[Reproduction of images present in different phases of alpha wave].

It is considered that sensitivity of cortical perceptive mechanisms changes simultaneously with alternation of alpha-rhythm phases and it affects visual recognition accuracy. To verify this statement we detected alternation of alpha-wave phases online for sending stimuli in the middle of increase-phase or in the middle of decrease phase with high precision. 15 healthy volunteers (5 male and 10 female) were observed. They also took tests to measure anxiety, extraversion and neurotism levels. Visual area O2 with maximum amplitude of alpha rhythm was used to control the stimulation. We compared reproduction (by hand drawing) after presenting sample lines in different alpha-wave phases, successfulness during copying of the samples of different lengths was also compared. Most volunteers (14 out of 15) reproduced reduced lines in comparison with samples after stimulation bound to either of two alpha-wave phases. This effect is less prominent during decrease phase (positivation), i.e. lines are drawn longer and match the sample better, than during the increase phase (especially for long-sized samples). This impact of different conditions on task performance is less manifested in volunteers with low psychoemotional stability.

Integrating some mind and brain views of transference: the phenomena.

Because understanding the underpinnings of transferential learning allows the analyst to more effectively exploit transference in the clinical situation, as well as to advance psychoanalytic theory, the functions and mechanisms of transference phenomena in learning are subjected to an interdisciplinary analysis. Through transference the brain creates hierarchical databases that make emotional sense of the world, especially the world of human relationships. Transference plays a role in defense and resistance clinically; less explored but equally important is the adaptive potential of transference and its effect on an individual's readiness for structural change through the activation of working memory. Most investigators within psychoanalysis have not considered the importance of similarity judgments and memory priming, especially as these help to explain why transference and its proper handling are effective in treatment. Yet there are complex relationships among transference, similarity judgment, and memory priming that tie together psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, and neurophysiology. Evidence increasingly suggests a relationship between transference and the transfer of knowledge between various content domains (databases) of mind and brain, which is essential to cognitive and emotional learning. There are indications as well that transference decisively facilitates learning readiness ("windows") in general by means of two of its components: free association and spontaneous (self-initiated) activity. The important question of which mind/brain mechanisms motivate transference is not yet understood comprehensively. However, Vygotsky's work on the zone of proximal development (ZPD), M.Stern's teleonomic theory, schema theory, and neural network theory offer further insights into what motivates transference.

[Treatment of inflammatory cancer of the breast. Combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Apropos of 270 women treated at the Institut Gustave-Roussy]. / Le traitement du cancer du sein inflammatoire. Associations chimiothérapie-radiothérapie. A propos de 270 femmes traitées à l'Institut Gustave-Roussy.

From January 1976 to January 1985, 210 patients (less than 70 years old) with unilateral inflammatory breast carcinoma M0 were treated, under protocol way, by chemotherapy, hormonotherapy and radiotherapy association. Results of these protocols are compared to those of an historical control group T (60 patients treated from 1973 to 1975 by radiotherapy alone, with castration for pre-menopausal women). From 1976 to 1980, 91 patients (group A) were treated by induction chemotherapy first with adriamycin, vincristine and methotrexate (AVM), loco-regional radiotherapy and maintenance chemotherapy with vincristine, cyclophosphamide and 5 fluorouracil (VCF). From 1980 to 1982, 79 patients (group B) were treated under a similar protocol, but the 3 first sequences were reinforced with the association of five drugs: adriamycin, vincristine, cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, 5 FU (AVCMF). From 1983 to 1985, 40 patients (group C) were treated under the same schedule AVCMF, AVM, VCF, but radiotherapy was delivered on a different schedule to shorten the intervals between the 3, 4, 5 and 6th chemotherapy sequences. All patients form the groups A, B and C had received hormonotherapy: castration for premenopausal patients or on-going menopause, or tamoxifen for post-menopausal patients. Disease-free survival rates at 30 months are respectively 19, 37, 61 and 64% for groups T, A, B and C and for groups T, A and B: 8, 22 and 40% at 5 years, and total survival rates at 5 years: 28, 40 and 55% for these groups. The benefit of chemotherapy in addition to radiotherapy is highly statistically significant. The improvement of these results seems partially linked to the increasing dosage of the induction chemotherapy.