What features of a poem make it captivating, and which cognitive mechanisms are sensitive to these features? We addressed these questions experimentally by measuring pupillary responses of 40 participants who listened to a series of Limericks. The Limericks ended with either a semantic, syntactic, rhyme or metric violation. Compared to a control condition without violations, only the rhyme viol...

The state of the brain and body constantly varies on rapid and slow timescales. These variations contribute to the apparent noisiness of sensory responses at both the neural and the behavioral level. Recent investigations of rapid state changes in awake, behaving animals have provided insight into the mechanisms by which optimal sensory encoding and behavioral performance are achieved. Fluctuat...

This article reviews 6 selected cases of improvement/resolution of chronic back pain or failed back surgery after vitamin D repletion in a Canadian family practice setting. Pub Med was searched for articles on chronic back pain, failed back surgery, and vitamin D deficiency. Chronic low back pain and failed back surgery may improve with repletion of vitamin D from a state of deficiency/insuffic...

N Engl J Med 2004;351:2195-202. Copyright © 2004 Massachusetts Medical Society. A 35-year-old woman who is otherwise healthy has had constant retrosternal chest pain for two days. The pain becomes worse when she lies down and improves when she sits up and leans forward. On physical examination, the patient is afebrile and has a friction rub. The 12-lead electrocardiogram shows widespread ST-seg...

North Am 2000;26:215–27. 14 Savill J. Recognition and phagocytosis of cells undergoing apoptosis. Br Med Bull 1997;53:491–508. 15 Elkon KB. Apoptosis in SLE – too little or too much? Review. Clin Exp Rheumatol 1994;12:553–9. 16 Drappa J, Vaishnaw AK, Sullivan KE, Chu JL, Elkon KB. Fas gene-mutations in the Canale-Smith syndrome, an inherited lymphoproliferative disorder associated with autoimmu...

BACKGROUND Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the most serious challenges of contemporary cardiology. Among biochemical markers, heart-type specific fatty acid binding protein (h-FABP) has a high potential as a marker for the early diagnosis of acute MI. The h-FABP is released early to the bloodstream and may be useful for both rapid confirmation and exclusion of infarction. As opposed to pat...

Binocular rivalry occurs when different images are presented one to each eye: the images are visible only alternately. Monocular rivalry occurs when different images are presented both to the same eye: the clarity of the images fluctuates alternately. Could both sorts of rivalry reflect the operation of a general visual mechanism for dealing with perceptual ambiguity? We report four experiments...

A 52-year-old woman was diagnosed as having cerebellar ataxia, hypogonadotropic hypogonadism and retinochoroidal degeneration, the so-called, "Boucher-Neuhauser" syndrome proposed by Limber et al (Am J Med Genet 33:409, 1989). In addition, laboratory findings showed the elevation of serum calcium (Ca) levels, low urinary Ca excretion, and exaggerated reabsorption of filtrated Ca (FECa:0.14%), s...

Raised plasma lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) values were found in 26 patients with marked megaloblastic anaemia due either to vitamin B(12) or folic-acid deficiency or a combination of these factors.Minor megaloblastic changes were not usually accompanied by plasma LDH elevation. Serial LDH estimations were as valuable as serial reticulocyte counts in assessing the response to physiological doses ...