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Unilateral conditioning of an odor aversion in 6-day-old rat pups.

In young rats, several forms of olfactory memory can be functionally localized to one side of the brain by restricting training stimuli to one naris and corresponding olfactory bulb. In the experiment, the analysis of lateralized olfactory learning in 6-day-old rat pups was extended by an evaluation of the consequences of aversive reinforcers in a unilateral olfactory conditioning paradigm. An olfactory aversion was conditioned by delivering a mild footshock to animals in the presence of a novel odor. Olfactory stimulation was confined to one naris and corresponding olfactory bulb by inserting a soft rubber plug into the opposite naris. This lateralization in processing resulted in unilateral memory for the odor aversion that was only expressed when the trained naris was open during an odor preference test. The hypothesis that the hedonic value (or valence) component of conditioning is represented in structures that are unilaterally accessed during training and testing is discussed.

Animals

Unilateral olfactory conditioning in 6-day-old rat pups.

The potential that early olfactory learning might be laterally organized in the brain was investigated in 6-day-old rats. This hypothesis is based on the finding that the commissural systems that subserve bilateral olfactory communication do not mature until the second week of postnatal life. Pups were trained with pairings of cedar odor and intraoral infusions of milk while one nostril was occluded. Animals expressed a conditioned orientation towards cedar if tested with the trained nostril open. No such conditioning was observed if the untrained nostril was open during testing. Further, when individual pups received cedar odor/milk pairings with one nostril open and orange odor/milk pairings with the other open, they expressed a conditioned preference for orange when tested with the orange-trained nostril open, and a preference for cedar when tested with the cedar-trained nostril open. Classically conditioned oral responses (mouthing) also appeared to be lateralized. However, no such unilateral conditioning occurred with respect to behavioral activation, which is also conditioned in this paradigm. Increases in activity to the odor CS were observed regardless of whether the trained or untrained nostril was open during testing. These results suggest that in developing rodents, olfactory memories may be partly represented in structures that can be unilaterally accessed during training and testing. They provide a starting point for isolation of neural substrates of the olfactory conditioning process.

Age Factors

Lexical access during eye fixations in reading: effects of word-initial letter sequence.

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that lexical access in reading is initiated on the basis of word-initial letter information obtainable in the parafoveal region. Eye movements were monitored while college students read sentences containing target words whose initial trigram (Experiment 1) or bigram (Experiment 2) imposed either a high or a low degree of constraint in the lexicon. In contradiction to our hypothesis, high-constraint words (e.g., DWARF) received longer fixations than did low-constraint words (e.g., CLOWN), despite the fact that high-constraint words have an initial letter sequence shared by few other words in the lexicon. Moreover, a comparison of fixation times in viewing conditions with and without parafoveal letter information showed that the amount of decrease in target fixation time due to prior parafoveal availability was the same for high-constraint and low-constraint targets. We concluded that increased familiarity of word-initial letter sequence is beneficial to lexical access and that familiarity affects the efficiency of foveal but not parafoveal processing.

Fixation, Ocular

[The accessibility of general practitioners by the phone. A study in Vestfold based on calls].

The accessibility by phone of 35 general practitioners during consulting hours was tested systematically. The doctor was accessible in the case of 74% of all calls, no answer was obtained in 15%, and in 11% the office was inaccessible due to the use of an automatic telephone answerer. In the authors' opinion the standard should be 90% accessibility by phone for general practitioners in primary health care. This standard was met by 20% of the doctors.

Health Services Needs and Demand

[Cephalic phase of insulin secretion and the variety of the food in rat feed].

Immunologically reactive insulin levels were determined in freely-moving normal rats offered three different test-meals. In test I, they were offered their normal diet for 4.5 min. In test II, they first ate the same diet for the same amount of time, then a cookie for 6 min, and finally they had free access to lard. In test III, the normal diet was followed by a synthetic sweetener and then by vaseline. It was shown that in a varied meal (tests II and III), the ingestion of each new food was immediately followed by a peak of insulin secretion superimposed on normal postprandial hyperinsulinemia. This resulted in an overall increase in insulinemia over the 15-min period measured. It is well known that in a varied meal more food is consumed. Thus, it may be that when a varied meal is offered, final satiety is postponed. This could be due to sensorially-triggered peaks of insulin secretion which would explain why the "cafeteria diet" induces hyperphagia and obesity.

Animal Feed

Type of statistical techniques in rheumatology and internal medicine journals.

