential amplitude of two fixed-frequency sinewaves. The fourth supplement added to one of the F0 encodings a second vibrator indicating high-frequency speech energy. A second goal was to develop improved methods for experimental control. Therefore, a sentence corpus was recorded on videodisc using two talkers whose speech was captured by video, microphone, and electroglottograph. Other experimental control issues included use of visual-alone control subjects, a multiple-baseline, single-subject design replicated for each of 15 normal-hearing subjects, sentence and syllable pre- and post-tests balanced for difficulty, and a speechreading screening test for subject selection. Across 17 h of treatment and 5 h of visual-alone baseline testing, each subject performed open-set sentence identification. Covariance analyses showed that the single-channel supplements provided a small but significant benefit, whereas the two-channel supplement was not effective. All subjects improved in visual-alone speechreading and maintained individual differences across the experiment. Vibrotactile benefit did not depend on speechreading ability.
A variety of histologic changes have been observed in the kidneys of patients with light-chain deposition disease. We report 3 cases with kappa light chain deposition who presented with diverse clinical, histological, and ultrastructural features. All the cases were diagnosed by the presence of monoclonal kappa light chain deposits by immunohistochemical methods. Based on the present study and review of literature, four basic patterns of glomerular lesions are identified: (1) minimal glomerular changes without glomerular deposits, but with extensive tubular involvement; (2) mild glomerular changes with glomerular deposits; (3) focal or diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis with or without crescents, and (4) nodular glomerulosclerosis resembling diabetic glomerulosclerosis. This pathological and clinical variability can cause diagnostic problems at initial presentation. A high index of suspicion is necessary along with appropriate laboratory data and routine staining for light chains.
Prelingual profound deafness typically results in aberrant or unintelligible speech production. For approximately 70 years, researchers and engineers have attempted, with little success, to provide electronic aids for speech training. Recent computer and signal processing technology has provided the impetus for several groups to implement new speech training aids. Following a review of deaf speech characteristics, several current computer-based aids are described. Included among those reviewed are two interrelated speech training aids which resulted from collaboration among the authors.
Two interrelated personal computer (PC) based speech training aids have been developed: one for use in a school or clinic, the Speech Training Station (STS); and the other for the deaf child's home, the Speech Practice Station (SPS). The STS monitors speech production by microphone, electroglottograph, and pneumotachograph. The SPS system uses only the microphone input. Both systems utilize commercially available board-level hardware and a custom analog preprocessor board for the analysis of the acoustic and/or physiologic inputs. The school system has been used by speech therapists for diagnosis, training by game playing, and specification of exercises for the SPS. The home system provides directed speech practice between therapy sessions.
Three experiments were performed to obtain vibrotactile sensitivity thresholds from hearing children and adults, and from deaf children. An adaptive two-interval forced-choice procedure was used to obtain estimates of the 70.7% point on the psychometric sensitivity curve. When hearing children of 5-6 and 9-10 years of age and adults were tested with sinusoids and haversine pulse stimuli, at 10, 100, 160, and 250 Hz or pps, respectively, only the 10-Hz stimulus resulted in an age effect. For this stimulus, young children were significantly less sensitive than adults. When sinusoids were again tested at 20, 40, 80, and 160 Hz, a small overall effect of age was observed with a significant effect only at 20 Hz. Two prelingually profoundly deaf children were tested with haversine pulse trains at 10, 50, 100, 160, and 250 pps. Both children were at least as sensitive to the tactile stimulation as were the hearing children and adults. Pulsatile stimulation, compared to sinusoidal stimulation, exhibited relatively flat threshold versus frequency functions. The present results, demonstrating no age effect for pulsatile stimulation and similar performance for deaf and hearing children, suggest that pulsatile stimulation would be appropriate in vibrotactile speech communication aids for the deaf.
