scholarly journals A quantitative comparison of the effects of intracellular calcium injection and light adaptation on the photoresponse of Limulus ventral photoreceptors.

1977 ◽  
Vol 70 (5) ◽  
pp. 591-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Fein ◽  
J S Charlton

Calcium ions were iontophoretically injected into ventral photoreceptors of Limulus by passing current between two intracellular pipettes. Changes in sensitivity and photoresponse time course were measured for both light adaptation and Ca++ injection. We found for some photoreceptors that there was no significant difference in the photoresponse time course for desensitization produced by light adaptation or by Ca++ injection. In other photoreceptors, the time delay of photoresponse for Ca++ injection was slightly longer than for light adaptation. The variability of threshold response amplitude and time delay decreases when the photoreceptor is desensitized by either light adaptation or Ca++ injection. The peak amplitude versus log stimulus intensity relationships for controls, light adaptation, and Ca++ injection all could be described very closely by a single template curve shifted along the log intensity axis. A 40- to 50-fold change in sensitivity is associated with a 2-fold change in photoresponse time delay for both light adaptation and Ca++ injection.

1977 ◽  
Vol 70 (5) ◽  
pp. 601-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Fein ◽  
J S Charlton

The effects of the intracellular iontophoretic injection of Na+ ions have been quantitatively compared with adaptation in ventral photoreceptors of Limulus. We find that: (a) both light adaptation and sodium injection are associated with a decrease in the variability of the threshold response amplitued; (b) both light adaptation and sodium injection are associated with a decrease in the absolute value of the temporal dispersion of the threshold response time delay; (c) the same template curve adequately fits the intensity response relationships measured under light adaptation and Na+ injection; (d) both light adaptation and Na+ injection produce a fourfold decrease in response time delay for a desensitization of 3 log units; (e) the time coures of light adaptation and dark adaptation is significantly faster than the onset of and recovery from desensitization produced by Na+ injection; (f) unlike local illumination, Na+ injection does not produce localized desensitization of the photoreceptor. These findings suggest that a rise in intracellular Na+ concentration makes at most only a minor contribution (probably less than 5%) to the total adaptation of these receptors in the intensity range we have examined (up to 3 log units above absolute threshold). However, changes in intracellular Na+ concentration may contribute to certain components of light and dark adaptation in these receptors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (11) ◽  
pp. 892-896
Author(s):  
Janine En Qi Loi ◽  
Magdalene Li Ling Lee ◽  
Benjamin Boon Chuan Tan ◽  
Brian See

INTRODUCTION: This study sought to determine the incidence, severity, and time-course of simulator sickness (SS) among Asian military pilots following flight simulator training.METHODS: A survey was conducted on Republic of Singapore Air Force pilots undergoing simulator training. Each subject completed a questionnaire immediately after (0H), and at the 3-h (3H) and 6-h (6H) marks. The questionnaire included the simulator sickness questionnaire (SSQ) and a subjective scale to rate their confidence to fly.RESULTS: In this study, 258 pilots with a median age of 31.50 yr (range, 2155 yr) and mean age of 32.61 6.56 yr participated. The prevalence of SS was 48.1% at 0H, 30.8% at 3H, and 16.4% at 6H. Based on a threshold of an SSQ score >10, the prevalence of operationally significant SS was 33.3% at 0H, 13.2% at 3H, and 8.1% at 6H. The most frequent symptoms were fatigue (38.1%), eye strain (29.0%), and fullness of head (19.9%). There was no significant difference in mean scores between rotary and fixed wing pilots. Older, more experienced pilots had greater scores at 0H, but this association did not persist. A correlation was found between SSQ score and self-reported confidence.DISCUSSION: To our knowledge, this study is the first to report the prevalence of operationally significant SS in Asian military pilots over serial time points. Most pilots with SS are able to subjectively judge their fitness to fly. Sensitivity analysis suggests the true prevalence of SS symptoms at 3H and 6H to be closer to 23.8% and 12.0%, respectively.Loi JEQ, Lee MLL, Tan BBC, See B. Time course of simulator sickness in Asian military pilots. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2020; 91(11):892896.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongdong Gu ◽  
Liyun Chen ◽  
Fei Shan ◽  
Liming Xia ◽  
Jun Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Spatial and temporal lung infection distributions of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and their changes could reveal important patterns to better understand the disease and its time course. This paper presents a pipeline to analyze statistically these patterns by automatically segmenting the infection regions and registering them onto a common template. Methods A VB-Net is designed to automatically segment infection regions in CT images. After training and validating the model, we segmented all the CT images in the study. The segmentation results are then warped onto a pre-defined template CT image using deformable registration based on lung fields. Then, the spatial distributions of infection regions and those during the course of the disease are calculated at the voxel level. Visualization and quantitative comparison can be performed between different groups. We compared the distribution maps between COVID-19 and community acquired pneumonia (CAP), between severe and critical COVID-19, and across the time course of the disease. Results For the performance of infection segmentation, comparing the segmentation results with manually annotated ground-truth, the average Dice is 91.6% ± 10.0%, which is close to the inter-rater difference between two radiologists (the Dice is 96.1% ± 3.5%). The distribution map of infection regions shows that high probability regions are in the peripheral subpleural (up to 35.1% in probability). COVID-19 GGO lesions are more widely spread than consolidations, and the latter are located more peripherally. Onset images of severe COVID-19 (inpatients) show similar lesion distributions but with smaller areas of significant difference in the right lower lobe compared to critical COVID-19 (intensive care unit patients). About the disease course, critical COVID-19 patients showed four subsequent patterns (progression, absorption, enlargement, and further absorption) in our collected dataset, with remarkable concurrent HU patterns for GGO and consolidations. Conclusions By segmenting the infection regions with a VB-Net and registering all the CT images and the segmentation results onto a template, spatial distribution patterns of infections can be computed automatically. The algorithm provides an effective tool to visualize and quantify the spatial patterns of lung infection diseases and their changes during the disease course. Our results demonstrate different patterns between COVID-19 and CAP, between severe and critical COVID-19, as well as four subsequent disease course patterns of the severe COVID-19 patients studied, with remarkable concurrent HU patterns for GGO and consolidations.


