Lesioning the ventral hippocampus of neonatal rats has been proposed as an experimental model of schizophrenia. This lesion causes a syndrome of hyperresponsivity to the stimulant effects of amphetamine, impaired grooming and disrupted social interactions, effects that emerge during adolescence, much like schizophrenia. Persisting cognitive effects of neonatal ventral hippocampal lesions were assessed in the current study, because the hippocampus is critically important for a variety of cognitive functions and cognitive impairment and because it is an important feature of schizophrenia. Spatial learning and working memory were assessed in the radial-arm maze, which is sensitive to the adverse effects of hippocampal lesions made in adults. Lesioned rats showed pronounced deficits in radial-arm maze choice accuracy that persisted throughout training. Deficits were seen during the prepubertal period as well as in adulthood. Even though the lesioned rats performed more poorly, they were significantly less sensitive to the amnestic effects of the nicotinic antagonist mecamylamine and the muscarinic antagonist scopolamine. No significant effects of nicotine or amphetamine were seen in either the lesioned or control groups. The long-lasting deficits in spatial learning and working memory resulting from neonatal ventral hippocampal lesions show that, unlike frontal cortical lesions during the same age, the effects of hippocampal lesions are not overcome during development. The resistance to the amnestic effects of nicotinic and muscarinic acetylcholine (ACh) antagonists suggests that the hippocampus is a critical site for the action of these drugs. Neonatal hippocampal lesions may provide a good model of the cognitive impairments of schizophrenia and may be useful to assess novel drug effects to counteract the cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.

This pilot study suggests that participation in a home exercise video programme may benefit people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of a home-based Inspiratory Muscle Training (IMT) programme using multiple inspiratory muscle tests. group and trained with a threshold loading device at intensity >30% maximum inspiratory pressure (PImax) or < 15%PImax respectively for 7 weeks. Thirty nine patients (23M) completed the study. The following measures were assessed pre-and post-IMT: PImax, sniff inspiratory nasal pressure (SNIP), diaphragm contractility (Pdi,tw), incremental shuttle walk test (ISWT), respiratory muscle endurance (RME), chronic respiratory disease questionnaire (CRDQ), the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) and the SF-36. Between group changes were assessed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Method Results

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Examination of the effect of three doses of pentobarbital on the comparative performance of a complex psychomotor task with two simple neuromotor tasks, i. e., standing steady and pendulum eye tracking, revealed a high correlation. These simple tasks could be used as measures of intoxication since they do not require extensive training. Examination of the complex task impairment blood level ratio revealed that impairment relative to blood level was much greater in the absorption phase. This changing ratio underscores the point that blood levels alone are not an adequate estimate of intoxication.

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Drawing on social judgment theory for its theoretical underpinnings, this article presents a method for combining several descriptive indicators to yield an aggregated single summative index of the overall quality of the services received by clients in a service delivery system or program. The method described is based on the judgments of an evaluative panel and can be applied to a wide variety of populations and types of services. The delivery service index itself can be used as a dependent variable in analyses of variance or employed in correlational studies. GL ike description, judgment is a fundamental cognitive component of evaluation (Stake, 1967). Accordingly, one would expect to fmd a corresponding refinement of ways of representing the judgment process embedded in the general evaluative process; however, despite the use of elegant techniques for describing a program, the evaluator's primary model for providing quantitative indices of the impact of the program continues to focus on goal attainment (Schulberg and Baker, 1968).