The association between the disruption of motor imagery and the number of depressive episodes of major depression.

BACKGROUND: Mental rotation performance may be used as an index of mental slowing or bradyphrenia, and may reflect, in particular, speed of motor preparation. Previous studies suggest depressive patients present the correlates of impaired behavioural performance for mental rotation and psychomotor disturbance. The aim of this study is to compare the mental rotation abilities of patients with a first episode of depression, recurrent depression and healthy control subjects with regard to hand tasks. METHODS: We tested 32 first episode of depression, 38 recurrent depression and 36 healthy control subjects by evaluating the performance of depressed patients with regard to the hand mental rotation tasks. RESULTS: First, the first episode and recurrent depression subjects were significantly slower and made more errors than controls in mentally rotating hands. Second, the first depressive episode but not the recurrent depression displayed the same pattern of response times to stimuli at various orientations relative to control subjects in the hand task. Third, in particular, recurrent depression subjects were significantly slower and made more errors during the mental transformation of hands than first depressive episode relative to control subjects and the differences were significantly larger in female than male subjects in the mental rotation hand task. LIMITATIONS: Patients were on antidepressant medication. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the impaired behavioural performance for mental representation processing are related to the number of previous episodes. Moreover, the recurrent major depressive episodes may contribute to the reinforcement of cognitive impairments and further the development or maintenance of mental representation dysfunctions, especially in female patients. A deficit on mental rotation in the depressive patients may be potential biomarkers for recurrence chronically.

[Application of two parallel Kirschner wires in internal fixation for digital replantation: experience with 14 cases].

OBJECTIVE: To improve the method for internal fixation in digital replantation. METHOD: In 14 cases of finger fractures (17 fingers) admitted in our hospital between October, 2000 and March, 2003, intramedullary fixation was performed with two-parallel Kirschner wires, and the effects were compared with those of other internal fixations in cases treated within the same period. RESULT: All the digital fractures healed and none of the 10 patients followed up suffered nonunion or delayed healing. The average healing time of the fractures was 5 weeks, and the joint function recovered satisfactorily. CONCLUSION: Internal fixation with two parallel Kirschner wires can achieve more reliable fixation to promote the healing of the bone fractures.