Shortening of the Short Refractory Periods in Short QT Syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis of short QT syndrome (SQTS) remains difficult in case of borderline QT values as often found in normal populations. Whether some shortening of refractory periods (RP) may help in differentiating SQTS from normal subjects is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS: Atrial and right ventricular RP at the apex and right ventricular outflow tract as determined during standard electrophysiological study were compared between 16 SQTS patients (QTc 324±24 ms) and 15 controls with similar clinical characteristics (QTc 417±32 ms). Atrial RP were significantly shorter in SQTS compared with controls at 600- and 500-ms basic cycle lengths. Baseline ventricular RP were significantly shorter in SQTS patients than in controls, both at the apex and right ventricular outflow tract and for any cycle length. Differences remained significant for RP of any subsequent extrastimulus at any cycle length and any pacing site. A cut-off value of baseline RP <200 ms at the right ventricular outflow tract either at 600- or 500-ms cycle length had a sensitivity of 86% and a specificity of 100% for the diagnosis of SQTS. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with SQTS have shorter ventricular RP than controls, both at baseline during various cycle lengths and after premature extrastimuli. A cut-off value of 200 ms at the right ventricular outflow tract during 600- and 500-ms basic cycle length may help in detecting true SQTS from normal subjects with borderline QT values

Event-related brain potentials in the study of inhibition: cognitive control, source localization and age-related modulations

In the previous 15 years, a variety of experimental paradigms and methods have been employed to study inhibition. In the current review, we analyze studies that have used the high temporal resolution of the event-related potential (ERP) technique to identify the temporal course of inhibition to understand the various processes that contribute to inhibition. ERP studies with a focus on normal aging are specifically analyzed because they contribute to a deeper understanding of inhibition. Three time windows are proposed to organize the ERP data collected using inhibition paradigms: the 200 ms period following stimulus onset; the period between 200 and 400 ms after stimulus onset; and the period between 400 and 800 ms after stimulus onset. In the first 200 ms, ERP inhibition research has primarily focused on N1 and P1 as the ERP components associated with inhibition. The inhibitory processing in the second time window has been associated with the N2 and P3 ERP components. Finally, in the third time window, inhibition has primarily been associated with the N400 and N450 ERP components. Source localization studies are analyzed to examine the association between the inhibition processes that are indexed by the ERP components and their functional brain areas. Inhibition can be organized in a complex functional structure that is not constrained to a specific time point but, rather, extends its activity through different time windows. This review characterizes inhibition as a set of processes rather than a unitary process

Abnormal temporal coupling of tactile perception and motor action in Parkinson's disease

Evidence shows altered somatosensory temporal discrimination threshold (STDT) in Parkinson's disease in comparison to normal subjects. In healthy subjects, movement execution modulates STDT values through mechanisms of sensory gating. We investigated whether STDT modulation during movement execution in patients with Parkinson's disease differs from that in healthy subjects. In 24 patients with Parkinson's disease and 20 healthy subjects, we tested STDT at baseline and during index finger abductions (at movement onset "0", 100, and 200 ms thereafter). We also recorded kinematic features of index finger abductions. Fifteen out of the 24 patients were also tested ON medication. In healthy subjects, STDT increased significantly at 0, 100, and 200 ms after movement onset, whereas in patients with Parkinson's disease in OFF therapy, it increased significantly at 0 and 100 ms but returned to baseline values at 200 ms. When patients were tested ON therapy, STDT during index finger abductions increased significantly, with a time course similar to that of healthy subjects. Differently from healthy subjects, in patients with Parkinson's disease, the mean velocity of the finger abductions decreased according to the time lapse between movement onset and the delivery of the paired electrical stimuli for testing somatosensory temporal discrimination. In conclusion, patients with Parkinson's disease show abnormalities in the temporal coupling between tactile information and motor outflow. Our study provides first evidence that altered temporal processing of sensory information play a role in the pathophysiology of motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease

MS-200: The Gettysburg Superstar Collection

The collection is arranged into three series: I. The Production (materials growing from the 1971 performances); II. The Reunion (materials relating to the Reunion Weekend event); and III. The Book (materials gathered during McKinney’s research and writing). Within these are subseries focusing on such items as research materials and notes; photographs and recordings; interview transcripts; and miscellany. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website http://www.gettysburg.edu/special_collections/collections/.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1176/thumbnail.jp

Visuomotor delays when hitting running spiders.

In general, information about the environment (for instance a target) is not instantaneously available for the nervous system. A minimal delay for visual information to affect the movement of the hand is about 110 ms. However, if the movement of a target is predictable, humans can pursue it with zero delay. To make this prediction, information about the speed of the target is necessary. Our results show that this information is used with a delay of about 200 ms. We discuss that oculomotor efference is a likely source of information for this prediction

Large Transverse Momentum Jet Production and DIS Distributions of the Proton

We have calculated the single jet inclusive cross section as measured at Fermilab in next-to-leading order QCD using recent parton distributions of the CTEQ collaboration. We studied the scheme dependence of the jet cross section by employing the \overline{\mbox{MS}} and DIS factorization schemes consistently. For $E_T > 200$ GeV, we find that the cross section in the DIS scheme is larger than in the \overline{\mbox{MS}} scheme yielding a satisfactory description of the CDF data over the whole $E_T$ range in the DIS scheme.Comment: 7 pages, latex, 2 figures include

USING KINETIC ISOMETRIC MID-THIGH PULL VARIABLES TO PREDICT D-I MALE SPRINTERS’ 60M PERFORMANCE

The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship of isometric mid-thigh pull kinetic variables including: peak force (PF), instantaneous force at 50, 90, 200 and 250 milliseconds (F@50, 90, 200 and 250 ms) rate of force development (RFD@ 50, 90, 200 and 250 ms) and impulse at 50, 90, 200, and 250 ms (IP @ 50, 90, 200 and 250 ms) to college male sprinters’ 60 m running performance. Eleven NCAA Division I male sprinters participated in the study that included two testing sessions. The first session included sprint testing and the second session included isometric mid-thigh pull strength assessment. The results from current study indicated that explosive force production variables (F@ 50 ms, RFD @ 50 and 90 ms, IP @ 90 and 200 ms) showed strong correlations with 60 m running time and maximal running velocity; while the MPF was not related to sprint variables