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Biomedical subjects

F Curcio

Publications and source records attributed to F Curcio.

52 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1978

Pantomimic representation in psychotic children.

Previous research suggests that verbal deficits among psychotic children may be paralleled by deficits in nonverbal pantomime. However, certain questions such as the level of pantomime exhibited by psychotic children, its susceptibility to modification, and its relation to other symbolic functions have not been systematically examined. To investigate these issues, 24 psychotic children were required to represent absent objects (e.g., toothbrush) via pantomime after receiving verbal instructions or instructions accompanied by a model demonstrating the pantomime. Also, measures of receptive and expressive speech, human figure drawings, and pretend play were obtained. The findings indicated very few complete failures in pantomime; higher pantomime performance when a model was provided although even in this condition most responses consisted of low-level substitutions of a body part in place of the absent object; and significant relationships between pantomime and measures of receptive vocabulary, echolalia, drawing, and play. The relationship of the findings to symbolic functioning in normal children and their relevance to understanding symbolic deficits in psychotic children are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

Sensorimotor functioning and communication in mute autistic children.

There were two purposes underlying this study: to describe the sensorimotor functioning of mute autistic children and to relate their sensorimotor performance to nonverbal communication. Twelve mute children, diagnosed autistic, ranging from 4 years 9 months to 12 years of age, were administered four scales of sensorimotor development from the Uzgiris and Hunt (1975) series: object permanence, gestural imitation, means for obtaining environmental events, and causality. Subjects performed most poorly on the imitation scale with 9 of 12 performing below Piaget's fifth sensorimotor stage. In contrast, performance was highest on the object permanence scale: No child scored below Stage V. Regarding the subjects' non-scales and Stage III on the imitation scale appeared to form minimal prerequisites for intentional communication in a variety of situations. Finally, none of the subjects, even those with relatively complete sensorimotor development, spontaneously used what Bates (1976) has called "protodeclarative" gestures to point out or show objects to adults. The absence of protodeclarative gestures may represent a qualitatively distinct pattern of prelinguistic development in certain autistic children.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1975

Superior recall of letters in the right visual field with bilateral presentation and partial report.

The present investigation addresses itself to the question of whether a right visual field effect would emerge under conditions of bilateral letter presentation and partial report. Tachistoscopic trials consisting of eight letters, four in each field, were presented for 100 msec., to twenty right-handed adults. Ss were instructed to report the content of only one field on each trial. Under these conditions a right field superiority was obtained and an interaction between field and stimulus position. The field asymmetry appears to reflect the operations of cerebral dominance while the interaction suggests the influence of mnemonic factors.

Brain Mapping↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Decreased cultured endothelial cell proliferation in high glucose medium is reversed by antioxidants: new insights on the pathophysiological mechanisms of diabetic vascular complications.

Exposure to hyperglycemia slows the rate of proliferation of cultured human endothelial cells. Recently, it has been reported that glucose may autoxidize generating free radicals which have been hypothesized to delay cell replication time. To test whether oxidative stress has an effect on delaying cell replication time in hyperglycemic conditions, human endothelial cells cultured from umbilical veins were incubated in 5 or 20 mM glucose, either alone or in the presence of one of three different antioxidants: superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase and glutathione (GSH). Cells grown in medium with 5 mM glucose, with or without antioxidants, yielded similar population doubling times and cell cycle phase distributions. Significantly lower growth parameters were observed in cells grown in medium with 20 mM glucose, without antioxidants. The presence of the antioxidant reverted them to almost normal growth. These data show that high glucose levels may delay endothelial cells replication time through the generation of free radicals, suggesting a possible pathophysiological linkage between the high levels of glucose and the development of microvascular complications of diabetes, possibly suggesting a new therapeutic approach to prevent such complications.

Antioxidants↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Response to hypogravity of normal in vitro cultured follicular cells from thyroid.

Aim of this investigation is the study of molecular modifications occurring in differentiated mammalian cells exposed to gravitational changes. The test system chosen is a well characterized clone of differentiated, normal thyroid follicular cells (FRTL5) in long-term culture. As a follow-up to our recent experiment performed during the MASER-7 sounding rocket mission, flown for European Space Agency by Swedish Space Corporation in May 1996, we evaluated FRTL5 cells responses to Thyroid Stimulating Hormone dependent cAMP production under acute hypogravity conditions obtained in a fast rotating clinostat. Following this approach, we evaluated the FRTL5 cells response to TSH under microgravity conditions in order to optimize experimental tools and strategies in preparation to, and in between real flight missions.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Glycosylated proteins as an indicator of metabolic control in diabetes: evaluation by aminophenylboronic acid affinity chromatography.

Glycosylated proteins, glycosylated albumin and HbA1 were studied in type I and type II diabetes. Glycosylated proteins were evaluated by a new method: aminophenylboronic acid affinity chromatography. A good correlation was found between total HbA1 and glycosylated proteins in both groups (r = 0.57, p less than 0.05; r = 0.67, p less than 0.01, respectively), but a positive correlation between stable HbA1 and glycosylated proteins was present only in maturity onset diabetics (r = 0.71, p less than 0.01). Glycosylated proteins correlated with glycosylated albumin only in type II diabetes (r = 0.67, p less than 0.01). We hypothesize that in maturity onset diabetes glycosylated proteins and HbA1 reflect a greater glycemic stability while in insulin-dependent diabetes the same proteins reflect a different periodic pattern of glycemic control. Moreover, our data suggest that aminophenylboronic acid affinity chromatography is a suitable tool for routine monitoring of metabolic control in maturity onset diabetes, while further investigations are needed to establish if this method is a useful index of altered glucose metabolism in type I diabetes.

Blood Proteins↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Quality of life after an episode of myocardial infarct].

We studied the quality of life of two groups of myocardial infarction patients (AMI) and a control group of normal subjects: 1) 100 post-AMI patients following a cardiac rehabilitation programme of 12 weeks (CRG); 2) 33 post-AMI patients following a conventional care by cardiologists (CCG); 3) 40 healthy subjects as control (CG). To determine the loss of quality of life we administered the questionnaire of De Velasco-Del Barrio. The use of the questionnaire was possible by authors permission. MI patients had significantly poorer quality of life than the healthy subjects (p < 0.0001). Cardiac rehabilitation improved quality of life (p < 0.001) more than the conventional care. Women reported poorer quality of life that men. Before and after rehabilitation programme the quality of life of the subjects age 50 years or more was worse than their younger counterparts. Invasive therapies such percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty and coronary artery bypass grafting are associated with an improvement of post-operative quality of life. In order to study the influence of social class on quality of life we divided our subjects into three groupings: high, medium and low according to code representing jobs and professional: a significant difference was found between high and low social class (p < 0.03). These findings suggest that cardiac rehabilitation may have positive effects on the quality of life in the MI patients. Aged patients, women, and with low social position reported poorer quality of life that younger, men and high social position patients. It seems that these patients should be assessed with psycho-social and treated with psychological and social support for improvement their quality of life.

Age Factors↗