Author(s):  
Garrett C. Jones ◽  
Jonathan D. Blotter ◽  
Cameron D. Smallwood ◽  
Dennis L. Eggett ◽  
Darryl J. Cochrane ◽  
...  

This study utilized resonant frequency vibration to the upper body to determine changes in pain, stiffness and isometric strength of the biceps brachii after eccentric damage. Thirty-one participants without recent resistance training were randomized into three groups: a Control (C) group and two eccentric exercise groups (No vibration (NV) and Vibration (V)). After muscle damage, participants in the V group received upper body vibration (UBV) therapy for 5 min on days 1–4. All participants completed a visual analog scale (VAS), maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC), and shear wave elastography (SWE) of the bicep at baseline (pre-exercise), 24 h, 48 h, and 1-week post exercise. There was a significant difference between V and NV at 24 h for VAS (p = 0.0051), at 24 h and 1-week for MVIC (p = 0.0017 and p = 0.0016, respectively). There was a significant decrease in SWE for the V group from 24–48 h (p = 0.0003), while there was no significant change in the NV group (p = 0.9341). The use of UBV resonant vibration decreased MVIC decrement and reduced VAS pain ratings at 24 h post eccentric damage. SWE was strongly negatively correlated with MVIC and may function as a predictor of intrinsic muscle state in the time course of recovery of the biceps brachii.


1986 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Braude ◽  
David Royston

1. The effect in the rat of salbutamol infusion (1 μg min−1 kg−1) on acid-induced lung injury has been determined. Severity of lung injury was assessed by two techniques: the pulmonary clearance of 99mTc-diethylenetriaminepenta-acetate (99mTc-DTPA) and the lung wet/dry weight ratio, giving indices of alveolar epithelial permeability and transendothelial water filtration respectively. 2. Mean half-time of clearance of 99mTc-DTPA was increased significantly in rats who had intratracheal acid-induced injury and control (saline) intravenous infusion (19.4 ± 2.6 min) compared with non-acid-treated rats (98.1 ± 7.2) (P < 0.0001). However, those animals who had intratracheal acid injury and subsequent salbutamol intravenous infusion had significantly faster clearance (11.5 ± 1.9) than the acid and control infusion group (P < 0.05). 3. Gravimetric lung water in the acid-only rats (expressed as wet/dry weight ratio) was increased significantly (6.4 ± 0.3) compared with the non-acid-treated controls (5.4 ± 0.2) (P < 0.01). Acid-treated rats who had salbutamol infused had dramatically increased lung water (10.0 ± 0.6) (P < 0.001 vs acid and control infusion). 4. Intravenous salbutamol infusion itself produced no significant difference in the results for both techniques, compared with the non-acid-treated time-course controls. 5. Infused salbutamol accentuates acid-induced lung injury in the rat. Possible factors responsible for these findings include β2-adrenergic agonist mediated inhibition of hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV) and a predominant β1-adrenergic agonist inotropic effect of salbutamol with resultant rise in pulmonary artery pressure.


