Granulomatous Rhinitis in a Horse due to Mycobacterium intracellulare Infection.

Mycobacterial infections in horses are uncommon, but are caused most frequently by Mycobacterium bovis of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex or Mycobacterium avium of the M. avium complex. Disease caused by Mycobacterium intracellulare, the second most common species within the M. avium complex, has not been reported in horses to date. Mycobacteriosis in horses most often presents as enteric, pulmonary or, rarely, systemic disease. Here we report a case of M. intracellulare infection in a horse presenting as a granulomatous nasal mass.

Multiple processes underlie benzodiazepine-mediated increases in the consumption of accepted and avoided stimuli.

Hyperphagia is a reported side effect of anxiolytic benzodiazepines such as chlordiazepoxide (CDP). Prior research has focused primarily on the ingestive responses to sweet or solid foods. We examined CDP effects on licking for normally accepted and avoided taste solutions across a range of concentrations. The effect of CDP (10 mg/kg) versus saline on the licking patterns of water-restricted rats for water and 3 concentrations of sucrose, saccharin, NaCl, monosodium glutamate (MSG), citric acid, and quinine (Q-HCl) solutions was evaluated during 1 h tests. CDP increased meal size for all tastants except citric acid. Analysis of licking microstructure revealed 3 dissociable effects of CDP. CDP affected oromotor coordination as indicated by a uniform increase in the modal interlick interval for all stimuli. CDP increased meal size as indicated by shorter pauses during consumption of water, MSG, and weaker saccharin concentrations, and by fewer long interlick intervals (250-2000 ms) for normally avoided tastants. CDP also increased meal size by increasing burst size, burst duration, and the initial rate of licking for most solutions, suggesting increased hedonic taste evaluation. CDP did not affect variables associated with postingestive feedback such as meal duration or number of bursts, and the results also suggest that CDP did not enhance the perceived taste intensity. We hypothesize that the reduction of pause duration is consistent with an increased motivation to sample the stimulus that synergizes with changes in taste-mediated responsiveness to some but not all stimuli to yield increases in the consumption of both normally accepted and avoided taste stimuli.

Effect of pancreatic and leukocyte elastase on hydraulic conductivity in lung interstitial segments.

Elastase-induced changes in flow were used to quantify the degradation of lung interstitial elastin. Degassed rabbit lungs were inflated with silicon rubber via airways and vessels. The lungs were cut into 1-cm-thick sections. Two chambers were bonded to each section to enclose the interstitium surrounding an arterial segment. Flow of albumin solution (0-5 g/dl) between the chambers was followed by that of the albumin solution with 0.25 g/dl pancreatic elastase solution. Driving pressure was 5 cmH(2)0, and mean interstitial pressure was either 0 or 10 cmH(2)O. Elastase caused an increase in flow in approximately 70% of the interstitial segments and a reduction in flow in the remaining segments. The elastase-induced response in flow was independent of both albumin concentration and mean interstitial pressure. Leukocyte elastase (5 units/dl) produced flow responses similar to those of 0.25 g/dl pancreatic elastase. The increased flow of leukocyte elastase was reduced by a subsequent flow with 0.25 g/dl pancreatic elastase but enhanced by a subsequent flow with a 10-fold lower concentration. A change in the order of the elastase flows reversed the concentration-dependent responses. This behavior suggests a complex interaction among the interstitial fibers after degradation by pancreatic and leukocyte elastase. Endogenous elastase-induced increases in interstitial permeability might affect blood-lymph barrier permeability, whereas elastase-induced cessation of flow might be related to the alveolar septal wall destruction observed in emphysema.

Studies of prosody perception by cochlear implant patients.

Prosodic information is conveyed to normally-hearing listeners by variations in acoustic fundamental frequency, amplitude envelope, and duration of speech segments. This study measured cochlear implant patients' sensitivity to these parameters in electrically coded speech. The psychophysical discrimination of electric parameters used to code prosodic information, were examined, together with prosody perception using speech processing strategies which modified the contributions of these parameters. Patients were implanted with the Cochlear Limited prosthesis and used the MPEAK speech processing strategy. In the psychophysical studies, difference limens were measured for steady-state and time-varying stimuli, of different pulse rates and pulse durations, over a series of different stimulus durations. These limens were obtained using an adaptive procedure which converged on the 50 per cent correct point. In the prosody perception studies, performance was measured for the MPEAK strategy and for strategies which modified the contributions of pulse rate and pulse duration. Data were collected for five tests of prosodic contrasts. Difference limens for steady-state pulse rates were larger at higher rates (17 per cent at 400 pulses/s) than at lower rates (6 per cent at 100 pulses/s). For some patients, limens for the time-varying pulse rates were larger than those for the steady-state pulse rates while for the other patients, the limens were similar. Difference limens for pulse duration were 0.3 dB, corresponding to 4 per cent of the dynamic range, for steady-state stimuli and doubled in size for the time-varying stimuli. Prosody perception performance was generally poorer for the modified strategies than for the MPEAK strategy, suggesting that the removal of information coded by pulse rate and pulse duration reduced the perception of prosodic contrasts.

