Biomedical subjects

Isabelle Royer

Publications and source records attributed to Isabelle Royer.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2004

High-efficacy 5-HT1A receptor activation causes a curative-like action on allodynia in rats with spinal cord injury.

The selective, high-efficacy 5-HT(1A) receptor agonist, (3-chloro-4-fluoro-phenyl)-[4-fluoro-4-[[(5-methyl-pyridin-2-ylmethyl)-amino]-methyl]piperidin-1-yl]-methanone (F 13640) has been reported to produce long-term analgesia in rodent models of chronic nociceptive and neuropathic pain; it also preempts allodynia following spinal cord injury. Here, rats underwent spinal cord injury, fully developed allodynia, and were infused with saline or 0.63 mg/day of F 13640 for 56 days. Infusion was then discontinued, and further assessments of allodynia (vocalization threshold to von Frey filament stimulation, responses to brush and cold) were conducted for another 70 days. F 13640-induced analgesia persisted during this post-treatment period. The data offer initial evidence that high-efficacy 5-HT(1A) receptor activation produces an unprecedented curative-like action on pathological pain.

Analgesics↗

PubMed2003

Why bad projects are so hard to kill.

Even at the prototype stage, experts were saying the technology was obsolete. Yet, in the face of tepid consumer response, the company stubbornly kept increasing production capacity and developing new models. By the time it was finally killed, the initiative had cost the company an astounding $580 million and had tied up resources for 14 years. The product was RCA's SelectaVision videodisc recorder, and its story is hardly unique. Companies make similar mistakes--if on a somewhat smaller scale--all the time. But why? No one comes to work saying, "I'm going to pursue a project that will waste my company millions of dollars." Quite the opposite. They come to work full of excitement about a project they believe in. And that, surprisingly, can be the root of all the trouble--a fervent belief in the inevitability of a project's ultimate success. Starting, naturally enough, with a project's champion, this faith can spread throughout the organization, leading everyone to believe collectively in the product's viability and to view any signs of impending doom merely as temporary setbacks. This phenomenon is documented here in two chillingly detailed case studied, one involving Essilor, the world's largest maker of corrective lenses for eyeglasses, and the other involving Lafarge, the largest producer of building materials. By counterexample, they point the way toward avoiding such morasses: assembling project teams not entirely composed of like-minded people and putting in place--and sticking to--well-defined review processes. Both cases also show that if it takes a project champion to get a project up and running, it may take a new kind of organizational player--an "exit champion"--to push an irrationally exuberant organization to admit when enough is enough.

Commerce↗

PubMed2002

[Buerger's disease or thromboangiitis obliterans revealed by an enteric ischemia. Case report and literature review].

Thromboangiitis obliterans or Buerger's disease is a rare arteritis affecting mainly young male smokers. Distal limb symptoms are well-known. Digestive manifestations, especially when inaugural, are less known and sometimes misdiagnosed. We report the case of a 37-year-old man who developed a large mesenteric infarct with diffuse ischemic colitis and ischemia in the hepatic artery field. Histopathological findings were consistent with thromboangiitis obliterans. Unexplained abdominal pain, even if inaugural, in young male smokers, should evoke the possibility of Buerger's disease.

Abdominal Pain↗