A comparison of the prevalence and type of statistical analysis used in internal medicine and rheumatology journals was done. Four representative journals of each specialty were selected and twelve original articles were randomly obtained from each journal. The papers were reviewed twice within a three month interval by the same evaluator following published definitions for classification. The rheumatology journals tended to use fewer (80 versus 115) and simpler statistical techniques (X3 = 4.28, DF = 1, p = 0.03; OR, 95% CI = 3.21, 1.05-10.85). There was a statistical difference in the utilization of statistical procedures among journals in the four categories evaluated. Seven statistical techniques were required to have access to 86% of statistical tests used in rheumatology journals (t-tests, contingency tables, descriptive statistics, non-parametric comparisons, anova, multiple regression, and Pearson's correlation). The internal medicine journals required six statistical procedures to have access to 85% of the tests (contingency tables, survival analysis, epidemiologic statistics, t-tests, non-parametric statistics, and anova). Our results could be useful to plan medical education in biostatistics emphasizing the statistical techniques most commonly used in these areas.

Internal Medicine

A microleakage study of temporary restorative materials used in endodontics.

The purpose of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the sealing properties of various temporary restorative materials used in standard endodontic access preparations by using a newly introduced fluid filtration method. The materials tested were Cavit, Cavit-G, TERM, glass ionomer cement, zinc phosphate cement, polycarboxylate cement, and IRM. Extracted human incisor, canine, and premolar teeth were used, and each tooth served as its own control by testing for microleakage prior to access preparation. Following access preparation, cotton pellets were placed in the pulp chamber so that the space remaining for the restoration was 4 mm. Immediately after placement of the restoration, the teeth were immersed in Ringer's solution and incubated at 37 degrees C. Microleakage was measured after various time intervals. The results indicated that Cavit, Cavit-G, TERM, and glass ionomer cement provided leakproof seals during the 8-wk testing period, while leakage was observed in 4 of the 10 teeth restored with zinc phosphate cement. IRM and polycarboxylate cement were the least effective of the materials tested for preventing microleakage.

Calcium Sulfate

Sexual performance of rams as determined by maturation and sexual experience.

The purpose of this study was to compare the sexual performance of rams that differed in age (maturation) and sexual experience. Twenty-four ram lambs (8 mo of age) and 21 rams (20 mo of age) were individually exposed to four females in hormonally induced estrus for 30 min on five occasions, 7 d apart. Half (12) the ram lambs and nine of the yearlings were sexually naive at the start of testing (had been denied access to females since weaning); the remaining males were sexually experienced. The sexual performance of the virgin rams was poorer during the initial exposure to females than in subsequent tests, whereas the sexual behavior of the sexually experienced males did not change over the days of testing. Sexually naive ram lambs and rams exhibited an improvement in sexual performance between Tests 1 and 2; during Test 3 to 5 the sexual performance (ejaculations per test) of sexually naive and experienced rams was similar. The only effects of age (maturation) on sexual performance during the last three test days were a higher frequency of mounts without ejaculation plus mount attempts (P less than .03) and a greater number of mount interactions per ejaculation (P less than .02) by ram lambs. In conclusion, one or two relatively brief exposures to estrous females can bring the sexual performance of virgin rams up to levels comparable to that of experienced males. Also, ram lambs in good condition exhibit acceptable levels of sexual performance.

Animals

Membrane isolation on polylysine-coated glass beads. Asymmetry of bound membrane.

Erythrocyte membranes isolated on polylysine-coated glass beads exhibit many of the properties of the native membrane. Gel electrophoresis indicates that all major protein components of the membrane are retained during membrane isolation. The membrane integrity and accessibility of selected components was tested using non-penetrating probes. In general, membranes on beads displayed accessibility properties typical of inside-out vesicles. The accessibility of membrane acetylcholinesterase to assay reagents, as well as membrane accessibility to the actions of neuraminidase, trypsin and galactose oxidase-NaB3H4 demonstrated that the protoplasmic surface of membrane isolated on beads was exposed, while the extracellular surface was inaccessible. The differential accessibility of the membrane surfaces demonstrates the feasibility of investigating asymmetry of membranes isolated on cationic glass beads.

Acetylcholinesterase

Caloric compensation following insulin administration in rats.

