Theta and alpha oscillations may underlie improved attention and working memory in musically trained children.

INTRODUCTION: Attention and working memory are key cognitive functions that allow us to select and maintain information in our mind for a short time, being essential for our daily life and, in particular, for learning and academic performance. It has been shown that musical training can improve working memory performance, but it is still unclear if and how the neural mechanisms of working memory and particularly attention are implicated in this process. In this work, we aimed to identify the oscillatory signature of bimodal attention and working memory that contributes to improved working memory in musically trained children. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We recruited children with and without musical training and asked them to complete a bimodal (auditory/visual) attention and working memory task, whereas their brain activity was measured using electroencephalography. Behavioral, time-frequency, and source reconstruction analyses were made. RESULTS: Results showed that, overall, musically trained children performed better on the task than children without musical training. When comparing musically trained children with children without musical training, we found modulations in the alpha band pre-stimuli onset and the beginning of stimuli onset in the frontal and parietal regions. These correlated with correct responses to the attended modality. Moreover, during the end phase of stimuli presentation, we found modulations correlating with correct responses independent of attention condition in the theta and alpha bands, in the left frontal and right parietal regions. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that musically trained children have improved neuronal mechanisms for both attention allocation and memory encoding. Our results can be important for developing interventions for people with attention and working memory difficulties.

Thinking outside the box: Aboriginal people's suggestions for conducting health studies with Aboriginal communities.

OBJECTIVES: Aboriginal people are under-represented in epidemiological research, largely due to past failures to engage and recruit Aboriginal communities, research fatigue and the use of culturally inappropriate methods. A qualitative study was undertaken in rural and urban Aboriginal communities in north-eastern and south-western Ontario to identify culturally congruent public health research methodologies. STUDY DESIGN: A qualitative participatory research study using focus group discussions. METHODS: This study employed a participatory research framework to elicit methodological suggestions for conducting public health research with Aboriginal communities during focus groups with healthcare providers from six diverse Aboriginal health organizations in Ontario, Canada. RESULTS: Continuing requests for participation in health research studies have led to community exhaustion. Discussions explored appropriate methods to obtain community approval and support for a study, the need for cultural sensitivity training for researchers, the value of conducting studies of interest and benefit to the community, advantages and disadvantages of qualitative and quantitative studies, the benefit of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ethics reviews, the importance of safeguarding trusted information, types of incentives that may enhance study participation, suggestions to improve the collection of questionnaire information and biological specimens, how to resolve contentious issues and dissemination of study results. CONCLUSION: In order to successfully engage Aboriginal people in health studies, researchers need to build rapport with communities, have a community presence, be respectful and collaborative, utilize incentives, and employ flexible and adaptive methodologies of reasonable length. Oral interviews are preferred to self-completed information. The use of more mixed methods methodologies was suggested when quantitative data collection is necessary. Communities expect presentations about research findings.

Necrotizing soft-tissue infections.

In the realm of clinical practice, this disease entity defies applicability to any classification scheme. Of paramount importance is the early identification of all necrotizing soft-tissue infections. This requires a high index of suspicion, aided by recognition of various risk factors and organ system dysfunction out of proportion to the extent of local signs and symptoms. Expedient, aggressive surgical therapy is imperative: resuscitation, wide débridement, and antibiotic therapy. Once the infection has been controlled, continued supportive care, reconstruction, and rehabilitation can proceed.

An isolated enriched organ-specific cancer neoantigen of human lung cancer for leukocyte adherence inhibition assays.

Until now, measurement of human antitumor immunity to organ-specific cancer neoantigen (OSN) by the leukocyte adherence inhibition (LAI) assay depended on using crude extracts of cancer. In this study, a new method is presented to generate and to isolate a highly enriched OSN from spent medium of a lung cancer cell line, NCI-H69, grown in chemically defined medium. Production of large quantities of OSN with minimal contamination by extraneous proteins was possible. Four physicochemical steps were used to give a 1000-fold enrichment of OSN activity: anion-exchange and molecular-sieve chromatography; Blue Sepharose affinity chromatography; and finally anion-exchange high-pressure liquid chromatography. The enriched OSN isolates showed dose-response antigenicity when tested in LAI assay with leukocytes from lung cancer patients but had no antigenicity with leukocytes from control subjects or patients having malignant melanoma, colon cancer, or pancreatic cancer. Cross-reactive antigenicity was observed with leukocytes from patients with breast cancer and slight reactivity with leukocytes from bladder cancer patients. The final isolate from the four-step separation procedure as well as the isolates produced using additional separation techniques consistently had antigenicity at less than 10 ng in blocking LAI and 500 ng in the direct assay and showed components with molecular weights of about 62,000 +/- 3,000 (SD) (p62), 40,000 +/- 3,000 (p40), and 25,000 +/- 1,000 (p25) by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The OSN isolates on two-dimensional gels showed p40 to have microheterogeneity (seven spots), with a pl from 6.2 to 7.6, and p62 and p25 as even more basic streaks. The polypeptide bearing the antigenic determinant was not purified, although we tried to separate p62, p40, and p25 to determine whether they carried the OSN determinant. The results of this study are important in showing that an isolate of an organ-specific tumor antigen containing 5 to 13 components, as determined by highly sensitive silver stains and radiolabeled patterns on single and two-dimensional gels, can be used successfully in LAI to measure tumor immune responses.