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Biomedical subjects

K G Wilson

Publications and source records attributed to K G Wilson.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Panic attacks in the nonclinical population: an empirical approach to case identification.

Although self-reports of panic attacks are common among student populations, it is not clear that their panic experiences are actually comparable to those of patients with clinical anxiety disorders. An empirical approach was taken to this problem by using a cluster analysis procedure to identify subjects within two samples of university students who reported panic attack symptom profiles that resembled those of patients with panic disorder. Such empirically defined "clinical" panic attacks were reported by 7.0% and 8.1% of the two samples. This predominantly female group accounted for most of the increased psychopathology that has been reported in previous studies of nonclinical panic.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Family psychoeducational support groups in schizophrenia.

Family members of 55 patients with schizophrenia were randomly assigned to a psychoeducational support group or to a control group. Support group participants showed greater knowledge of schizophrenia and greater satisfaction with health care services than did control group members. Psychological distress, coping behavior, and family satisfaction did not appear affected by support group participation; nor were support groups associated with lower rehospitalization rates for patients.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1992

Megavoltage grid total body irradiation of C3Hf/SED mice.

The effect of a grid on whole-body megavoltage radiation tolerance in C3Hf/SED mice was studied. Adult mice were irradiated beneath a 50% megavoltage grid. LD50 (50% lethality) values were measured at ten and 30 days. LD50/30 day increased by a factor of 1.5 for mice receiving both single and two fraction irradiation beneath the grid. LD50/ten day increased by factors of 1.1 to 1.2 for single, two, and five fraction irradiation beneath the grid.

Animals↗
PubMed1990

Consultee satisfaction with a psychiatric consultation-liaison nursing service.

A consumer satisfaction survey was conducted with nurses who made consecutive consultation requests to a general hospital psychiatric consultation-liaison nursing service. In each of 69 responses, global satisfaction ratings indicated that the consultee either was satisfied or very satisfied with the assistance provided. Particular strengths were noted in relation to the ease with which the consultants could be notified, the speed of response, and the clarity with which their formulations were expressed. The respondents were least satisfied with the extent of written documentation and the amount of follow-up. In a multiple regression analysis, only the total number of visits emerged as a significant predictor of satisfaction scores. However, comparisons of replies of most satisfied and least satisfied also indicated that high satisfaction ratings were more likely to be given to consultations requesting assistance with patients' families rather than to consultations requesting help in the management of patients with major psychiatric disorders.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Methods and mechanisms in electrodermal omission responding: a commentary on stimulus omission and the orienting response by Barry and O'Gorman.

Barry and O'Gorman (1987) have employed a response-averaging technique to demonstrate that electrodermal orienting responses (ORs) to omitted stimuli have unusually long latencies. They suggest that this latency delay provides evidence that omission ORs are "voluntary" responses initiated after a process of significance evaluation. The present commentary is addressed to both the methodological and theoretical aspects of their work. Firstly, some of the disadvantages of response averaging with electrodermal measures are reviewed, particularly as applied to omission ORs. Secondly, the use of OR latency as a dependent measure is discussed within an information-processing context. It is concluded that the assessment of stimulus significance does not systematically influence the latency of the OR. Hence, delayed latencies for omission responses probably reflect inaccuracies in the estimation of long inter-stimulus intervals, rather than a process of significance evaluation unique to the omission OR.

Arousal↗
PubMed1989

Electrodermal lability and visual information processing.

Individual differences in electrodermal lability have been related to performance in vigilance and reaction time tasks. The goal of the present study was to employ an "additive factors" approach to identify the stages of information processing that might underlie these effects. Nineteen labile and 17 stabile subjects performed a choice reaction time task in which a visual imperative stimulus was presented under two conditions of intensity (presumed to affect the speed of pre-processing operations) X three conditions of degradation (which influences later encoding processes related to feature extraction). Measures of both reaction time and movement time were obtained. The major findings were: (a) labile subjects had faster reaction times than stabiles, and (b) lability interacted significantly with stimulus degradation. Labiles also tended (p less than .10) to have faster movement times. This pattern indicates that labiles and stabiles differ in the performance of later encoding operations, and possibly in the speed of motor processes as well. However, they do not appear to differ in the early pre-processing of the simple physical attributes of a stimulus.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Electrodermal lability and simple reaction time.

