Antinociceptive effect from Davilla elliptica hydroalcoholic extract.

Davilla elliptica St Hill (Dilleniaceae) is widely used for multiple purposes in Brazil. The aim of this study was to verify the pharmacological support of this folk use and evaluate its use as antinociceptive. The hydroalcoholic extract of the stems (100-1000 mg/kg, p.o.) induced reduction of response in the formalin test inflammatory phase in mice. This antinociceptive effect does not involve the opioidergic pathway since it was not reverted by pre-treatment with naloxone nor due to myorelaxant activity since it did not affect rota-rod and tail-flick performance. Our results indicate a participation of the nitrergic pathway and may be of particular potential importance in clinical medicine, in view of the current interest in the assessment of new medicines originated from plants.

[Intracranial arteriovenous malformations and radiosurgery with LINAC: review article]. / Malformaciones arteriovenosas intracraneales y radiocirugía con LINAC: artículo de revisión.

Among all vascular malformations, the intracranial arteriovenous malformations (AVM's) have the most powerful impact from the clinical point of view. The manifestations include hemorrhage, seizures, headacheh, but sometimes they are incidentally found during the diagnostic approach of patients with head trauma or chronic headache. There are three different types of treatments: microsurgery, endovascular treatment and radiosurgery. The actual role of the endovascular treatment is as an adjuvant therapy before microsurgery or radiosurgery just to diminish the nidus size. The goal of all treatments is complete nidus obliteration without causing a new neurological deficit. The overall obliteration index with LINAC based radiosurgery is about 80% and the result is dose, volume and time dependent. The mean dose reported in the literature fluctuates between 15 and 25 Gy, and the isodose coverage curve for the AVM with LINAC is generally the one of the 80%. There can be a treatment failure defined as the necessity to retreat the patient after three years from the first radiosurgical treatment in about 26% of the patients. There is a lack of evidence, principally from randomized trials, to point out the role of each of the modalities in the treatment of the AVM.

Malformaciones arteriovenosas intracraneales y radiocirugía con LINAC: artículo de revisión / Intracranial arteriovenous malformations and radiosurgery with LINAC: review article

De las malformaciones vasculares, las malformaciones arteriovenosas (MAV) intracraneales son las que tienen una mayor repercusión desde el punto de vista clínico. Se pueden manifestar con hemorragia, epilepsia, cefalea, o pueden aparecer en forma incidental durante el abordaje diagnóstico de pacientes con traumatismos o cefalea crónica. Existen tres tipos de tratamientos disponibles: microcirugía, embolización y radiocirugía. El papel actual de la terapia endovasculares como adyuvante como tratamiento previo a microcirugía o a radiocirugía para disminuir el tamaño del nido. La meta final de cualquier tratamiento es la obliteración completa del nido sin causar un nuevo déficit neurológico. El índice general de obliteración por radiocirugía con LINAC es alrededor de 80% yes dependiente de la dosis, del volumen y del tiempo de seguimiento. La dosis promedio publicada en la literatura va de 15 a 25 Gy y la curva de isodosis para conformar la MAV con LINAC es por lo general la del 80%. Puede haber fallo en el tratamiento definido como la necesidad de volver a tratar al paciente después de n tres años de seguimiento por falta de obliteración en alrededor del 26% de los pacientes. Faltan pruebas principalmente a partir de ensayos clínicos, para seguir definiendo el papel de cada una delas modalidades en el tratamiento integral de las MAV

Among all vascular malformations, the intracranial arterio venous malformations (AVM's) have the most powerful impact from the clinical point of view. The manifestations include hemorrhage, seizures, headache, but sometimes they are incidentally found during the diagnostic approach of patients with head trauma or chronic headache. There are three different types of treatments: microsurgery, endovascular treatment and radiosurgery. The actual role of the endovascular treatment is as an adjuvant therapy before microsurgery or radiosurgery just to diminish the nidus size. The goal of all treatments is complete nidus obliteration without causing a new neurological deficit. The overall obliteration index with LINAC based radiosurgery is about 80% and the result is dose, volume and time dependent. The mean dose reported in the literature fluctuates between15 and 25 Gy, and the is dose coverage curve for the AVM with LINAC is generally the one of the 80%.There can be a treatment failure defined as the necessity to retreat the patient after three years from the first radio surgical treatment in about 26% of the patients. There is a lack of evidence, principally from randomized trials, to point out the role of each of the modalities in the treatment of the AVM

The flip side of perception-action coupling: locomotor experience and the ontogeny of visual-postural coupling.