Modulation detection interference in cochlear implant subjects.

The aim of this study was to determine whether detection thresholds for amplitude modulated signals on a single electrode were influenced by a masking modulation on a second electrode in cochlear implant users. Data were collected from four post-linguistically deafened subjects using the Cochlear Limited prosthesis. Investigated were the effects of the spatial separation between test and masker electrodes, 0 to 5 electrodes (0 to 3.75 mm), and the amount of masking modulation: 24%, 48%, 72%, and 96% above detection thresholds. Initially, modulation detection thresholds for stimulation on a single electrode without masking modulation were obtained for a set of six electrodes in the middle of the array. Modulation detection thresholds on a fixed test electrode were then obtained with unmodulated and modulated masking on a second electrode, which was one of the six electrodes in the initial study. In both studies, thresholds were measured for modulated pulse duration at the modulation frequencies of 10-200 Hz. In the first study, the shape of the detection thresholds as a function of modulation frequency, the temporal modulation transfer function, generally resembled a low-pass filter for two subjects. For the other two subjects, the functions were relatively flat across modulation frequencies. In the second study, unmodulated masking resulted in a small elevation in detection thresholds across electrodes. Modulation detection interference (MDI), the difference between thresholds for the modulated maskers and the unmodulated masker, was greater for larger amounts of masking modulation than for smaller amounts of masking modulation. For three of the four subjects, MDI was higher for smaller spatial separations between the two electrodes than for larger spatial separations suggesting that a portion of MDI may be due to overlap of neural excitation distributions produced by stimulation on two electrodes in close proximity on the array.

Pitch perception for different modes of stimulation using the cochlear multiple-electrode prosthesis.

Numerical estimations of pitch were obtained from nine postlinguistically deafened adults using the 22-electrode cochlear implant manufactured by Cochlear Pty. Limited. A series of electrodes on the array were stimulated using three modes of stimulation: Bipolar (BP), common ground (CG), and monopolar (MONO). In BP stimulation, an electric current was passed between two electrodes separated by one electrode for eight patients and two electrodes for one patient. In CG stimulation, a single electrode was activated and the other electrodes on the array were connected together to serve as the return path for the current. In MONO stimulation, an electric current was passed between a single electrode and the most basal electrode on the array. Pitch estimations were generally consistent with the tonotopic organization of the cochlea. There was a marked reversal in pitch for electrodes in the middle of the array using CG stimulation for three patients. A reduced range of pitch using MONO stimulation was recorded for patients where the most basal electrode was internal to the cochlea. There were also individual differences in pitch estimations between the three modes of stimulation for most patients. The current levels required to elicit threshold (T) and comfortable listening (C) levels were, in general, higher for BP stimulation than for CG stimulation and were lowest for MONO stimulation. For CG stimulation, there was a tendency for T and C levels to be higher for electrodes in the middle of the array than at the basal or apical ends. For MONO stimulation, T and C levels uniformly increased in an apical to basal direction for the majority of patients. There was no consistent pattern in T and C levels for BP stimulation. The size of the range of usable hearing using CG stimulation tended to be similar to that using BP stimulation and was usually higher than that using MONO stimulation.

The effects of auditory feedback from the nucleus cochlear implant on the vowel formant frequencies produced by children and adults.

Cochlear implants provide an auditory signal with which profoundly deaf users may monitor their own speech production. The vowel production of two adults and three children who used the Nucleus multiple-electrode cochlear implant was examined to assess the effect of altered auditory feedback. Productions of words were recorded under conditions where the talkers received auditory feedback (speech processor turned on) and where no auditory feedback was provided (speech processor turned off). Data were collected over 3 days at weekly intervals. First and second formant frequencies were measured and the data were analysed to assess significant differences between auditory feedback conditions, vowel context, and data collection points. Overall, the results varied across talkers, across the data collection days, and depended on the consonant environment of the vowel. However, two effects of auditory feedback were noted. First, there was a generalized shift in first formant frequencies between the processor on and processor off conditions across three of the five subjects, but the shift differed in direction for each subject. Second, for three of the five talkers, the two front vowels /epsilon/ and /i/ were more neutralised in the absence of auditory feedback. However, this effect was less pronounced than that noted by previous studies.

Immune thrombocytopenias: tests for platelet antibodies.

In a study of 49 consecutive patients for whom a test for platelet antibodies had been ordered, tests were performed for both cell-bound and serum platelet antibodies. In cases of autoimmune thrombocytopenia (ITP), the test result for cell-bound antibody was more likely to be positive than was the test result for serum antibody. In three patients with ITP who were taking systemic corticosteroids, however, the result of the CBPAT was negative. A similar phenomenon occurred in a patient with SLE. The result of the SPAT correlated best with the presence of alloantibodies formed during pregnancy or after blood transfusion.