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Lauriston S. Taylor Lecture: Assuring the safety of medical diagnostic ultrasound.

In 1980, the NCRP formed Scientific Committee 66 with an assignment to address the subject of "biological effects of ultrasound and exposure criteria." It was recognized that the primary source of exposure to ultrasound was through medical applications and, especially, through procedures employing diagnostic ultrasound. While the risk to patients from these procedures was believed small, it was considered important for users to understand it, in view of the widespread use of diagnostic ultrasound. In proceeding with this assignment, much emphasis has been given to the mechanisms by which ultrasound can bring about changes in biological structures or processes. Thermal effects are possible; the local temperature can rise especially rapidly where ultrasound impinges on bone. From theory for heat production and transport, and by analysis of experimental results with mammals, information has been obtained for guiding users in avoiding harm from temperature elevation. Nonthermal effects, such as capillary rupture, can occur when ultrasound is incident on tissue that normally contains gas-filled cavities, as in adult lung or intestine, or on any tissue containing gaseous contrast agents. Theory from fluid dynamics, together with experimental findings, has led to quantitative guidance for avoiding damage from acoustically activated cavities. It is felt that good practice in applying diagnostic ultrasound is best assured by making it possible for users to be well informed on safety matters so that they can feel justifiably confident in making appropriate choices of operating conditions. A promising and useful approach is in the display of safety information on the diagnostic ultrasound screen, which is now a feature of United States standards.

Animals↗

Lauriston S. Taylor Lecture: The evolution of radiation protection--from erythema to genetic risks to risks of cancer to...?

Radiation Protection has evolved and will continue to evolve as new information becomes available, as the result of changes in public perception and concern and, perhaps in the future, as a result of enormous expenditures on reducing small risks. In the early part of the last century it was a sense of real danger among medical Practitioners that prompted the first set of exposure limiting suggestions. Addressing medical concerns continued to be the basis of guidance until after the Second World War. An array of new sources and applications led to new approaches, which modified many of the technical issues but didn't result in substantial changes in the dose limits. Fallout from the first generation of thermonuclear weapons in the 1950's resulted in focusing attention on genetic effects, which continued until the middle 1970's. Data from the Japanese Survivor Studies provided the information for risk based recommendations beginning in 1977 and continue to do so today. Both the ICRP and the NCRP are heavily criticized by both those groups of individuals which believe the risk estimates are underestimated and by those which believe the risks are greatly overestimated. Perhaps both organizations can take some comfort in Saint Thomas Aquinas' suggestion, "In medio virtus."

Age Factors↗

Volhard Lecture. Brain, blood pressure and stroke.

BRAIN AND BLOOD PRESSURE IN EXPERIMENTAL ANIMALS: Our experiments in models of experimental hypertension in the rabbit in the early 1970s demonstrated that increased activity of bulbospinal pressor neurons containing noradrenaline or serotonin mediated the elevated arterial blood pressure. Other workers had demonstrated decreased activity of noradrenergic neurons in the medulla. Accordingly, I proposed the hypothesis that the hypertension in these models arose from 'disinhibition', due to unrestrained activity of descending pressor pathways, released from the inhibitory influences present in normal animals. Over the next 15-20 years, experiments from our group and from other laboratories demonstrated that there were two distinct bulbospinal pressor pathways descending from the rostral ventral medulla, one containing adrenaline, neuropeptide Y and glutamate, and the other containing serotonin, substance P and glutamate. It has also been established that the key depressor area is in the caudal ventrolateral medulla and that the main inhibitory input, restraining the activity of the bulbospinal pressor pathways, is a short gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) projection ascending from the caudal ventrolateral medulla to the rostral ventral medulla. More recent experiments in the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) using the immediate-early gene c-fos as a marker of neuronal activity, have demonstrated that impaired activity of this short inhibitory GABA pathway in the SHR disinhibits the bulbospinal pressor pathway, thus contributing to the hypertension in this model. BLOOD PRESSURE AND STROKE IN HUMANS: The risks of primary stroke and of secondary or recurrent stroke are both directly related to the level of blood pressure and clinical trials have clearly demonstrated that lowering blood pressure markedly reduces the incidence of primary stroke. The Perindopril Protection Against Recurrent Stroke Study (PROGRESS) was launched to test the hypothesis that lowering the blood pressure in subjects who have already had a stroke or a transient ischaemic attack will also reduce the risk of stroke. A major unresolved issue for practising clinicians is how to manage the raised blood pressure that is so common in the acute phase of stroke. Accordingly, the PROGRESS investigators are planning another major multinational trial to assess the benefits and risks of lowering blood pressure in the first 3 days after the onset of a stroke.

Animals↗

Olfactory neural cells: an untapped diagnostic and therapeutic resource. The 2000 Ogura Lecture.