The possible role of motor development on psychological function is once again a topic of great theoretical and practical importance. The revival of this issue has stemmed from a different approach to the topic, away from Gesell's interest in the long-term prediction of psychological functions from early motoric assessments, toward an attempt to understand how the acquisition of motor skills orchestrates psychological changes. This paper describes how the acquisition of one motor skill, prone locomotion, has been linked to developmental changes in an infant's ability to regulate posture based on information available in patterns of optic flow. It is argued that the onset of prone locomotion presses the infant to differentiate spatially delimited regions of optic flow to effectively and efficiently control the important subtasks nested within the larger task of locomotion, namely, steering, attending to the surface of support, and maintaining postural control. Following this argument, a research program is described that aims to determine if locomotor experience is causally linked to improvements in the ability to functionalize peripheral optic flow for postural control or whether locomotor experience is merely a maturational forecaster of such improvements. Finally, a hypothesis is put forward that links the emergence of wariness of heights to infants' ability to regulate posture on the basis of peripheral optic flow. The paper's overarching theoretical point is the principle of probabilistic epigenesis, which states that one developmental acquisition produces experiences that bring about a host of new developmental changes in the same and different domains.

[Results of an education program for adult asthmatics]. / Resultados de un programa educativo para adultos asmáticos.

Bronchial asthma is a chronically disease with huge social economical consequences. Educational programs, which have been design for asthmatic patients and diminish asthma mobility and reduce medical cost. They also improve the patients quality of life. We show the results of our educational programs for asthmatic adults which were evaluated through a questionnaire applied to these patient one year after the program was introduced. The results show decreased of medicine required asthmatic crisis.

[Radiological findings in patients with perennial allergic rhinitis]. / Hallazgos radiológicos en pacientes con rinitis alérgica perenne.

BACKGROUND: Rhinitis is clinically defined by obstruction, sneezing, pruritus and rhinorrhea. MATERIAL AND METHOD: There were studied 69 consecutive patients, from clinical immunology and allergy service of Hospital de Especialidades del Centro Medico Nacional Siglo XXI. RESULTS: 53 of them were women and 16 were men, all of them with ages between 15 and 55 years. They all had perennial allergic rhinitis, 50.7% of them had atopy, 47.8%, asthma as an added disease, 27.5%, nasal polyposis and 44.9%, sinusitis, in maxillary sinus 59.9%, in ethmoid 36.2% in 7.2% frontal. With septal deviation 33.3%, in 7.2% septal deviation with spur, obstruction of the osteomeatal complex in 4.3%, turbinate hypertrophy in 53.5%, polyps in 27.5% and bullous conchae in 7.2%. The diagnosis was performed by axial computerized tomography of paranasal sinuses. The chi square determined the association between structural alterations and the presence of sinusitis, with p = 0.001, with close relation between allergic rhinitis and sinusitis. CONCLUSIONS: Diagnosis and appropriate treatment proved to be very important in handling this disease.

Genetic analyses of focal aspects of infant temperament.

The authors explored the genetic and environmental underpinnings of individual differences in temperament with a sample of 604 3- to 16-month-old infant twins and their parents. Mothers completed Rothbart's Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ), and a subsample of 140 9-month-old twins participated in behavioral assessment of temperament in the laboratory as well. For IBQ Smiling and Laughter and Duration of Orienting, both additive genetic and shared environmental effects were needed to best represent the data. Shared environmental effects fully accounted for cotwin similarity for IBQ Soothability, and conversely, additive genetic effects fully accounted for cotwin similarity for the IBQ Distress to Limitations, Distress to Novelty, and Activity Level scales. With the subsample, the authors fit a multivariate model to mother report, father report, and lab measures of stranger distress and found that genetic influences were most important for the covariation among these measures.

