Acute Weston Hurst necrotizing hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis

The clinical and pathological findings of a 43-year-old woman, diagnosed as having acute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis at postmortem examination, are presented. The acute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis affects mainly young adults and is the most fulminant from of demyelinating disease. It is frequently preceded by a respiratory infection. Diagnosis is facilitated by CT scanning and MRI, which reveal the massive lesion in the cerebral white matter. Many cases terminate fatally in 2 or 4 days, but in others survival is longer. The pathological findings are distinctive.     

Cervical lymphadenopathy revealing differentiated thyroid cancer. Review of the literature and therapeutic approach]

Well-differentiated thyroid cancer (i.e. papillary microcarcinoma) may be revealed by a clinically palpable cervical node, especially in young patients. Primary tumor specificity (small-sized, superior location, invasion, multifocality) and characteristics of cervical node involvement (with synchronous central and lateral multiple node spread) require appropriate treatment by a skilled surgeon. Contrary to the primary tumor treatment (total thyroidectomy), surgical management of the cervical node basins remains controversial. Only a special knowledge of the specificity of this disease and cervical lymphatic anatomy will ensure a good prognosis for the patient.     

From vasopressin receptor to water channel: intracellular traffic, constraint and by-pass

To test a potential "gating" effect of noradrenaline (NA) in the auditory cortex, the acoustic threshold was estimated by determining the rate-level function of neurons before, during, and after microiontophoretic application (5-40 nA) of NA. The rationale behind this experiment was that a gating effect should decrease the threshold for acoustic excitatory responses. From 84 recorded neurons, we observed (1) that application of NA increased the threshold for 48 of 84 cells, and (2) that, on average, the slope of the rate-level functions was unchanged. These effects on the threshold are consistent with the fact that the dominant effect of NA on the evoked response is inhibition for 34 of 84 cells; increases in evoked responses were observed for only 14 of 84 cells. GABA application (0-50 nA) also led to increased response threshold for 19 of 24 cells (unaffected, 5 of 24 cells). However, for three cells the effect of GABA application was antagonized by bicuculline application, while on the same cells bicuculline application did not prevent the noradrenergic increase in threshold. The effect induced by NA on the threshold raises questions about the generality of a gating effect of NA in sensory neocortex.     

Special issue introduction: Psychology, politics, and public policy.

As evidenced by the eclecticism of this collection of essays, the history of psychology is ripe with possibilities for additional research into the interplay of politics and public policy on the development of the discipline and its practice. After all, as this collection makes clear, a more complete rendering of the history of psychology must make sense of the profession’s longstanding immersion in politics and public policy—indeed, of its being as much a political and policymaking project as an intellectual one. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phase transmittance RBF neural networks

Presented is a new complex valued radial basis function (RBF) neural network with phase transmittance between the input nodes and output, which makes it suitable for channel equalisation on quadrature digital modulation systems.