Biomedical subjects
P Kurtz
Publications and source records attributed to P Kurtz.
The case for euthanasia: a humanistic perspective.
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Loss of smell leads to dementia in mice: is Alzheimer's disease a degenerative disorder of the olfactory system?
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Skepticism about the paranormal: legitimate and illegitimate.
With the growth of belief in the paranormal, skepticism can play a vital role in the scientific appraisal of claims. There are two forms: the first, hardly legitimate, is negative or total skepticism. It is nihilistic and dogmatic, and essentially self-defeating and self-contradictory. The second, a legitimate form, is selective skepticism. Here skepticism operates as a methodological principle of inquiry, testing hypotheses and theories in the light of evidence, but always open to new departures in thought. Skepticism has been applied historically to epistemology, metaphysics, religion, and ethics. The paranormal field has been full of fraud. Here the skeptic insists upon replicable experiments by neutral or skeptical observers before he will accept a claim as confirmed.
Prechronic toxicity of o-benzyl-p-chlorophenol in rats and mice.
o-Benzyl-p-chlorophenol (BCP) is a major household and industrial germicide. Its prechronic toxicity was evaluated in male and female F344 rats and B6C3F1 mice. Treatment was by gavage in corn oil. BCP was slightly toxic after acute oral exposure, with high mortality at 4000 and 2000 mg/kg in rats and mice. Exposure to 12 oral doses of BCP at 1000, 500, 250, 125, 62.5, or 0 mg/kg body wt resulted in dose-related cecal dilatation and nephrosis in both rats and mice. Doses for the subchronic studies were based on the results of the 2-week studies. Ten animals were treated per dose per sex. Rats received 480, 240, 120, 60, 30, or 0 mg BCP/kg. Mice were treated with 1000, 800, 650, 500, or 0 mg BCP/kg. Animals were dosed 5 days per week for 13 weeks. Clinical signs related to dosing included urogenital staining in rats and rough/oily haircoats in mice. No effects on growth rate were seen in rats, but growth was retarded at the higher doses used in mice. Kidney weights increased in rats, and liver weights increased in mice. A decrease in thymus weight accompanied by a depletion in thymic lymphocytes (rats) or thymic necrosis (mice) occurred only in a high-dose animals. In both species, the kidney was the major target organ. In rats, there was an increase in incidence and severity of nephropathy and renal tubule regeneration. The lesions in mice primarily involved the renal cortex and included necrosis, casts, chronic inflammation, and regeneration of the renal tubules. No effects of BCP exposure in rats were seen in a broad spectrum of hematology or urinalysis parameters. Minor decreases in blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, and alanine amino transferase were detected in male and female rats. There were no biologically significant neurobehavioral effects in rats or immunotoxic effects in mice due to exposure to BCP. Thus, the kidney is the major target organ for BCP.
Monitoring of grape harvesters for evidence of cholinesterase inhibition.
This report describes the results of a long-term monitoring study of 36 grape harvesters who were occupationally exposed to organophosphate pesticide residues following reentry into vineyards during September and October 1976. The study was designed to evaluate biochemical parameters associated with organophosphate pesticide residues. Insignificant changes in blood cholinesterase activity were found. Some workers had very low levels of organophosphate metabolites in the urine during the entire 6 wk of study. Ethion dioxon was the only pesticide residue detected on the grape leaves. The harvesting of wine grapes involves numerous work crews of four to six people each, requiring a highly mobile monitoring staff. A single stationary location for collecting blood and urine samples will result in massive losses to follow-up since the workers cannot be relied on to report on their own. It is recommended that, to maximize worker cooperation, future monitoring studies rely more on analyses of urine specimens and less on venipuncture for evidence of pesticide exposure.
Effects of reserpine on retention of escape reversal in mice: absence of state-dependent learning.
A discriminated escape training paradigm was used to study the effects of reserpine on learning and memory in mice. Intraperitoneal injection of reserpine before reversal training had no effect on acquisition but did produced a time-and dose-dependent impairment of retention test performance 10 days later. These results suggested that reserpine may have interfered with some aspect of memory storage. Retention impairments observed when a 2.0 mg/kg reserpine injection was given 2 hr before reversal training were not attenuated by readministering the drug before testing, a finding that provides no support for a state-dependency interpretation. Furthermore, animals treated with reserpine exhibited inferior retention of previous training, regardless of the pharmacological state present during that learning. This was interpreted as a drug-induced impairment of memory retrieval. In addition, performance during the initial discriminated escape training session suggested that reserpine may also impair acquisition under some conditions. In the last experiment, it was found that when the catecholamine precursor L-dihydroxyphenylalamine (100 mg/kg) and the indole amine precursor D,L-5-hydroxytryptophan (125 mg/kg) were both given after reserpine treatment, subsequent retention performance was not significantly impaired. The results are discussed in terms of the possible roles of biogenic amines in arousal, learning, and memory.
Dose-related effects of metrazol on retention and EEG.
