BACKGROUND Clinical characteristics reminiscent of cerebellar tremor occur in patients with advanced essential tremor. Ballistic movements are known to be abnormal in cerebellar disease. The hypothesis was proposed that ballistic movements are abnormal in essential tremor, reflecting cerebellar dysfunction. OBJECTIVE To elucidate the role of the cerebellum in the pathophysiology of essential ...

In numerical simulations of cardiac excitation-contraction coupling, the intracellular potential distribution and mobility of cytosol and ions have been mostly ignored. Although the intracellular potential gradient is small, during depolarization it can be a significant driving force for ion movement, and is comparable to diffusion in terms of net flux. Furthermore, fluid in the t-tubules is th...

To examine the effects of acute myocardial infarction on mitral valve diastolic velocity, echocardiograms were performed in 18 patients on admission, daily in the Coronary Care Unit, and at 3-day intervals during the remainder of hospitalization. These patients were divided into three groups based on the time interval between onset of symptoms and initial echocardiogram. Five of six patients ad...

The postural control system is assessed by observing body sway while the subject involved aims at maintaining a specified up-right posture. Internal masses generate internal reaction forces that constitute an internal mechanical stimulus that may contribute to cause segmental displacements, i.e. body sway. Thus, gaining knowledge about the amplitude and direction of these reaction forces would ...

The spatiotemporal visual response to an inducing bar of a short duration was studied by a brightness-matching procedure. The apparent brightness of a test line, presented in the centre of an inducing bar, exhibited a U-shaped dependence of the inducing-bar width with a minimum at about 4.5' width. The temporal response to a 4.5'-wide inducing stimulus consisted of three alternating phases, the...

Using on-line microdialysis, we have characterized in vivo dynamics of pineal 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT; serotonin) release. Daily pineal 5-HT output is triphasic: (i) 5-HT levels are constant and high during the day; (ii) early in the night, there is a novel sharp rise in 5-HT synthesis and release, which precedes the nocturnal rise in melatonin synthesis; and (iii) late in the night, levels a...

In patients with Raynaud's phenomenon (RP), the role of medical history, capillaroscopy, and autoantibodies in order to provide an early diagnosis of connective tissue disease (CTD) were examined. 115 consecutive adults with uni-, bi-, or triphasic colour changes of the fingers were studied. RP was bilateral in 92.7% of patients. The middle finger was significantly more affected. A lack of asso...