Efficacy Of Prophylactic Intrawound Application Of Vancomycin Powder In Preventing Surgical Site Infections In Spinal Instrumentation Surgery.

BACKGROUND: Surgical site infection (SSI) is always a matter of utmost concern in cases of spinal instrumentation in low-income countries. This study was conducted to determine the efficacy of local intrawound application of vancomycin powder in reducing postoperative SSI following Thoracolumbar-Sacral spinal instrumentation. METHODS: This randomized controlled trial was done in the Department of Neurosurgery, Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad from 1st July 2019 to 31st December 2021. Seventy-eight patients of either gender with an age range from 15 to 65 years, who were planned for posterior spinal instrumentation surgery (transpedicular screw fixation), were included in the study. Patients were divided into two equal groups, A (Vanco group) and B (control group). In addition to standard systemic prophylaxis, 1 gm of Vancomycin powder was applied over the implant in Group A patients. RESULTS: The mean age of the patients in Group A was 36±16.6 while the mean age of patients in the group was 33.7±15.9 years. A statistically significant reduction of surgical site infection was observed in those who received a prophylactic intra-wound application of vancomycin powder (Vanco group) (5.2%) compared to the control group (20.5%). CONCLUSIONS: Intrawound vancomycin powder administration significantly decreases SSI following spinal instrumentation surgeries. Patients at high risk of infection are highly recommended as a candidate for this technique.

Frequency Of Primigravida In Patients With Eclampsia.

BACKGROUND: Pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) occurs in about 5% of pregnancies and is a major cause of high perinatal and maternal morbidity and mortality. In several international studies, primigravidas were associated with a significantly higher incidence of eclampsia. The local studies so far have a small sample size and mainly focus on preeclampsia in all pregnant women. limited data is available on the frequency of eclampsia in primigravidas in our population. This study aims to determine the frequency of primigravidas in patients with eclampsia after 20 weeks of gestation. METHODS: This descriptive Cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad from 7/10/2020 to 7/4/2021. A total of 134 patients were observed. Diagnosis of eclampsia was based upon obstetrical history, presence of fits or coma, raised blood pressure and presence of proteinuria on urine complete examination. Immediate management included stabilizing the patient and delivery by Induction of labour or Caesarean section. The guardians of the patients explained the purpose and the benefits of the study and informed written consent was taken. RESULTS: : Our study shows that among 134 patients, 96 (72%) patients were in the age range of 18-27 years while 38 (28%) patients were in the age range of 28-35 years. The mean age was 30 years with SD±10.94. Eighty two (61%) patients had a POG range ≤34 weeks while 52 (39%) patients had a POG range >34 weeks. Forty-eight (36%) patients had BMI <27 Kg/m2 while 86 (64%) patients had BMI >27 Kg/m2. Fifty-six (42%) patients had a positive history of hypertension while 78(58%) patients had a negative history of hypertension. Out of 134 patients, 102(76%) were primigravidas while 32 (24%) were multigravidas. CONCLUSIONS: Our study concludes that the frequency of primigravidas was 76% in patients with eclampsia after 20 weeks of gestation presenting at tertiary care hospital Abbottabad.

Mortality And Prognostic Factors In Patients Operated For Acute Epidural Hematoma.