The influence of sound localization behavior on unit activity in the frontal cortex of awake rhesus monkeys was examined by comparing responses under three behavioral conditions: auditory localization, during which a response was required to the location of a sound (broad-band noise) source; auditory detect, during which a response was required to indicate the occurrence of the sound regardless of location; visual localization, during which no sounds were presented and a response was required to the location of a visual stimulus; and nonperform, presentation of auditory stimuli as in the first two conditions, but with the animal sitting passively. Extracellular microelectrode recordings were made in the periarcuate region and dorsal and ventral prefrontal areas near the principal sulcus. Four monkeys were used with a total of 498 cells studied. Of the total population, only five cells were found to have characteristics similar to those of auditory units in the primary auditory cortex and the surrounding belt area. More typically, units were found that had strong short-latency responses specific to the auditory and/or visual localization tasks. These units had no or weak responses when the same sound stimuli were presented in the auditory detect task or when a monkey received the sound stimuli in a nonperforming condition. Two regions were identified, one medial and/or posterior to the arcuate sulcus, in Brodmann's area 6; the second included parts of areas 8 and 9 within the genu of the arcuate sulcus. Units from these regions are referred to, respectively, as the postarcuate and the prearcuate populations. Both populations responded predominantly during active localization behavior. Sixty-two percent of the postarcuate population responded during auditory localization, 32% responded during auditory detect, and only 18% responded to acoustic stimuli presented in the nonperforming condition. In the prearcuate population percentages in these three conditions were 35, 25, and 12%, respectively. For visual localization, 54% in the postarcuate population responded, whereas 42% in the prearcuate responded. Spatial tuning of units during auditory localization was similar to that seen in units of the primary auditory cortex, with the greatest percentages of units responding to stimuli contralateral to the recording site. Similar tuning was observed for the visual localization task as well. Similarities in spatial tuning between the auditory and visual localization conditions were examined to assess the "bimodal" nature of the units.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
This paper treats acoustic-tactile communication aids for the deaf. Children who obtain negligible help from conventional hearing aids are of particular interest. For the prelingually deaf child tactile aids may facilitate the acquisition of lipreading, and improve vocal production. Although attempts to use tactile aids for the deaf go back many years, only recently have developments in technology led to greatly improved processing possibilities and the feasibility of aids that can be worn. Here, we report case studies in which prelingually, profoundly deaf young children used wearable tactile aids.
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An approach to lip reconstruction is described utilizing a myocutaneous vermilion flap based on the inferior labial artery. The inherent elasticity of the lip is used to great advantage by stretching the freed vermilion flap to bridge a loss of about one-half the lower lip. This vermilion flap may be worthy of consideration when reconstructing lip defects resulting from trauma (e.g., electric burns), tumor resections, and other congenital anomalies.
Eyelid repair by the Mustardé cheek flap or the Hughes tarsoconjunctival lid-sharing flap have been methods deservingly popular with plastic surgeons for many years. Recent attention given to the myocutaneous flap principle has prompted the formulation of a new approach to this difficult problem of replacing an eyelid. In these cases, we have taken what most plastic surgeons are currently "throwing away" in their blepharoplasties and used it to reconstruct up to an entire margin of the eyelid. This new method seems simple because it holds the promise of fewer procedures and perhaps more functional results.
Single-unit recordings were made from the auditory cortex of unanesthetized rhesus monkeys which were trained to perform a second localization task. Recordings were made from 196 units in 4 animals. Five sound sources were located at 0 degrees (midline) and on either side at azimuths of 37.5 degrees and 75 degrees. Almost most units responded to each of the 5 sources, 49% of the units had peak firing rates for the source on the contralateral side at 75% azimuth. Another 26% of the units had peak firing rates at the 37.5 degrees contralateral location, while only 11% had peak rates for the ipsilateral locations. In order to determine whether the behavior of actively locating a sound source affected units in auditory cortex, response rates compared under two behavioral conditions: one which required the detection of a sound regardless of location and another condition which required identification of a sound's location. of the 196 units, 16 had different response rates for the two conditions, with 15 of the 16 units having higher evoked rates in the localization task. For the 16 units, the difference in firing rate was typically observed for a single speaker location. No correlation could be determined between a unit's location within the subdivisions of auditory cortex and its spatial tuning response properties or its dependency upon behavioral condition.
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The aim of the study was to record nerve impulse responses to controlled displacements of the cupula and relate these to observations of cupular motion. The preparation was the skate semicircular canal, isolated and maintained in a chamber. The canal was cut and tied tightly to an oil-filled tube driven by a 1 microliter syringe. In some experiments dye was used to make the face of the cupula visible. Small volume displacements (0.02 microliter) caused a billowing of the central portion of the cupula, whereas for repeated large displacements (0.1 microliter) the top of the cupula moved along the roof of the ampulla. Displacements of the latter amount were close to saturation in the characteristic functions (spike rate versus volume displacement) of nerve firing. It seems that the discharge rate of tonically responding units in the skate crista ampullaris rather faithfully record the force acting on the cupula. The motion of the base of the cupula rather than its tip appears to be the relevant parameter in setting the level of excitation in the sensory cells within the physiological range of stimulation. Such a mode of operation would ensure the highest sensitivity of the sense organ.