[Increased knowledge of ARIA and GINA guides 2006 to general physicians by an educational intervention]. / Incremento del conocimiento de las guías ARIA y GINA 2006 para médicos generales mediante una intervención educativa.

BACKGROUND: Educational strategies look for the increase of knowledge in physicians; they are a useful resourse for the diffusion among physicians of guides GINA and ARIA. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate a course shop-like for physicians as an educative strategy. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: A transversal study was performed, where knowledge was evaluated to primary contact physicians about recent currents of guides of GINA and ARIA 2006. RESULTS: There was a participation of 69 primary contact physicians who applied a questionnaire of 30 questions: 20 about asthma (GINA) and 10 about allergic rhinitis (ARIA) before and after a course shop-like for physicians; there was improvement on calification after educative strategy on knowledge about asthma and allergic rhinitis with a p = < 0.05. CONCLUSION: The educative strategy proposed as course shop-like for primary contact physicians is effective for teaching the guides of GINA and ARIA 2006.

Experimentation with a transcranial magnetic stimulation system for functional brain mapping.

We describe functional brain mapping experiments using a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) device. This device, when placed on a subject's scalp, stimulates the underlying neurons by generating focused magnetic field pulses. A brain mapping is then generated by measuring responses of different motor and sensory functions to this stimulation. The key process in generating this mapping is the association of the 3-D positions and orientations of the TMS probe on the scalp to a 3-D brain reconstruction such as is feasible with a magnetic resonance image (MRI). We have developed a registration system which not only generates functional brain maps using such a device, but also provides real-time feedback to guide the technician in placing the probe at appropriate points on the head to achieve the desired map resolution. Functional areas we have mapped are the motor and visual cortex. Validation experiments focus on repeatability tests for mapping the same subjects several times. Applications of the technique include neuroanatomy research, surgical planning and guidance, treatment and disease monitoring, and therapeutic procedures.