Our results add to previous evidence suggesting that the low-molecular-weight heparin dalteparin administered by twice-daily subcutaneous injection may be an alternative to unfractionated heparin in the acute treatment of unstable angina or non-Q-wave myocardial infarction. Prolonged treatment with dalteparin at a lower once-daily dose in our study did not confer any additional benefit over aspirin (75 to 165 mg) alone.
When dissimilar stimuli are presented to the two eyes, only one stimulus dominates at a time while the other stimulus is invisible due to interocular suppression. When both stimuli are equally potent in competing for awareness, perception alternates spontaneously between the two stimuli, a phenomenon called binocular rivalry. However, when one stimulus is much stronger, e.g., due to higher contrast, the weaker stimulus can be suppressed for prolonged periods of time. A technique that has recently become very popular for the investigation of unconscious visual processing is continuous flash suppression (CFS): High-contrast dynamic patterns shown to one eye can render a low-contrast stimulus shown to the other eye invisible for up to minutes. Studies using CFS have produced new insights but also controversies regarding the types of visual information that can be processed unconsciously as well as the neural sites and the relevance of such unconscious processing. Here, we review the current state of knowledge in regard to neural processing of interocularly suppressed information. Focusing on recent neuroimaging findings, we discuss whether and to what degree such suppressed visual information is processed at early and more advanced levels of the visual processing hierarchy. We review controversial findings related to the influence of attention on early visual processing under interocular suppression, the putative differential roles of dorsal and ventral areas in unconscious object processing, and evidence suggesting privileged unconscious processing of emotional and other socially relevant information. On a more general note, we discuss methodological and conceptual issues, from practical issues of how unawareness of a stimulus is assessed to the overarching question of what constitutes an adequate operational definition of unawareness. Finally, we propose approaches for future research to resolve current controversies in this exciting research area.
During bistable vision, perception oscillates between two mutually exclusive percepts despite constant sensory input. Greater BOLD responses in frontoparietal cortex have been shown to be associated with endogenous perceptual transitions compared with "replay" transitions designed to closely match bistability in both perceptual quality and timing. It has remained controversial, however, whether this enhanced activity reflects causal influences of these regions on processing at the sensory level or, alternatively, an effect of stimulus differences that result in, for example, longer durations of perceptual transitions in bistable perception compared with replay conditions. Using a rotating Lissajous figure in an fMRI experiment on 15 human participants, we controlled for potential confounds of differences in transition duration and confirmed previous findings of greater activity in frontoparietal areas for transitions during bistable perception. In addition, we applied dynamic causal modeling to identify the neural model that best explains the observed BOLD signals in terms of effective connectivity. We found that enhanced activity for perceptual transitions is associated with a modulation of top-down connectivity from frontal to visual cortex, thus arguing for a crucial role of frontoparietal cortex in perceptual transitions during bistable perception.
Dysglycemia, in this survey defined as impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or type 2 diabetes, is common in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and associated with an unfavorable prognosis. This European survey investigated dysglycemia screening and risk factor management of patients with CAD in relation to standards of European guidelines for cardiovascular subjects. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The European Society of Cardiology's European Observational Research Programme (ESC EORP) European Action on Secondary and Primary Prevention by Intervention to Reduce Events (EUROASPIRE) V (2016-2017) included 8,261 CAD patients, aged 18-80 years, from 27 countries. If the glycemic state was unknown, patients underwent an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and measurement of glycated hemoglobin A 1c. Lifestyle, risk factors, and pharmacological management were investigated. RESULTS A total of 2,452 patients (29.7%) had known diabetes. OGTT was performed in 4,440 patients with unknown glycemic state, of whom 41.1% were dysglycemic. Without the OGTT, 30% of patients with type 2 diabetes and 70% of those with IGT would not have been detected. The presence of dysglycemia almost doubled from that selfreported to the true proportion after screening. Only approximately one-third of all coronary patients had completely normal glucose metabolism. Of patients with known diabetes, 31% had been advised to attend a diabetes clinic, and only 24% attended. Only 58% of dysglycemic patients were prescribed all cardioprotective drugs, and use of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (3%) or glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (1%) was small. CONCLUSIONS Urgent action is required for both screening and management of patients with CAD and dysglycemia, in the expectation of a substantial reduction in risk of further cardiovascular events and in complications of diabetes, as well as longer life expectancy.
The results of this study support the concept that there is no statistically significant difference among amounts of intraoperative EBL with varying degrees of embolization.
Continuous flash suppression (CFS) is an interocular suppression technique that uses high-contrast masks flashed to one eye to prevent conscious perception of images shown to the other eye. It has become widely used due to its strength and prolonged duration of suppression and its nearly deterministic control of suppression onset and offset. Recently, it has been proposed that action-relevant visual processing ascribed to the dorsal stream remains functional, while processing in the ventral stream is completely suppressed, when stimuli are invisible under CFS. Here we tested the hypothesis that the potentially dorsal-stream-based analysis of prime-stimulus elongation during CFS affects the categorization of manipulable target objects. In two behavioral experiments, we found evidence for priming in a shape task, but none for priming in a category task, when prime stimuli were rendered invisible using CFS. Our results thus support the notion that the representation of CF-suppressed stimuli is more limited than previously thought.
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