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Biomedical subjects

L Squire

Publications and source records attributed to L Squire.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

The Zarit Burden Interview: a new short version and screening version.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to develop a short and a screening version of the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) that would be suitable across diagnostic groups of cognitively impaired older adults, and that could be used for cross-sectional, longitudinal, and intervention studies. DESIGN AND METHODS: We used data from 413 caregivers of cognitively impaired older adults referred to a memory clinic. We collected information on caregiver burden with the 22-item ZBI, and information about dependence in activities of daily living (ADLs) and the frequency of problem behaviors among care recipients. We used factor analysis and item-total correlations to reduce the number of items while taking into consideration diagnosis and change scores. RESULTS: We produced a 12-item version (short) and a 4-item version (screening) of the ZBI. Correlations between the short and the full version ranged from 0.92 to 0.97, and from 0.83 to 0.93 for the screening version. Correlations between the three versions and ADL and problem behaviors were similar. We further investigated the behavior of the short version with a two-way analysis of variance and found that it produced identical results to the full version. IMPLICATIONS: The short and screening versions of the ZBI produced results comparable to those of the full version. Reducing the number of items did not affect the properties of the ZBI, and it may lead to easier administration of the instrument.

Activities of Daily Living↗

Single-cue delay eyeblink conditioning is unrelated to awareness.

We examined the importance of awareness for eyeblink conditioning by directly comparing single-cue delay eyeblink conditioning and single-cue trace eyeblink conditioning. During single-cue delay conditioning, participants who became aware of the stimulus contingencies early in the conditioning session conditioned no better than those who became aware later in the session or did not become aware. Thus, the level of awareness was unrelated to the overall level of conditioning across the session. In contrast, awareness of the stimulus contingencies early in the session predicted the success of single-cue trace conditioning. These data, together with earlier findings, show that awareness is irrelevant to single-cue delay eyeblink conditioning but is critical for single-cue trace eyeblink conditioning. The findings from the present study are related to previous findings for differential (CS+ and CS-) eyeblink conditioning and awareness.

Aged↗

fMRI of monkey visual cortex.

While functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is now used widely for demonstrating neural activity-related signals associated with perceptual, motor, and cognitive processes in humans, to date this technique has not been developed for use with nonhuman primates. fMRI in monkeys offers a potentially valuable experimental approach for investigating brain function, which will complement and aid existing techniques such as electrophysiology and the behavioral analysis of the effects of brain lesions. There are, however, a number of significant technical challenges involved in using fMRI with monkeys. Here, we describe the procedures by which we have overcome these challenges to carry out successful fMRI experiments in an alert monkey, and we present the first evidence of activity-related fMRI signals from monkey cerebral cortex.

Animals↗

Confronting AIDS.

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Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

A factor binding GATAAG confers tissue specificity on the promoter of the human zeta-globin gene.

We describe the characterisation of cis-acting sequences which control the tissue specific expression of the human zeta globin gene. An extensive search for enhancer sequences in the vicinity of this gene proved negative. Instead our data demonstrate that the minimal promoter of the zeta gene is itself tissue specific. Sequences close to and possibly including the -100 CACCC and -70 CCAAT boxes display some erythroid specificity. However the principal tissue specific element is a GATAA sequence at -120 directly adjacent to the minimal promoter. Specific deletion of GATAA reduces zeta promoter activity 5 fold in erythroid but not non-erythroid cells. We also demonstrate that an erythroid specific factor binds to this GATAA sequence. Furthermore this factor forms a complex with the transcription factor CP1 which we show interacts with the zeta CCAAT box. We present evidence that the zeta GATAA binding factor is equivalent to GF1 recently purified and cloned by Tsai et al [1]. The erythroid specific GATAA sequence has been found in the promoters and enhancers of a number of erythroid specific genes. Similarly we show here that the zeta globin gene relies on a GATAA sequence in its promoter to specify its expression in erythroid cells.

Animals↗