The Zika Virus: An Association to Guillain-Barré Syndrome in the United States - A Case Report.

Case of a 37 year-old Puerto Rican male with no past medical history who was admitted to the hospital after developing paresthesia in the upper and lower extremities with associated skin rash, weakness, and dysautonomia. After rigorous analysis of the clinical patterns, neurologic manifestations, laboratory workups, CSF analysis, and nerve conduction studies we conclude the existence of a strong relationship between the Zika virus and the Guillain-Barré syndrome. The patient recovered promptly and his response to treatment was excellent.

Case Report of IgM Multiple Myeloma: Diagnosing a Rare Hematologic Entity.

IgM multiple myeloma is an exceedingly rare hematologic entity comprising only less than 0.5% of multiple myeloma cases. Given the rarity of this disorder, it makes it a challenge to differentiate from other more prevalent hematologic disorders like Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia. These 2 diseases have the common finding of an IgM monoclonal gammopathy and distinguishing between these 2 diagnoses is of great importance given that therapy and prognosis differ significantly. This report illustrates the case of a 64-year-old man who presented with IgM lambda monoclonal gammopathy in whom signs, symptoms, laboratories, and imaging were initially thought to be consistent with Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia. Upon further analysis, which included bone marrow biopsy, flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, fluorescence in situ hybridization, and MYD88 (L265P) gene mutation analysis, the rare diagnosis of IgM multiple myeloma was confirmed. As highlighted by this patient's case, reaching the diagnosis of IgM multiple myeloma can be a difficult task which requires a high index of suspicion and accurate diagnostic methods. By using the approach detailed in this report, more cases of IgM multiple myeloma can be diagnosed early, which in turn may lead to earlier treatment and better outcomes.

Sesgos cognitivos en el reconocimiento de expresiones emocionales de voz sintética en la alexitimia / Cognitive biases in the recognition of synthetic emotional speech in alexithymia

En este trabajo investigamos la existencia de sesgos cognitivos en el reconocimiento de expresiones vocales emocionales, generadas usando procedimientos de conversión texto a voz por síntesis de formantes, en relación a la capacidad para procesar estímulos emocionales en la alexitimia, con el objeto de valorar si ésta refleja un déficit en el procesamiento emocional. Sometimos a un grupo formado por 162 sujetos a diversos estímulos en los que debían identificar la emoción (neutra, alegre, triste, airada) que expresaba el hablante. El análisis de las matrices de confusión de los resultados mostraron que los sujetos con altos niveles de alexitimia reconocían significativamente menos expresiones emocionales que quienes tenían bajos niveles de alexitimia durante la primera mitad del experimento. Estos resultados sugieren que los alexitímicos son menos hábiles para reconocer estímulos vocales emocionales, además proveen de validez al constructo de alexitimia (AU)

In this article, we research the cognitive biases in the recognition of synthetic emotional speech generated using formant-based text-to-speech conversion, related to emotion processing capacities in alexithymia, in order to assess that alexithymia reflects a deficit in the ability to process emotional stimuli. The different recordings of the stimuli were presented to the each listener (162 undergraduate students), and he/she had to identify the emotion. It was possible to choose among neutral, happy, sad, angry and unidentified. Operating on these results, we have obtained the confusion matrices of the identified emotions. Results show that the subjects categorized as alexithymics recognize significantly less emotional expressions that the subjects with low levels of alexithymia in the first half of the experiment. These findings suggest that alexithymics were less able to recognize emotional stimuli. Also these findings provide further support for the validity of the alexithymia construct (AU)