1,721,040 research outputs found
Acute ischemic stroke
No full textIn the Clinical Practice article by
van der Worp and van Gijn (Aug. 9 issue),1 the question
of the age at which a patient could be selected
for treatment with intravenous thrombolysis warrants
further attention. According to the Safe Implementation
of Thrombolysis in Stroke Monitoring
Study (SITS-MOST) selection criteria,2 this
treatment cannot be delivered to patients older
than 80 years of age in routine clinical practice,
but it has been shown that early treatment with
recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA)
in carefully selected elderly patients is as safe and
efficacious as it is in younger patients.3 A specific
randomized trial is highly advisable before implementation
of this therapy in routine clinical practice.
The authors discuss the use of alteplase, but
they do not discuss other fibrinolytic drugs (such
as tenecteplase and desmoteplase) as being potential
alternatives to this agent
Tongue's motor evoked potentials in the diagnosis of Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS): preliminary report
No full textAbstract
BACKGROUND: Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS) is an adult-onset neurodegenerative disorder due to a selective loss of precentral pyramidal neurons. Our purpose was to evaluate preferential impairment of pyramidal tract to bulbar muscles in patients with PLS and identify a valuable electrophysiological method to help clinicians in the differential diagnosis from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We recorded Motor Evoked Potentials (MEPs) from tongue's and anterior tibialis muscles in six patients with PLS and compared the results, in terms of Central Motor Conduction Time (CMCT), amplitude of MEPs and duration of controlateral silent period (cSP), with those obtained both from ten age-matched healthy volunteers and ten patients affected by ALS.
RESULTS: For lower limbs, CMCT resulted significantly increased in PLS and ALS samples compared with healthy subjects (p<0.01); we did not disclose any difference between ALS and PLS groups (p=0.417). Instead for tongue's recordings, CMCT, absolute amplitude of MEPs and cSP were significantly altered in PLS patients towards both ALS patients and healthy volunteers.
CONCLUSIONS: We showed that tongue's MEPs are selectively impaired in PLS. This technique could be helpful to differentiate patients with PLS from those affected by upper motor neuron-predominant variants of ALS. Tongue's MEPs could represent an interesting electrodiagnostic test, potentially useful for the diagnosis of PLS
Stroke and age-brain barrier: how many bricks in the wall?
No full textAlthough older people contribute more and more to the increasing social burden of stroke, they are often excluded from potentially effective treatments in clinical practice. With the aim to separate myth from reality, we have examined the barriers preventing such therapies (with reference to atrial fibrillation, thrombolysis, carotid stenosis and patent foramen ovale) in the elderly. We conclude that elevated age alone should not be considered an exclusion criterion and both stroke physicians and researchers should make efforts to greatly improve management of these patients
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Transcallosal inhibition dampens neural responses to high contrast stimuli in human visual cortex
No full text- …