Background: Epidural hematoma is one of the most common surgical emergencies encountered in neurosurgery. This study was conducted to determine the mortality and prognostic factors in patients operated for traumatic intracranial epidural hematoma in a resource-constrained setting from a developing country. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted in the Department of Neurosurgery at Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad from 1st January 2019 to 31st Dec 2021. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were created. The medical record of 116 patients admitted and operated on for traumatic extradural hematoma was retrospectively reviewed. Information was recorded using a standardized structured questionnaire. The outcome was measured in terms of the Glasgow coma outcome score. Results: Out of 116 patients, 93 were male and 23 were female.19 (16.4%) patients were in the age range 0-5 years, 42 (36.2%) were in the age range 6-15, 35(31.0%) were in the age range 16-30, 11 (9.5%) were in the age range 31-45 years, 7 (6.0%) were in the age range 46-60 years while only one patient included in this study was above 60 years. Overall mortality was 4.3%. Mortality was higher in females and in those aged less than 5 years (3.4%). 4 out of 16 patients died with GCS less than 8, while none of the patients died when GCS was above 12. Mortality was significantly higher in the presence of associated lesions (4.4% vs. 0%) and anisocoria (2.6% vs.1.7%). Patients who operated within 6 hours of trauma resulted in better outcomes with a mortality rate of 0.0% and functional recovery of 57.8 % while for those who operated after 6 hours, mortality was significantly higher (4.3%) and functional recovery was significantly low (15.5%). Conclusion: Good surgical outcomes can be achieved with early operative intervention if indicated. Female gender, low preoperative GCS score, presence of pupillary dilatation, presence of associated lesions, delayed surgical intervention and age less than 5 years are significant predictors for poor outcomes.

Impact of musculoskeletal disorders on quality of life of patients visiting tertiary care hospital.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the impact of musculoskeletal disorders on patients' quality of life. METHODS: The cross-sectional study was conducted at the Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar, Pakistan, from September 2018 to March 2019, and comprised patients of either gender having a variety of musculoskeletal disorders. Data was collected using a validated EuroQol-5-Dimension-3-Level scale. Data was analysed using SPSS 20. RESULTS: Of the 377 participants, 204(54.1%) were males, and 173(45.9%) were females. The overall mean age was 35.9±12.5 years. Muscular weakness was the most commonly encountered problem 153(40.6%), followed by muscle stiffness 49(13.0%) and adhesive capsulitis 39(10.3%). Patients with musculoskeletal disorders had moderately good 'health state today' score of 56.03±20.175 on VAS. CONCLUSION: Musculoskeletal disorders were found to have a negative impact on quality of life and health status of the patients.

Level Of Pre-Tertiary Care Hospital Management Of Traumatic Spinal Cord Injured Patients; Where Do We Stand?

BACKGROUND: Traumatic spinal cord injury is a debilitating condition that may cause long term disabilities with tremendous socioeconomic impact on affected individuals and their families. Secondary injuries can best prevent or minimized by appropriate pre hospital management and proper referral and transfer. This study was conducted to assess the clinical profile of traumatic spinal cord injuries and level of pre-hospital care provided to patients either at the site of injury or at other healthcare facilities. METHODS: This prospective study was conducted in the Department of Neurosurgery Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad, from January 2012 to January 2017. All patients with suspected spinal injury were included in the study. Age, gender, mode of injuries and the pre-tertiary care provided were recorded. RESULTS: Out of 4464 patients with suspected spinal cord injury, 3685 (82.5%) were male, 779 (17.4%) were female. Age ranged from 10-70 years. 1685 (37.8%) were diagnosed as having spinal injury. Cervical spine was the most common affected level 743 (44.09%), followed by thoracic spine 135 (8.01%). 1441 (85.5%) were incomplete while 224(14.5%) were complete spinal cord injuries. Road traffic accident was the most common mechanism of injury 884 (52.4%). Only 4 (0.23%) patients directly received in our unit were properly transported, 66 (3.91%) were brought after proper spinal immobilization, intravenous line was maintained in 584 (34.66%) patients, 410 (24.3%) patients received some fluid resuscitation, parenteral analgesia was given to 441 (26.17%) patients while urinary catheterization was done in 195 (11.75%) patients. Those received from other healthcare facilities only 4 (0.23%) were brought by properly equipped ambulance, intravenous access was maintained in 438 (25.99%),320 (18.99%) received some fluid resuscitation, urinary catheterization was done in 229(13.59%) while proper parenteral analgesia was given to 988 (58.63%) patients. CONCLUSIONS: There is a complete lack of proper transport and referral of trauma patients in our area which reflects almost non-existent emergency medical (rescue) services, deficient health care facilities.

Intradiploic Epidermoid Cyst Of The Skull.