1982 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
DONALD H. EDWARDS

1. The responses of the cockroach descending contralateral movement detector (DCMD) neurone to moving light stimuli were studied under both light- and dark-adapted conditions. 2. With light-adaptation the response of the DCMD to two moving 2° (diam.) spots of white light is less than the response to a single spot when the two spots are separated by less than 10° (Fig. 2). 3. With light-adaptation the response of the DCMD to a single moving light spot is a sigmoidally shaped function of the logarithm of the light intensity (Fig. 3a). With dark-adaptation the response of a DCMD to a single moving light spot is a bell-shaped function of the logarithm of the stimulus intensity (Fig. 3b). The absolute intensity that evokes a threshold response is about one-and-a-half log units less in the dark-adapted eye than in the light-adapted eye. 4. The decrease in the DCMD's response that occurs when two stimuli are closer than 10°, and when a single bright stimulus is made brighter, indicates that lateral inhibition operates among the afferents to the DCMD. 5. It is shown that this inhibition cannot be produced by a recurrent lateral inhibitory network. A model of the afferent path that contains a non-recurrent lateral inhibitory network can account for the response/intensity plots of the DCMD recorded under both light-adapted and dark-adapted conditions. 6. The threshold intensity of the DCMD is increased if a stationary pattern of light is present near the path of the moving spot stimulus. This is shown to be due to a peripheral tonic lateral inhibition that is distinct from the non-recurrent lateral inhibition described earlier. 7. It is suggested that the peripheral lateral inhibition acts to adjust the threshold of afferents to local background light levels, while the proximal non-recurrent network acts to enhance the acuity of the eye to small objects in the visual field, and to filter out whole-field stimuli.


Development ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 106 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-705 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Tickle ◽  
A. Crawley ◽  
J. Farrar

Local application of retinoic acid to wing buds of chick embryos leads to dose- and position-dependent changes in the pattern of cellular differentiation. Early effects of retinoid treatment on the apical ectodermal ridge coordinate pattern changes and morphogenesis. The length of the apical ridge increases when additional digits will form but decreases when digits are lost. These changes in length can be understood in terms of a threshold response to the local retinoid concentration that results in either disappearance or maintenance of the ridge (Lee & Tickle, J. Embryol. exp. Morph. 90, 139–169 (1985)). Here, we have analysed the mechanisms involved in ridge disappearance by locally applying retinoic acid to the apex of stage 20 chick wing buds. With this treatment regime, low doses give duplicated digit patterns and higher doses truncations. The height of the apical ridge is progressively reduced with increasing doses of retinoid and the time course of ridge flattening indicates that the height of the ridge is correlated with bud outgrowth. With high doses of retinoic acid, the typical ridge, a pseudostratified epithelium in which the columnar cells are tightly packed, disappears and the epithelium at the tip of the bud consists of loosely packed cuboidal cells. Shortly after treatment, there is a decrease in the number of gap junctions between ridge cells. This early change in cell contacts suggests that gap junctions may be involved in maintaining epithelial morphology. When treated epithelium is recombined with untreated mesenchyme, an apical ridge is reestablished and distal structures can be generated. In contrast, when treated mesenchyme is recombined with the epithelium from normal buds, only proximal structures are formed. Therefore, retinoids can lead to a reorganization of the apical ectodermal ridge which is mediated and maintained by the mesenchyme.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Chunru Li ◽  
Zujun Ma

In this paper, a mathematical model with time-delay-related parameters and media coverage to describe the diffusion process of new products is proposed, in which the time-delay-related parameters denote the stage in which potential customers decide whether to adopt a new product. Then, the stability and the Hopf bifurcation of the proposed model are analyzed in detail. The center manifold theorem and the normal form theory are used to investigate the stability of the bifurcating periodic solution. Moreover, a numerical simulation is conducted to investigate the difference between the model with delay-dependent parameters and that with delay-independent parameters. The results show that there is significant difference between the two models.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Gille ◽  
Lucile Sesé ◽  
Eric Aubourg ◽  
Emmanuelle E. Fabre ◽  
Florence Cymbalista ◽  
...  

Background: A computational proteomic analysis suggested that SARS-CoV-2 might bind to hemoglobin (Hb). The authors hypothesized that this phenomenon could result in a decreased oxygen (O2) binding and lead to hemolytic anemia as well. The aim of this work was to investigate whether the affinity of Hb for O2 was altered during COVID-19.Methods: In this retrospective, observational, single-center study, the blood gas analyses of 100 COVID-19 patients were compared to those of 100 non-COVID-19 patients. Fifty-five patients with carboxyhemoglobin (HbCO) ≥8% and 30 with sickle cell disease (SCD) were also included (“positive controls” with abnormal Hb affinity). P50 was corrected for body temperature, pH, and PCO2.Results: Patients did not differ statistically for age or sex ratio in COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 groups. Median P50 at baseline was 26 mmHg [25.2–26.8] vs. 25.9 mmHg [24–27.3], respectively (p = 0.42). As expected, P50 was 22.5 mmHg [21.6–23.8] in the high HbCO group and 29.3 mmHg [27–31.5] in the SCD group (p &lt; 0.0001). Whatever the disease severity, samples from COVID-19 to non-COVID-19 groups were distributed on the standard O2-Hb dissociation curve. When considering the time-course of P50 between days 1 and 18 in both groups, no significant difference was observed. Median Hb concentration at baseline was 14 g.dl–1 [12.6–15.2] in the COVID-19 group vs. 13.2 g.dl–1 [11.4–14.7] in the non-COVID-19 group (p = 0.006). Among the 24 COVID-19 patients displaying anemia, none of them exhibited obvious biological hemolysis.Conclusion: There was no biological argument to support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 could alter O2 binding to Hb.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document