Subjects identified as electrodermally labile or stabile (n = 10 per group) on the basis of non-specific electrodermal fluctuations and a trials-to-criterion measure of habituation were compared in a simple reaction time (RT) task that employed long, variable foreperiods (from 8 to 19 s). Labiles had significantly faster RTs across all foreperiods, but there were no differences in RT variability between the groups. Phasic heart rate responses recorded concurrently through the foreperiod showed a characteristic pattern of acceleratory and deceleratory activity, which was similar among both labiles and stabiles. The findings indicate that labiles and stabiles show a consistent difference in the speed of processing of a target imperative stimulus, which is not due to differences in response preparation processes. Overall, the results support the use of RT paradigms for evaluating individual differences in information-processing associated with electrodermal lability.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Anomalous ipsilateral retinotectal projections in Syrian hamsters with early lesions: topography and functional capacity.

Retinotectal topography, response properties of neurons in superior colliculus, and visual orienting behavior were studied in hamsters whose superior colliculi were innervated by one or the other of two types of anomalous ipsilateral projections. For the first type, an abnormally large uncrossed projection was created by monocular enucleation on the day of birth. This projection extended over the superficial part of the rostral half of the colliculus. The upper visual field was represented medially, and the lower visual field laterally, which corresponds to a normal projection. The rostrocaudal axis was disordered, but showed a slight tendency for nasal visual field to be represented rostrally and temporal field caudally; this tendency corresponds to an inversion of the normal ipsilateral projection, fitting instead the pattern of a contralateral projection. For the second type of anomalous ipsilateral projection, an abnormal intertectal decussation of optic tract fibers was created by neonatal ablation of the superficial layers of one superior colliculus and removal of the ipsilateral eye (Schneider, '73). Retinotectal topography observed in this recrossing projection was predominantly mirror-symmetric to the normal contralateral projection; however, some distortions in retinotopic order were observed, including misplaced fields and local inversions of the mirror-symmetric topography, and distortions of local magnification factor. Response properties of single units found medially in the left colliculus were similar to those found in normal colliculus. Units found more laterally were underresponsive, showing response decrements with repeated stimulation which is abnormal for units in the superficial gray, and many had abnormally large receptive fields. This physiological pattern was reflected in the pattern of errors made in visual orienting to small targets. It was concluded that polarity cues exist in the tectum sufficient to order the terminals of the retinotectal projection independent of the direction of fiber arrival or order in the optic tract as it enters the tectum. In addition, the functional competence of the abnormal recrossing retinotectal projection has been demonstrated by both electrophysiological and behavioral methods.

Animals↗
PubMed1978

Topography of visual and somatosensory projections to the superior colliculus of the golden hamster.

The topography of visual and somatosensory projections to the superior colliculus in the Syrian hamster was studied using electrophysiological techniques. The visual projection to the superficial layers of the colliculus is similar in general topography to that described for other rodents. The magnification of the visual field on the colliculus surface was greatest for nasal visual field. The magnification factor paralleled retinal ganglion cell density for corresponding visual field sectors. In the deep layers of the colliculus, a somatosensory projection is found in register with the visual projection such that the anterior somatosensory field and nasalmost visual field are both represented in rostral colliculus; posterior somatosensory fields and temporal visual fields are found in caudal colliculus. Likewise, upper visual and somatosensory fields are found in medial colliculus, and lower visual and somatosensory fields are found in lateral colliculus. Large receptive fields make the somatosensory topography less precise than the visual topography, but this lack of precision could serve to keep the two maps generally in register during eye and body movements.

Afferent Pathways↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Electroconvulsive therapy in the treatment of depression: the impact on length of stay.

It has been reported that one advantage to administering electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for the treatment of depression is that it results in shorter hospitalizations than alternative treatments. The generality of this finding was assessed in the present study, which comprised a retrospective review of 192 admissions for depression. It was found that the prompt initial decision to administer ECT did not reduce the overall length of hospital stays. In fact, patients who were discharged after an initial medication trial actually had shorter admissions than patients treated promptly with ECT. Nevertheless, one subgroup of patients--those who were started on medications, but who were later switched to ECT--had very long admissions. Whether the prompt initiation of ECT will reduce the average length of stay at any individual institution may depend on the numbers of patients who fall into this latter category. This number, in turn, appears to vary widely across institutions.

Adolescent↗