OBJECTIVE: This is an overview of the cellular biology of upper nasal mucosal cells that have special characteristics that enable them to be used to diagnose and study congenital neurological diseases and to aid neural repair. STUDY DESIGN: After mapping the distribution of neural cells in the upper nose, the authors' investigations moved to the use of olfactory neurones to diagnose neurological diseases of development, especially schizophrenia. Olfactory-ensheathing glial cells (OEGs) from the cranial cavity promote axonal penetration of the central nervous system and aid spinal cord repair in rodents. The authors sought to isolate these cells from the more accessible upper nasal cavity in rats and in humans and prove they could likewise promote neural regeneration, making these cells suitable for human spinal repair investigations. METHODS: The schizophrenia-diagnosis aspect of the study entailed the biopsy of the olfactory areas of 10 schizophrenic patients and 10 control subjects. The tissue samples were sliced and grown in culture medium. The ease of cell attachment to fibronectin (artificial epithelial basement membrane), as well as the mitotic and apoptotic indices, was studied in the presence and absence of dopamine in those cell cultures. The neural repair part of the study entailed a harvesting and insertion of first rat olfactory lamina propria rich in OEGs between cut ends of the spinal cords and then later the microinjection of an OEG-rich suspension into rat spinal cords previously transected by open laminectomy. Further studies were done in which OEG insertion was performed up to 1 month after rat cord transection and also in monkeys. RESULTS: Schizophrenic patients' olfactory tissues do not easily attach to basement membrane compared with control subjects, adding evidence to the theory that cell wall anomalies are part of the schizophrenic "lesion" of neurones. Schizophrenic patient cell cultures had higher mitotic and apoptotic indices compared with control subjects. The addition of dopamine altered these indices enough to allow accurate differentiation of schizophrenics from control patients, leading to, possibly for the first time, an early objective diagnosis of schizophrenia and possible assessment of preventive strategies. OEGs from the nose were shown to be as effective as those from the olfactory bulb in promoting axonal growth across transected spinal cords even when added 1 month after injury in the rat. These otherwise paraplegic rats grew motor and proprioceptive and fine touch fibers with corresponding behavioral improvement. CONCLUSIONS: The tissues of the olfactory mucosa are readily available to the otolaryngologist. Being surface cells, they must regenerate (called "neurogenesis"). Biopsy of this area and amplification of cells in culture gives the scientist a "window to the developing brain," including early diagnosis of schizophrenia. The "Holy Grail" of neurological disease is the cure of traumatic paraplegia and OEGs from the nose promote that repair. The otolaryngologist may become the necessary partner of the neurophysiologist and spinal surgeon to take the laboratory potential of paraplegic cure into the day-to-day realm of clinical reality.

Animals↗

1996 J.B. Wolffe Memorial Lecture. Challenging beliefs: ex Africa semper aliquid novi.

The basis of the scientific method is the development of intellectual models, the predictions of which are then subjected to scientific evaluation. The more robust test of any such model is one that aims to refute or falsify its predictions. Successful refutation forces revision of the model: the revised model persists as the "truth" until its predictions are, in turn, refuted. Thus, any scientific model should persist only as long as it resists refutation. An unusual feature of the exercise sciences is that certain core beliefs are based on an historical physiological model that, it will be argued, has somehow escaped modern, disinterested intellectual scrutiny. This particular model holds that the cardiovascular system has a limited capacity to supply oxygen to the active muscles, especially during maximal exercise. As a result, skeletal muscle oxygen demand outstrips supply causing the development of skeletal muscle hypoxia or even anaerobiosis during vigorous exercise. This hypoxia stimulates the onset of lactate production at the "anaerobic," "lactate," or ventilation thresholds and initiates biochemical processes that terminate maximal exercise. The model further predicts that the important effect of training is to increase oxygen delivery to and oxygen utilization by the active muscles during exercise. Thus, adaptations that reduce skeletal muscle anaerobiosis during exercise explain all the physiological, biochemical, and functional changes that develop with training. The historical basis for this model is the original research of Nobel Laureate A. V. Hill which was interpreted as evidence that oxygen consumption "plateaus" during progressive exercise to exhaustion, indicating the development of skeletal muscle anaerobiosis. This review confirms that Hill's research failed to establish the existence of the "plateau phenomenon" during exercise and argues that this core component of the historical model remains unproven. Furthermore, definitive evidence that skeletal muscle anaerobiosis develops during submaximal exercise at the anaerobic threshold initiating lactate production by muscle and its accumulation in blood is not currently available. The finding that exercise performance can improve and metabolism alter before there are measurable skeletal muscle mitochondrial adaptations could indicate that variables unrelated to oxygen use by muscle might explain some, if not all, training-induced changes. To accommodate these uncertainties, an alternate physiological model is proposed in which skeletal muscle contractile activity is regulated by a series of central, predominantly neural, and peripheral, predominantly chemical, regulators that act to prevent the development of organ damage or even death during exercise in both health and disease and under demanding environmental conditions. During maximal exercise, the peripheral regulation of skeletal muscle function and hence of oxygen use by skeletal muscle, perhaps by variables related to blood flow, would prevent the development of muscle rigor, especially in persons with an impaired capacity to produce ATP by mitochondrial or glycolytic pathways. Regulation of skeletal muscle contractile function by central mechanisms would prevent the development of hypotension and myocardial ischemia during exercise in persons with heart failure, of hyperthermia during exercise in the heat, and of cerebral hypoxia during exercise at extreme altitude. The challenge for future generations of exercise physiologists is to identify how the body anticipates the possibility of organ damage and evokes the appropriate control mechanism(s) at the appropriate instant.

Anaerobiosis↗