Affective reorganization in the infant, the mother, and the dyad: the role of upright locomotion and its timing.

Clinical theory is replete with rich observations that the onset of walking engenders an enhancement of emotional expression in the infant. Yet, no empirical research exists on this subject. Moreover, the importance of normal timing variations in the onset of developmental transitions has not been a topic of investigation in most developmental research. In this naturalistic home study, "earlier" and "later" walking groups were delineated on the basis of timing of entry into this developmental transition. Age-held constant analyses indicated that earlier walkers and their mothers generally showed a rise in positive exchanges as well as "testing of wills" across the transition to walking. These changes were less clear for the later walkers. Differences were observed also between the two groups even prior to walking. These findings suggest that future studies should take account of timing variations in the onset of a developmental transition.

The structure of temperamental fear and pleasure in infants: a psychometric perspective.

Despite the prominence of temperament constructs in the study of infant development, little evidence exists about the internal structure of temperament. We assessed temperament both via questionnaire and in repeated laboratory visits for 168 9-month-old twins and singletons. Mothers' and fathers' agreement on temperament questionnaire scales was low, except for scales tapping negative emotionality and activity level. The factor structure of mothers' and fathers' questionnaire scales also differed, with fathers tending to associate higher motoric activity with hedonically positive behaviors. We measured fearfulness during 2 visual cliff episodes and a stranger approach, and we measured joy/pleasure during a series of 4 games. For both fearfulness and pleasure we found moderate cross-situation generality, short-term stability, and convergence with specific temperament questionnaire scales. Parameters of response, such as latency, duration, and intensity, intercorrelated within--but not across--response types. Fearful distress and avoidance proved to be uncorrelated. The results suggest that the component behaviors of infant fearfulness and pleasure are structured in a fashion consistent with a temperamental interpretation.

Locomotor experience: a facilitator of spatial cognitive development.

2 studies were designed to test the prediction that spatial search strategies (i.e., "object permanence") may be influenced by locomotor experience. Infants were assigned to 3 groups based on locomotor history: prelocomotor, prelocomotor with walker-assisted experience, and hands-and-knees creeping. Infants in all groups were 8.5 months of age. Results showed that hands-and-knees and walker-assisted locomotor experience facilitated spatial search performance. The longer that infants had been moving, the higher their scores. Furthermore, there were no differences between the hands-and-knees and prelocomotor/walker-assisted groups, suggesting that the relation between locomotor experience and spatial search performance was not merely a function of the maturation of prone progression. A third study found that the quality of locomotion affected object permanence performance: Belly crawlers performed differently than infants with hands-and-knees or walker experience, insofar as they performed at prelocomotor levels regardless of weeks of locomotor experience. Taken together, the pattern of findings suggests that infants with more efficient modes of locomotion are more likely to profit from the experiences generated by locomotion.

New directions in the study of early experience.

In this commentary, we review Greenough, Black, and Wallace's conceptual framework for understanding the effects of early experience, and illustrate the applicability of their model with recent data on the consequences for animals and human infants of the acquisition of self-produced locomotion.

A new perspective on emotions.

This paper reviews the recent history of the study of human emotions in psychology and traces the factors that have been responsible for a remarkable increase of interest in emotions, especially in human development. In particular, it traces the rise of the study of emotions as regulators of human behavior. A particularly clear and powerful illustration of the regulatory role of emotional expressions on behavior is the phenomenon of social referencing. This concept deals with the use of emotional information in another's facial, vocal or gestural expression to clarify uncertain situations. Research on social referencing is reviewed, showing the importance of social referencing with infants as young as 8.5 months. The clinical implications of the concept are briefly explored.