Caloric intakes following injections of insulin were examined in male rats maintained on diets of different caloric densities. Following saline or insulin injections, food intake was measured every two hours for six hours or food was withheld for six hours until recovery of normo-glycemia and total intake was measured at seven and eight hours post-injection. Additionally, levels of plasma metabolic fuels, liver glycogen and stomach contents were measured following saline and insulin injections. Animals in both the continuous and delayed access conditions consumed the same number of calories following injections of insulin. Similarly, the increases in intake relative to saline baseline conditions were comparable across diet groups in both conditions although animals tested in the delayed access paradigm were less variable in their response. Changes in levels of metabolic fuels, stomach contents and liver glycogen were found to be consistent with the known effects of insulin and counter-regulatory responses to the induced hypoglycemia.

Animals

Effects of vasoactive drugs on fluoride-induced contractions of vascular smooth muscle in calcium-free solution.

Cumulative dose-response curves were obtained for contractions induced by fluoride in bovine facial veins and arteries in the presence and absence of external Ca (Cao). In 1.4 mmol/l Cao the threshold for contractions was lower for veins than for the arteries, i.e. at 1 mmol/l vs. 2 mmol/l F-. After Ca withdrawal from the external medium, the ED50 values for veins and arteries were shifted from 2.2 to 10 and from 4.5 and 8.5 mmol/l F-, respectively. Several vasodilators (order of potency to relax veins: caffeine less than verapamil less than sulmazole less than sodium nitroprusside less than papaverine) were investigated for their ability to inhibit contractions induced by F- in Ca2+-free solution. None of them was able to counteract F- induced contractions in Ca2+-free solutions. Furosemide and beta-methyldigoxine were also ineffective. However, nitroprusside, sulmazole and papaverine were able to relax strips pretreated with Ca2+-free solutions. By contrast, contractions of depolarized veins induced by F- in Ca2+-free solutions were significantly, though transiently, inhibited by 10 mmol/l ammonium ions. The vasodilators tested in this study seem thus to act by inhibiting Ca influx at some level of the membrane, while F- may act by mobilizing Ca ions from some unidentified, cellular pools not accessible to the drugs tested in this study.

Animals

Evaluation of the Becton Dickinson Directigen test for respiratory syncytial virus in nasopharyngeal aspirates.

A premarket trial of the Becton Dickinson Directigen respiratory syncytial virus membrane-based enzyme immunoassay compared the test with virus isolation for the detection of respiratory syncytial virus in 583 nasopharyngeal aspirates. After modification, the Directigen test showed a sensitivity of 83% and a specificity of 90%. It offers the potential for an efficient bedside test--without the need for any equipment--for the diagnosis of respiratory syncytial virus infection and requires only a 0.25-ml sample volume. However, for optimum reliability, freezing-thawing of samples and access to a confirmatory test were shown to be necessary.

Adolescent

Genetic testing and insurance. The Ad Hoc Committee on Genetic Testing/Insurance Issues.

The rapid expansion of opportunities for genetic testing has been accompanied by complex questions about the appropriate relationships between providers, patients, and insurers. Some of these questions involve large public-policy decisions, such as whether the government should guarantee access to health care for all citizens. Universal access to health care, without regard to past, present, or future risk of disease, could eliminate risk-oriented underwriting in health-care coverage. A positive response to that question will ameliorate other problems. Until universal access is reality, genetic testing and genetic diagnosis will raise important issues for the practicing geneticist. How much does a client need to know about insurance implications before consenting to a genetic test? Should patients be counseled to purchase insurance before being tested? Should genetic information be excluded from medical records before their release to insurance companies for routine reimbursements or underwriting? What are the ethical and legal responsibilities of the geneticist?

Confidentiality

A multi-factor experimental design for evaluating random-access analyzers.

A multi-factor experimental design for evaluating random-access analyzers has been developed and tested for the Ciba Corning "550 Express" random-access analyzer. The 12-sample design estimates imprecision, slope, nonlinearity, linear drift, and reagent carryover to the next assay. The design was constructed so that estimates of the factors' effects are almost entirely uninfluenced by each other. Use of the design is illustrated by an example in which reagent-to-assay carryover was pinpointed as an apparent cause of high imprecision. This led to a modification of the analyzer such that carryover was insignificant. The appendix contains a 27-sample design that provides additional estimates. Software to perform such calculations is available on request.

Aspartate Aminotransferases

Data base management system for tracking occupational health.

