Biomedical subjects

W Darling

Publications and source records attributed to W Darling.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1997

Reaching with cerebral tunnel vision.

We studied reaching movements in a 48-year-old man with bilateral lesions of the calcarine cortex which spared the foveal representation and caused severe tunnel vision. Three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of brain MR images showed no evidence of damage beyond area 18. The patient could not see his hand during reaching movements, providing a unique opportunity to test the role of peripheral visual cues in limb control. Optoelectronic recordings of upper limb movements showed normal hand paths and trajectories to fixated extrinsic targets. There was no slowing, tremor, or ataxia. Self-bound movements were also preserved. Analyses of limb orientation at the endpoints of reaches showed that the patient could transform an extrinsic target's visual coordinates to an appropriate upper limb configuration for target acquisition. There was no disadvantage created by blocking the view of the reaching arm. Moreover, the patient could not locate targets presented in the hemianopic fields by pointing. Thus, residual nonconscious vision or 'blindsight' in the aberrant fields was not a factor in our patient's reaching performance. The findings in this study show that peripheral visual cues on the position and velocity of the moving limb are not critical to the control of goal directed reaches, at least not until the hand is close to target. Other cues such as kinesthetic feedback can suffice. It also appears that the visuomotor transformations for reaching do not take place before area 19 in humans.

Cerebrovascular Disorders↗

PubMed1992

Troubled reaching after right occipito-temporal damage.

We encountered a man with an unusual reaching disturbance due to a stroke in the right occipito-temporal cortex and subjacent white matter. We studied his behavior in detail including vision and hand control. He had a left homonymous hemianopia. In his remaining fields static visual acuity and stereoacuity were normal, but he could not detect a coherent motion signal or follow moving targets with smooth pursuit. Transduction of limb movements using an optoelectronic technique showed abnormal morphology, increased variability and markedly prolonged latencies for transport to external visual targets, yet he achieved these targets with precision. Reaching to self-bound targets, and to the remembered locations of external targets with vision blocked was 5 x faster. The findings may be explained by: (1) damage in regions homologous to areas TF and TH in the monkey, which provide visual inputs to hand and forelimb representations in the cortex; (2) injury in human regions homologous to the monkey's MT complex, with inability to use visual information on the movement of the limb due to a visual motion processing defect; and (3) disruption of visual cortical-subcortical connections mediating crucial transformations among limb and target representations.

Ataxia↗

PubMed1985

A fast cell sampler for flow cytometry.

A simple device has been developed for delivering samples into a flow cytometer. Designed with economy, simplicity, and flexibility in mind, this device, having only one moving part, can be used for sample volumes as small as 20 microliter, for virtually any form of cell sample container, and for a wide range of cell concentrations. It consists essentially of a lever-operated disc valve that allows the cell sample to be loaded into a loop of tubing and then to be injected into the cytometer nozzle under pressure from a saline source. The sampler has lifted the maximum analytical throughput of a FACS II cell sorter to better than 120 samples per hour.

Animals↗

PubMed1982

An indexing stage for microscopic scanning of microtitre tray wells.

A simple stage has been designed to hold and to move microtitre trays for examination under a low power dissecting microscope. Movement of a ball on a handle from well to well of a reference tray to the left of the stage is mechanically translated into movement from one well to another under the microscope field. Movement can be controlled entirely by touch, and the particular well under the field can be determined from the reference tray position. The flat bottoms of all 96 wells stay in alignment and in focus without further adjustment, enabling rapid scanning of all wells on a tray. The apparatus is particularly useful for the microtitre tray antibody-forming cell plaque assay described by Pike et al. (1982).

Antibody-Producing Cells↗