Intradiploic epidermoid cyst is an uncommon, benign, slow growing neoplasm that occurs between two tables of cranial bones and constitute 0.4% of all cranial epidermoid. It usually occurs due to the entrapped ectodermal embyronal remnants within the skull bones or rarely secondary to trauma. Pre-operative diagnosis on the basis of radiologic investigations is difficult. Complete surgically excision is usually required in order to prevent complications like super infection, intracranial rupture with pneumocephalus and rarely malignant degeneration. We are presenting a case of incompletely resected and chronically infected intradiploic epidermoid cyst of right parietal bone operated inadvertently by a general surgeon elsewhere without doing any radiological investigations.

Growth and dry matter partitioning response in cereal-legume intercropping under full and limited irrigation regimes.

The dry matter partitioning is the product of the flow of assimilates from the source organs (leaves and stems) along the transport route to the storage organs (grains). A 2-year field experiment was conducted at the agronomy research farm of the University of Agriculture Peshawar, Pakistan during 2015-2016 (Y1) to 2016-2017 (Y2) having semiarid climate. Four summer crops, pearl millet (Pennisetum typhoidum L.), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) and mungbean (Vigna radiata L.) and pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L.) and four winter crops, wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), fababean (Vicia faba) and rapeseed (Brassica napus) were grown under two irrigation regimes (full vs. limited irrigation) with the pattern of growing each crop either alone as sole crop or in combination of two crops in each intercropping system under both winter and summer seasons. The result showed that under full irrigated condition (no water stress), all crops had higher crop growth rate (CGR), leaf dry weight (LDW), stem dry weight (SDW), and spike/head dry weight (S/H/PDW) at both anthesis and physiological maturity (PM) than limited irrigated condition (water stress). In winter crops, both wheat and barley grown as sole crop or intercropped with fababean produced maximum CGR, LDW, SDW, S/H/PDW than other intercrops. Among summer crops, sorghum intercropped either with pigeon pea or with mungbean produced maximum CGR, LDW, SDW, and S/H/PDW at both growth stages. Sole mungbean and pigeon pea or pigeon pea and mungbean intercropping had higher CGR, LDW, SDW, S/H/PDW than millet and sorghum intercropping. On the other hand, wheat and barley grown as sole crops or intercropped with fababean produced maximum CGR, LDW, SDW, and S/H/PDW than other intercrops. Fababean grown as sole crop or intercropped with wheat produced higher CGR, LDW, SDW, and S/H/PDW at PM than intercropped with barley or rapeseed. From the results it was concluded that cereal plus legume intercropping particularly wheat/fababean in winter and sorghum/pigeon pea or sorgum/mungbean in summer are the most productive intercropping systems under both low and high moisture regimes.

Petra/Osiris/Molinspiration and Molecular Docking Analyses of 3-Hydroxy-Indolin-2-one Derivatives as Potential Antiviral Agents.

BACKGROUND: Studies on the interaction between bioactive molecules and HIV-1 virus have been the focus of recent research in the scope of medicinal chemistry and pharmacology. OBJECTIVE: Investigating the structural parameters and physico-chemical properties of elucidating and identifying the antiviral pharmacophore sites. METHODS: A mixed computational Petra/Osiris/Molinspiration/DFT (POM/DFT) based model has been developed for the identification of physico-chemical parameters governing the bioactivity of 22 3-hydroxy-indolin-2-one derivatives of diacetyl-L-tartaric acid and aromatic amines containing combined antiviral/antitumor/antibacterial pharmacophore sites. Molecular docking study was carried out with HIV-1 integrase (pdb ID: 5KGX) in order to provide information about interactions in the binding site of the enzyme. RESULTS: The POM analyses of physico-chemical properties and geometrical parameters of compounds 3a-5j, show that they are bearing a two combined (O,O)-pockets leading to a special platform which is able to coordinate two transition metals. The increased activity of series 3a-5j, as compared to standard drugs, contains (Osp2,O sp3,O sp2)-pharmacophore site. The increase in bioactivity from 4b (R1, R2 = H, H) to 3d (R1, R2 = 4-Br, 2-OCH3) could be attributed to the existence of π-charge transfer from para-bromo-phenyl to its amid group (COδ---NHδ+). Similar to the indole-based reference ligand (pdb: 7SK), compound 3d forms hydrogen bonding interactions between the residues Glu170, Thr174 and His171 of HIV-1 integrase in the catalytic core domain of the enzyme. CONCLUSION: Study confirmed the importance of oxygen atoms, especially from the methoxy group of the phenyl ring, and electrophilic amide nitrogen atom for the formation of interactions.