An Occupational Health Information System (OHIS), a data base management system for tracking occupational health, has been developed. A primary feature is its ability to correlate employee workplace environment with health. Hardware implementation of OHIS is on a minicomputer with application programs written in ANSI standard MUMPS language. OHIS integrates personnel, medical and industrial hygiene/toxicology information into one data base. The personnel module is comprised of demographic information collected and updated by the personnel department. The medical module utilizes an interactive video display terminal (VDT)-driven questionnaire and multiphasic testing subsystems which are accessed selectively by authorized users. The backbone of OHIS is a parameter dictionary of all possible data elements. A final medical report includes a medical history summary, physical findings and X-ray interpretation, highlighted and normal test findings, computer interpretations, and a final one-page summary of problem and health-risk information. Information characterizing the workplace environment is captured and reported by the questionnaire subsystem. This questionnaire is designed to define: 1) monitoring conditions, 2) sample analysis, 3) measurement results, and 4) personal protective equipment used. These data provide a means of assigning environmental exposure measurements to appropriate employees.

Adult

Staged diabetes management. Toward an integrated model of diabetes care.

This paper introduces a new and innovative approach to diabetes management in the primary-care setting. Staged diabetes management (SDM) represents a four-year effort to develop and test a data-based approach to diabetes management that could be easily adapted to a variety of health-care settings in which diabetes management is principally under the direction of primary-care physicians was limited access to specialists. After testing under controlled circumstances at the International Diabetes Center (Minneapolis, MN), SDM was subjected to substantial field trials under conditions that represent the scope and variety of primary-care practices in diabetes. The following represents the work of several investigators who independently undertook a review of SDM.

Databases, Factual

Tracing the time course of picture--word processing.

A number of independent lines of research have suggested that semantic and articulatory information become available differentially from pictures and words. The first of the experiments reported here sought to clarify the time course by which information about pictures and words becomes available by considering the pattern of interference generated when incongruent pictures and words are presented simultaneously in a Stroop-like situation. Previous investigators report that picture naming is easily disrupted by the presence of a distracting word but that word naming is relatively immune to interference from an incongruent picture. Under the assumption that information available from a completed process may disrupt an ongoing process, these results suggest that words access articulatory information more rapidly than do pictures. Experiment 1 extended this paradigm by requiring subjects to verify the category of the target stimulus. In accordance with the hypothesis that picture access the semantic code more rapidly than words, there was a reversal in the interference pattern: Word categorization suffered considerable disruption, whereas picture categorization was minimally affected by the presence of an incongruent word. Experiment 2 sought to further test the hypothesis that access to semantic and articulatory codes is different for pictures and words by examining memory for those items following naming or categorization. Categorized words were better recognized than named words, whereas the reverse was true for pictures, a result which suggests that picture naming involves more extensive processing than picture categorization. Experiment 3 replicated this result under conditions in which viewing time was held constant. The last experiment extended the investigation of memory differences to a situation in which subjects were required to generate the superordinate category name. Here, memory for categorized pictures was as good as memory for named pictures. Category generation also influenced memory for words, memory performance being superior to that following a yes--no verification of category membership. These experiments suggest a model of information access whereby pictures access semantic information were readily than name information, with the reverse being true for words. Memory for both pictures and words was a function of the amount of processing required to access a particular type of information as well as the extent of response differentiation necessitated by the task.

Form Perception

Laboratory evaluations of interproximal access of two differently bristled manual toothbrushes.

The Colgate Rippled Bristles toothbrush was compared to the Oral-B 40 toothbrush using a laboratory device which simulates horizontal and vertical brushing movements under pressures of 250, 500 and 750 grams. Interproximal access was determined by measuring the width of the brushing stroke on pressure-sensitive paper surrounding anterior or posterior tooth shapes. The Colgate Rippled toothbrush was consistently superior to the Oral-B 40 toothbrush in accomplishing interproximal access in the laboratory tests performed here. On anterior-shaped teeth, the superiority (p < 0.05-0.01) was evident at all pressures tested, with both horizontal and vertical brushing movements. On posterior tooth shapes the Colgate Rippled toothbrush was superior (p < 0.01) to the Oral-B 40 toothbrush at all brushing weights and with both vertical and horizontal motions. When total interproximal access efficacy means were calculated for all brushing weights, the Colgate Rippled toothbrush was superior (p < 0.05-0.01) to the Oral-B 40 toothbrush on both anterior and posterior tooth shapes in the vertical and horizontal brushing motions.

Analysis of Variance