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Biomedical subjects

Carol Whitney

Publications and source records attributed to Carol Whitney.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Evaluation of synthetic oligonucleotides as inhibitors of West Nile virus replication.

A series of synthetic oligonucleotide phosphorothioate 15-mers were generated against specific sequences in the West Nile virus RNA genome. These antisense oligonucleotides targeted (1) conserved features of the West Nile virus RNA genome that may be expected to lead to inhibition of virus replication since such features play essential roles in the virus lifecycle; (2) G-quartet oligonucleotides with potential facilitated uptake properties and that also targeted conserved sequences among a range of West Nile virus strains. Several formulations with significant in vitro antiviral activity were found. Among the active oligonucleotides were examples that targeted both C-rich RNA sequences of the West Nile RNA genome as well as recognized conserved sequences key to West Nile virus replication. Since the antiviral activity of the latter oligonucleotides diminished upon 2'-O-methyl substitution, it is likely that their activity involves RNase H-catalyzed RNA degradation. One G-rich oligonucleotide that did not target a West Nile virus RNA sequence also was found. These results suggest the potential of antisense strategies for the control of West Nile virus replication if the attendant problem of oligonucleotide delivery can be adequately addressed.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Facilitative orthographic neighborhood effects: the SERIOL model account.

A large orthographic neighborhood (N) facilitates lexical decision for central and left visual field/right hemisphere (LVF/RH) presentation, but not for right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH) presentation. Based on the SERIOL model of letter-position encoding, this asymmetric N effect is explained by differential activation patterns at the orthographic level. This analysis implies that it should be possible to negate the LVF/RH N effect and create an RVF/LH N effect by manipulating contrast levels in specific ways. In Experiment 1, these predictions were confirmed. In Experiment 2, we eliminated the N effect for both LVF/RH and central presentation. These results indicate that the letter level is the primary locus of the N effect under lexical decision, and that the hemispheric specificity of the N effect does not reflect differential processing at the lexical level.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Word length effects in Hebrew.

Numerous lateralization studies have reported that word length has a stronger effect in the left visual field (LVF) than in the right visual field (RVF) for right-handed people due to hemispheric asymmetry for language processing. Alternatively, early perceptual learning theory argued that the length effects might depend on the frequency of having read words at various lengths displayed at different retinal locations. The two alternatives were tested with right-handers participants who were native speakers of Hebrew which is read from right to left, that is Hebrew readers have a different perceptual experience than English readers. We found the predicted interaction between word length and hemifield; however, longer latencies to longer letter strings were found at both visual fields. We argue that these results are best accounted by the SERIOL model of letter-position encoding.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Why word length only matters in the left visual field.

During visual word recognition, string length affects performance when stimuli are presented to the left visual field (LVF), but not when they are presented to the right visual field (RVF). Using a lexical-decision experiment, we investigated an account of this phenomenon based on the SERIOL model of letter-position encoding. Bottom-up activation patterns were adjusted via positional manipulations of letter contrast. This manipulation eliminated the LVF length effect by facilitating responses to longer words, thereby demonstrating that a length effect is not an inherent property of right-hemisphere processing. In contrast, the same manipulation slowed responses to longer words in the RVF, creating a length effect. These results show that hemisphere-specific activation patterns are the source of the asymmetry of the length effect.

Adolescent↗