Review on Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles through Plants.

Nature has the potential to reduce metal salts to their relative nanoparticles. Traditionally, physical and chemical methods were used for the synthesis of nanoparticles but due to the use of toxic chemicals, non-ecofriendly methods and other harmful effects, green chemistry approaches are now employed for synthesizing nanoparticles which are basically the most cost effective, ecofriendly and non-hazardous methods. In this review, we aimed to evaluate and study the details of various mechanisms used for green synthesis of silver nanoparticles from plants, their size, shape and potential applications. A total of 150 articles comprising both research and review articles from 2009 to 2019 were selected and studied in detail to get in-depth knowledge about the synthesis of silver nanoparticles specifically through green chemistry approaches. Silver ions and their salts are well known for their antimicrobial properties and have been used in various medical and non-medical applications since the emergence of human civilization. Miscellaneous attempts have been made to synthesize nanoparticles using plants and such nanoparticles are more efficient and beneficial in terms of their antibacterial, antifungal, antioxidant, anti-biofilm and cytotoxic activities than nanoparticles synthesized through physical and chemical processes. Silver nanoparticles have been studied as an important research area due to their specific and tunable properties and their application in the field of biomedicine such as tissue and tumor imaging and drug delivery. These nanoparticles can be further investigated to find out their antimicrobial potential in cell lines and animal models.

Medicinal Applications of Cannabinoids Extracted from Cannabis sativa (L.): A New Route in the Fight Against COVID-19?

Cannabis sativa is a well-known plant that has been recognized for its benefits since ancient times by several medicinal systems, including those of China, India, Greece, and Egypt. Although C. sativa is one of the most investigated medicinal plants in the world, it faces some of the greatest controversies surrounding its legalization and use as a medication. C. sativa contains several hundred phytoconstituents, including the infamous "cannabinoids". It is necessary to properly understand the medicinal importance of these phytochemicals and spread awareness among the countries where cannabis is still facing legal obstacles. The current review focuses on the most recent literature pertaining to various applications of cannabinoids, with a special focus on the medicinal aspect of these phytochemicals. Peer-reviewed articles focusing on the importance of cannabis and cannabinoids are the target of this review. Articles were selected based on the relevance to the general scope of the work, i.e., application of cannabinoids. Cannabinoids can truly be regarded as wonder drugs, considering their immense diversity of usage. Unfortunately, however, many of the mares have never been researched biologically or pharmacologically due to their low yield in the plant. However, the approval of some cannabinoids by the FDA (along with other recognized national medical health systems) has opened the horizon for the use of these natural drugs in medicines such as Epidiolex® (cannabidiol, used for the treatment of severe forms of epilepsy) and Sativex®(Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, used for the treatment of spasticity caused by multiple sclerosis). Many pharmacological properties of C. sativa are attributed to cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive component, along with Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC), a psychoactive component. This review addresses the most important applications or current utilization of cannabinoids in a variety of treatments such as chronic pain, cancer, emesis, anorexia, irritable bowel syndrome, communicable diseases, glaucoma, and central nervous system disorders. The biosynthetic pathway of cannabinoids is also discussed. In short, cannabis has a myriad of bioactive compounds that have the potential to increase the list of approved cannabinoids suitable for therapy.

Fahr's Disease In A Patient Presenting With Status Epilepticus.

Fahr's disease is a rare disease in which there is symmetrical bilateral intracranial calcification. We are presenting a 50-year-old female patient who presented with status epilepticus. She had history of generalized tonic clonic fits for the last fifteen years. Her CT scan revealed widespread bilateral and symmetrical intracranial calcification in cerebellum, thalamus, basal ganglia and in white matter of the cerebral hemisphere Most of the secondary causes were ruled out to make the clinical diagnosis of Fahr's disease.

