No abstract

A stimulator array is described which can deliver a wide range of displacement waveforms from each contactor, allowing vibratory stimuli to be targeted towards different populations of mechanoreceptors in the skin. The array has a working bandwidth of 20-400 Hz and 100 moving contactors covering an area of 1 cm2 on the fingertip. The array was validated with two experiments on the perception of moving vibratory targets within a uniform background vibration. In the first experiment, with target and background at the same frequency, equivalent discrimination of target movement was obtained at higher values of target/background amplitude ratio for 40-Hz stimuli than for 320-Hz stimuli. In the second experiment, discrimination of target movement within a different-frequency background (320-Hz target and 40-Hz background, or vice versa) was found to be much easier than within a same-frequency background. These results suggest that tactile spatial acuity is better at 320 Hz than 40 Hz and that it is possible to target different receptor populations in the skin by using these frequencies. However, there are problems with this interpretation: on the basis of characterization of touch receptors in previous studies, spatial acuity is expected to be worse at 320 Hz than at 40 Hz.

Using a 100-element tactile stimulator on the fingertip during functional-magnetic-resonance imaging, brain areas were identified that were selectively activated by a moving vibrotactile stimulus (the sensation of a moving line being dragged over the fingertip). Activation patterns elicited by tactile motion, contrasted to an equivalent stationary stimulus, were compared in six human subjects with those generated by a moving visual stimulus, contrasted to an equivalent stationary stimulus. Results provide further evidence for a neuroanatomical convergence of tactile-motion processing and visual-motion processing in humans. The sites of this convergence are found to lie in the middle temporal complex (hMT+V5), an area with known specialization for visual-motion processing, and in the intraparietal area of the posterior parietal cortex. In an advance on previous studies, the present study includes separate delineation of activations for moving tactile stimuli and activations for moving visual stimuli. Results suggest that the two sets of activations are not entirely collocated. Compared to the visual-motion activations, the tactile-motion activations are found to lie nearer the midline of the brain and further superior.

Within the care of people living with respiratory conditions, nursing, physiotherapy, and respiratory therapy healthcare professionals routinely work in interprofessional teams. To help students prepare for their future professional roles, there is a need for them to be involved in interprofessional education. The purpose of this project was to compare two different methods of patient simulation in improving interprofessional competencies for students in nursing, physiotherapy, and respiratory therapy programmes. The Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative competencies of communication, collaboration, conflict resolution patient/family-centred care, roles and responsibilities, and team functioning were measured. Using a quasi-experimental pre-post intervention approach two different interprofessional workshops were compared: the combination of standardised and simulated patients, and exclusively standardised patients. Students from nursing, physiotherapy, and respiratory therapy programmes worked together in these simulation-based activities to plan and implement care for a patient with a respiratory condition. Key results were that participants in both years improved in their self-reported interprofessional competencies as measured by the Interprofessional Collaborative Competencies Attainment Survey (ICCAS). Participants indicated that they found their interprofessional teams did well with communication and collaboration. But the participants felt they could have better involved the patients and their family members in the patient's care. Regardless of method of patient simulation used, mannequin or standardised patients, students found the experience beneficial and appreciated the opportunity to better understand the roles of other healthcare professionals in working together to help patients living with respiratory conditions.

PurposeThe blood brain barrier compromises glioblastoma chemotherapy. However high blood concentrations of lipophilic, alkylating drugs result in brain uptake, but cause myelosuppression. We hypothesised that nanoparticles could achieve therapeutic brain concentrations without dose-limiting myelosuppression.MethodsMice were dosed with either intravenous lomustine Molecular Envelope Technology (MET) nanoparticles (13 mg kg−1) or ethanolic lomustine (6.5 mg kg−1) and tissues analysed. Efficacy was assessed in an orthotopic U-87 MG glioblastoma model, following intravenous MET lomustine (daily 13 mg kg−1) or ethanolic lomustine (daily 1.2 mg kg−1 - the highest repeated dose possible). Myelosuppression and MET particle macrophage uptake were also investigated.ResultsThe MET formulation resulted in modest brain targeting (brain/ bone AUC0-4h ratios for MET and ethanolic lomustine = 0.90 and 0.53 respectively and brain/ liver AUC0-4h ratios for MET and ethanolic lomustine = 0.24 and 0.15 respectively). The MET formulation significantly increased mice (U-87 MG tumours) survival times; with MET lomustine, ethanolic lomustine and untreated mean survival times of 33.2, 22.5 and 21.3 days respectively and there were no material treatment-related differences in blood and femoral cell counts. Macrophage uptake is slower for MET nanoparticles than for liposomes.ConclusionsParticulate drug formulations improved brain tumour therapy without major bone marrow toxicity.