Plos One
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QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT) is considered an alternative to the tuberculin skin test (TST) for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) infection, but the programmatic impact of QFT-GIT implementation is largely unknown. In March, 2010, the Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) introduced routine QFT-GIT testing for individuals referred to the TB program for suspected latent TB infection (LTBI). ⋯ QFT-GIT implementation for LTBI evaluation in a public health clinic significantly reduced the proportion of referred individuals in whom LTBI was diagnosed. QFT-GIT testing had no impact on treatment initiation or completion among those diagnosed with LTBI.
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Leukoaraiosis and cerebral microbleeds (CMB), which represent cerebral microangiopathy, commonly coexist in patients with acute lacunar stroke. Since they may have different impacts on stroke prognosis and treatment, it is important to know the factors associated with leukoaraiosis-predominant vs. CMB-predominant microangiopathies. ⋯ Patients with acute lacunar infarction have a different risk factor profile depending on microangiopathic findings. Our results indicate that diabetes may be an one of determinants of white (leukoaraiosis-predominant) microangiopathy, whereas smoking and alcohol habits in relatively young people may be a determinants of mild microangiopahic changes in patients with lacunar infarction.
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Pictorial stimuli are commonly used by scientists to explore central processes; including memory, attention, and language. Pictures that have been collected and put into sets for these purposes often contain visual ambiguities that lead to name disagreement amongst subjects. In the present work, we propose new norms which reflect these sources of name disagreement, and we apply this method to two sets of pictures: the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (S&V) set and the Bank of Standardized Stimuli (BOSS). ⋯ It was also found that the use of incorrect names was not significantly different across stimulus sets but that errors were more likely caused by visual ambiguity in the S&V set and by a misuse of names in the BOSS. Norms for name disagreement presented in this paper are useful for subsequent research for their categorization and elucidation of name disagreement that occurs when choosing visual stimuli from one or both stimulus sets. The sources of disagreement should be examined carefully as they help to provide an explanation of errors and inconsistencies of many concepts during picture naming tasks.
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Controlled Clinical Trial
Pain ratings, psychological functioning and quantitative EEG in a controlled study of chronic back pain patients.
Several recent studies report the presence of a specific EEG pattern named Thalamocortical Dysrhythmia (TCD) in patients with severe chronic neurogenic pain. This is of major interest since so far no neuroscientific indicator of chronic pain could be identified. We investigated whether a TCD-like pattern could be found in patients with moderate chronic back pain, and we compared patients with neuropathic and non-neuropathic pain components. We furthermore assessed the presence of psychopathology and the degree of psychological functioning and examined whether the strength of the TCD-related EEG markers is correlated with psychological symptoms and pain ratings. ⋯ Out of several possible interpretations the most likely conclusion is that only patients with severe pain as well as root lesions with consecutive thalamic deafferentation develop the typical TCD pattern. Our primary method of defining 'neuropathic pain' could not reliably determine if such a deafferentation was present. Nevertheless the analysis of a specific subsample as well as correlations between pain ratings, psychopathology and EEG power and peak frequency give some support to the TCD concept.
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Accurate vocal production relies on several factors including sensory feedback and the ability to predict future challenges to the control processes. Repetitive patterns of perturbations in sensory feedback by themselves elicit implicit expectations in the vocal control system regarding the timing, quality and direction of perturbations. In the present study, the predictability of voice pitch-shifted auditory feedback was experimentally manipulated. ⋯ It was found that predictable perturbations in voice auditory feedback led to a reduction in the proportion of compensatory vocal responses, which might be indicative of a reduction in vocal control. The predictable perturbations also led to a reduction in the magnitude of the N1 component of cortical Event Related Potentials (ERP) that was associated with the reflexive compensations to the perturbations. We hypothesize that formation of expectancy in our study is accompanied by involuntary allocation of attentional resources occurring as a result of habituation or learning, that in turn trigger limited and controlled exploration-related motor variability in the vocal control system.