Influence of irrigation regimes on competition indexes of winter and summer intercropping system under semi-arid regions of Pakistan.

An assessment of the competitive indexes in intercropping of different winter and summer based intercropping systems were studied, with the aim of increasing the productivity of these crops. Four winter crops, wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), fababean (Vicia faba) and rapeseed (Brassica napus) and four summer crops, sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.), pearl millet (Pennisetum typhoidum L.), pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L.) and mungbean (Vigna radiate L.) were grown under two irrigation regimes with the pattern of two crops in each intercropping system, at Agronomy Research Farm, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Pakistan in both winter and summer season during 2015-16 to 2016-17. The results showed that higher grain yield (kg ha-1) were recorded under sole cropping than intercropping. Higher grain yield was recorded in sole cropping, for all four crops. All crops grown in intercropping produced comparatively higher grains head-1 and seeds pod-1 than sole crop except pigeonpea. Intercropping systems were performed different in term of competition indexes which determined land utilization efficiency. Competition indexes revealed that in winter season wheat intercropped with fababean showed highest advantages of intercropping in term of land equivalent ratio (30%), relative crowding co-efficient (60%), actual yield loss (60%), area time equivalent ratio (27%), land utilization efficiency (83%), intercropping advantages (1060), monetary advantage index (Pakistani rupees (PKR) 46456) and system productivity index (3684) while in summer sorghum/pearl millet intercropped with pigeonpea was the most dominant intercropping systems in term of relative  crowding co-Efficient (40%), actual yield loss (50%), land utilization efficiency (60%) intercropping advantages (1150) and system productivity index (1914). Aggressivity and competition ratio showed that cereals especially barley in winter and sorghum in summer season was highly competitive crops in the intercropping system. Most of the competition indexes values were higher for winter crops under limited irrigated condition while in case of summer crops intercropping indexes were higher under full irrigated condition. It was concluded that wheat intercropped with fababean, and sorghum/millet intercropped with mung bean was the most successful intercropping systems in winter and summer seasons, respectively under both irrigation regimes, for the semiarid region of Pakistan.

Surgical Outcome Of Intradural Spinal Tumours.

BACKGROUND: This study was conducted to determine the short-term outcome of surgical procedure in patients having spinal intradural tumours. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted from 26 April 2016 to 25 March 2019 on 56 patients after approval from hospitals ethical and research committee. MRI spine were studied in detail for all patients to know about the site, size, shape, extent and nature of the tumour. History, examination, pre-operative MRI findings, post-operative findings were documented in patient's pro forma. Short term as well as long term post-operative results were documented after surgery, during stay at hospital and followup visits till 6 months. RESULTS: In this study, 56 patients with spinal intradural tumours were observed. Male to female ratio was 1.33:1. Age ranged from 5-65 years (32.5±14.6). Paraparesis, hypesthesia, sphincter dysfunction were the presenting symptoms in most of the patients. 47% (21) patients improved according to MRC Grading system 46% (20) patients remained static 7% (3) patients deteriorated. Wound infection was found in 7 (12.5%) patients, followed by Neurological Deficit in 5 (8.9%) cases, Meningitis was found in 2 (3.57%), CSF leak was noted in 4 (7.14%) patients and mortality in 1 (1.7%) of the case. CONCLUSIONS: Surgery of the intradural spinal tumours carry good neurological outcome with acceptable complication rates.

Effectiveness of manual therapy to the cervical spine with and without manual therapy to the upper thoracic spine in the management of non-specific neck pain; a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the effectiveness of manual therapy to the cervical spine with and without manual therapy to the upper thoracic spine in the management of non-specific neck pain. METHODS: The randomized controlled trial was conducted at 3 different hospitals in Peshawar, Pakistan, from October 2016 to January 2017, and comprised patients suffering from non-specific neck pain aged 25-60 years. The control group received cervical manual therapy alone while the experimental group received cervical along with thoracic manual therapy for 2 weeks. Data was analysed using SPSS 20. RESULTS: Of the 37 subjects, 20(54%) were cases and 17(46%) were controls.The overall mean age was 35.9±9.6 years. There was no significant difference between the groups at baseline in terms of the levels of pain (p=0.125) and disability (p=0.392). The experimental group showed greater reduction in pain (p=0.02) and disability (p=0.03) compared to the control group. CONCLUSIONS: Cervical along with thoracic manual therapy reduced neck pain and associated neck disability more effectively than cervical manual therapy alone.