The effects of various dose levels of Metrazol on retention and electrocorticogram (ECoG) were investigated. Mice given a subconvulsive 30 mg/kg or a convulsive 50 mg/kg dose of Metrazol 15 min before reversal training in a discriminated escape learning task showed retention impairment of reversal training retention. Lower dose levels (5 or 10 mg/kg) had no effect. The 30 mg/kg dose produced asymmetrical dissociation. The convulsive dose (50 mg/kg), previously reported to result in symmetrical dissociation, produced ECoG changes that were still evident 15 min following the injection, i.e. at the time when training or testing usually took place. With lower doses (10 or 30 mg/kg), no apparent ECoG effects were observed at this interval. The implications of the findings were discussed with respect to the state-dependent hypothesis.
Anaerobic threshold and maximal aerobic power for three modes of exercise.
Alterations in selected respiratory gas exchange parameters have been proposed as sensitive, noninvasive indices of the onset of metabolic acidosis (anaerobic threshold (AT) during incremental exercise. Our purposes were to investigate the validity and feasibility of AT detection using routine laboratory measures of gas exchange, i.e., nonlinear increases in VE and VCO2 and abrupt increases in FEO2. Additionally, we examined the comparability of the AT and VO2 max among three modes of exercise (arm cranking, leg cycling, and treadmill walk-running) with double determinations obtained from 30 college-age, male volunteer subjects. The AT's for arm cranking, leg cycling, and treadmill walk-running occurred at 46.5 +/- 8.9 (means +/- SD), 63.8 +/- 9.0, and 58.6 +/- 5.8% of VO2 max, respectively. No significant difference was found between the leg exercise modes (cycling and walk-running) for the AT while all pairwise arm versus leg comparisons were significantly different. Using nine additional subjects performing leg cycling tests, a significant correlation of r = 0.95 was found between gas exchange AT measurements (expressed as % VO2 max) and venous blood lactate AT measurements (% VO2 max). We conclude that the gas exchange AT is a valid and valuable indirect method for the detection of the development of lactic acidosis during incremental exercise.
State-dependent learning produced by Metrazol.
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Psychosocial sequelae of therapeutic abortion in young unmarried women.
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Time-dependent effects of metrazol on memory.
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Effect of metrazol on brain norepinephrine: a possible factor in amnesia produced by the drug.
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Epidemiologic study of physiological effects in usual and volunteer citrus workers from organophosphate pesticide residues at reentry.
Biological parameters associated with organophosphate (OP) pesticide exposure were evaluated in a study of citrus harvesters. Changes in these parameters related to environmental residues of cholinesterase (ChE) inhibiting pesticides were studied. Further, it was determined whether usual and volunteer workers differed in their biochemical parameters after exposure to pesticide residues during field operations. Urine metabolite findings for usual farm workers showed that some exposure to OP pesticides had occurred. Too few workers were available during the reentry stage of the field study to evaluate the effect of this exposure on blood ChE. Baseline (nonexposure) acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and plasma cholinesterase (PChE) activities were significantly higher in usual (Mexican American) workers than in volunteer workers (student volunteers). Student volunteers in the test citrus grove showed statistically significant declines in PChE during the exposure period, yet changes in AChE activity, urine metabolites, and residue levels were very small. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of current reentry standards as well as future epidemiologic studies on reentry research.
Assessing interaction patterns of students.
Teaching nursing students how to interact therapeutically with patients is a concern of all nursing faculty members. The verbatim process recording is one available method of analyzing student interactions. An analysis of 86 reported interactions of student nurses with postpartal maternity patients identified patterns of interaction that were related to patient concerns and showed deficits in student communication skills.
A controlled field trial of physiological responses to organophosphate residues in farm workers.
Blood acetylcholinesterase (ACHE) and pseudocholinesterase (PCHE) activity and urinary dialkyl phosphate (DAP) excretion were measured in a group of 15 male agriculture field workers during a five-day thinning operation in a Northern California peach orchard. Eight men were randomly assigned to work in a Guthion-treated plot, and seven men to work in an adjoining plot free from organophosphate residues. Foliage samples were taken to measure dislodgeable and total Guthion residues. The daily mean percent change in the ACHE and in the PCHE activity was less than -10.0 percent of baseline values for each group of men. Mean ACHE activity of workers in the Guthion treated plot was different from that of workers in the control plot on the fifth exposure day. The mean PCHE activity of workers in the Guthion treated plot was not different from that of workers in the control plot. Daily group-mean urinary metabolite excretion levels for workers exposed to Guthion residues were highly correlated with their daily group-mean percent change in ACHE activity. No urinary metabolites were detected in workers in the control plot. Decay in Guthion residues was markedly slower in this trial than in a comparable study conducted one year previously, emphasizing the difficulty in setting re-entry intervals based on time elapsed from pesticide application. Suggestions were made to extend the time interval of future studies on the human health effects of organophosphate residue exposure, and to further refine urinary metabolite surveillance methods toward the goal of establishing a threshold level of metabolites which would correspond to meaningful exposure to these pesticides residues.