Subliminal Face Emotion Processing: A Comparison of Fearful and Disgusted Faces.

Prior research has provided evidence for (1) subcortical processing of subliminal facial expressions of emotion and (2) for the emotion-specificity of these processes. Here, we investigated if this is also true for the processing of the subliminal facial display of disgust. In Experiment 1, we used differently filtered masked prime faces portraying emotionally neutral or disgusted expressions presented prior to clearly visible target faces to test if the masked primes exerted an influence on target processing nonetheless. Whereas we found evidence for subliminal face congruence or priming effects, in particular, reverse priming by low spatial frequencies disgusted face primes, we did not find any support for a subcortical origin of the effect. In Experiment 2, we compared the influence of subliminal disgusted faces with that of subliminal fearful faces and demonstrated a behavioral performance difference between the two, pointing to an emotion-specific processing of the disgusted facial expressions. In both experiments, we also tested for the dependence of the subliminal emotional face processing on spatial attention - with mixed results, suggesting an attention-independence in Experiment 1 but not in Experiment 2 -, and we found perfect masking of the face primes - that is, proof of the subliminality of the prime faces. Based on our findings, we speculate that subliminal facial expressions of disgust could afford easy avoidance of these faces. This could be a unique effect of disgusted faces as compared to other emotional facial displays, at least under the conditions studied here.

A Double Dissociation between Conscious and Non-conscious Priming of Responses and Affect: Evidence for a Contribution of Misattributions to the Priming of Affect.

Studies have demonstrated conscious and non-conscious priming of responses and of affect. Concerning response priming, presenting a target-related (congruent) distractor prior to a target typically facilitates target responses. This facilitation - the response-priming effect - is observed in comparison to a less related (incongruent) distractor. An incongruent distractor would interfere with the required response to the target. This response-priming effect is found with both conscious distractors, of which participants are aware, and non-conscious distractors, of which participants are not aware. In partly related research, distractors have also yielded affective priming effects on the evaluations of task-unrelated neutral symbols that followed the target: In comparison to the congruent condition, participants evaluated a neutral symbol presented after an incongruent distractor-target sequence as more negative. This affective priming effect was sometimes ascribed to the participants' misattributions of distractor-target conflict to the unrelated neutral symbols. Here, we set out to test this possibility. If the misattribution explanation of affective priming holds true, affective priming would be stronger with non-conscious than with conscious distractors: Mostly the non-conscious distractors would mask distractor-target conflict as the true affect-origin and, therefore, invite participants' misattribution of the primed affect to the neutral symbol in temporal vicinity. In contrast, only with conscious distractors, participants would be aware of distractor-target conflict as the true affect-origin and should, therefore, be better able to attribute their affective responses to the distractor-target relationship itself. In three experiments, we confirmed this prediction of a stronger affective priming effect in non-conscious than conscious distractor conditions, while at the same time showing conscious response-priming effects to even exceed non-conscious response-priming effects. Together, these results amount to a double dissociation between affective priming, being stronger with unconscious distractors, and response priming, being stronger with conscious distractors. This double dissociation supports the misattribution explanation and makes clear that the amount of distractor-elicited response conflict alone does not account for the amount of affective priming. Moreover, the participants' unawareness of the distractors is critical for the amount of affective priming of neutral symbols in temporal vicinity.

Measuring the emotion-specificity of rapid stimulus-driven attraction of attention to fearful faces: evidence from emotion categorization and a comparison with disgusted faces.

In the current study, we tested whether a fear advantage-rapid attraction of attention to fearful faces that is more stimulus-driven than to neutral faces-is emotion specific. We used a cueing task with face cues preceding targets. Cues were non-predictive of the target locations. In two experiments, we found enhanced cueing of saccades towards the targets with fearful face cues than with neutral face cues: Saccades towards targets were more efficient with cues and targets at the same position (under valid conditions) than at opposite positions (under invalid conditions), and this cueing effect was stronger with fearful than with neutral face cues. In addition, this cueing effect difference between fearful and neutral faces was absent with inverted faces as cues, indicating that the fear advantage is face-specific. We also show that emotion categorization of the face cues mirrored these effects: Participants were better at categorizing face cues as fearful or neutral with upright than with inverted faces (Experiment 1). Finally, in alternative blocks including disgusted faces instead of fearful faces, we found more similar cueing effects with disgusted faces and neutral faces, and with upright and inverted faces (Experiment 2). Jointly, these results demonstrate that the fear advantage is emotion-specific. Results are discussed in light of evolutionary explanations of the fear advantage.

Unconscious cross-modal priming of auditory sound localization by visual words.

Little is known about the cross-modal integration of unconscious and conscious information. In the current study, we therefore tested whether the spatial meaning of an unconscious visual word, such as up, influences the perceived location of a subsequently presented auditory target. Although cross-modal integration of unconscious information is generally rare, unconscious meaning stemming from only 1 particular modality could, in principle, be available for other modalities. Also, on the basis of known influences and dependencies of meaning on sensory information processing, such an unconscious meaning-based effect could impact sensory processing in a different modality. In 3 experiments, this prediction was confirmed. We found that an unconscious spatial word, such as up, facilitated position discrimination of a spatially congruent sound (here, a sound from above) as compared to a spatially incongruent sound (here, from below). This was found even though participants did not recognize the meaning of the primes. The results show that unconscious processing extends to semantic-sensory connections between different modalities. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Simon effect of spatial words in eye movements: comparison of vertical and horizontal effects and of eye and finger responses.

Spatial stimulus location information impacts on saccades: Pro-saccades (saccades towards a stimulus location) are faster than anti-saccades (saccades away from the stimulus). This is true even when the spatial location is irrelevant for the choice of the correct response (Simon effect). The results are usually ascribed to spatial sensorimotor coupling. However, with finger responses Simon effects can be observed with irrelevant spatial word meaning, too. Here we tested whether a Simon effect of spatial word meaning in saccades could be observed for words with vertical ("above" or "below") and horizontal ("left" or "right") meanings. We asked our participants to make saccades towards one of the two saccade targets depending on the color of the centrally presented spatial word, while ignoring their spatial meaning (Experiment 1 and 2a). Results are compared to a condition in which finger responses instead of saccades were required (Experiment 2b). In addition to response latency we compared the time course of vertical and horizontal effects. We found the Simon effects due to irrelevant spatial meaning of the words in both saccades and finger responses. The time course investigations revealed different patterns for vertical and horizontal effects in saccades, indicating that distinct processes may be involved in the two types of Simon effects.

Space-valence priming with subliminal and supraliminal words.

To date it is unclear whether (1) awareness-independent non-evaluative semantic processes influence affective semantics and whether (2) awareness-independent affective semantics influence non-evaluative semantic processing. In the current study, we investigated these questions with the help of subliminal (masked) primes and visible targets in a space-valence across-category congruence effect. In line with (1), we found that subliminal space prime words influenced valence classification of supraliminal target words (Experiment 1): classifications were faster with a congruent prime (e.g., the prime "up" before the target "happy") than with an incongruent prime (e.g., the prime "up" before the target "sad"). In contrast to (2), no influence of subliminal valence primes on the classification of supraliminal space targets into up- and down-words was found (Experiment 2). Control conditions showed that standard masked response priming effects were found with both subliminal prime types, and that an across-category congruence effect was also found with supraliminal valence primes and spatial target words. The final Experiment 3 confirmed that the across-category congruence effect indeed reflected priming of target categorization of a relevant meaning category. Together, the data jointly confirmed prediction (1) that awareness-independent non-evaluative semantic priming influences valence judgments.