Search results for "EFL."
showing 10 items of 2505 documents
Stance control is not affected by paresis and reflex hyperexcitability: the case of spastic patients.
2001
OBJECTIVES Spastic patients were studied to understand whether stance unsteadiness is associated with changes in the control of voluntary force, muscle tone, or reflex excitability, rather than to abnormal posture connected to the motor deficit itself. METHODS Twenty four normal subjects, 12 patients affected by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), seven by spastic paraparesis, and 14 by hemiparesis were studied. All patients featured various degrees of spasticity and paresis but were free from clinically evident sensory deficits. Body sway during quiet upright stance was assessed through a stabilometric platform under both eyes open (EO) and eyes closed (EC) conditions. The sudden rotation…
Esophageal transmural potential difference in patients with symptomatic gastroesophageal reflux.
1980
Esophageal electrical potential difference (PD) was studied in 9 patients with symptomatic gastroesophageal reflux and in 9 healthy control subjects. None of the patients revealed gross mucosal damage by radiography or endoscopy, but all of them showed positive acid perfusion studies. In the stomach and across the lower esophageal sphincter PD profiles were remarkably similar in patients and controls. Throughout the lower esophagus however, PD values were slightly higher in patients with symptomatic reflux than in healthy volunteers. These data are in contrast to a previous investigation, in which patients with reflux-induced gross mucosal damage revealed a decreased PD in the lower esophag…
Speeding up gait initiation and gait-pattern with a startling stimulus.
2008
Human gait involves a repetitive leg motor pattern that emerges after gait initiation. While the automatic maintenance of the gait-pattern may be under the control of subcortical motor centres, gait initiation requires the voluntary launching of a different motor program. In this study, we sought to examine how the two motor programmes respond to an experimental manipulation of the timing of gait initiation. Subjects were instructed to start walking as soon as possible at the perception of an imperative signal (IS) that, in some interspersed trials was accompanied by a startling auditory stimulus (SAS). This method is known to shorten the latency for execution of the motor task under prepar…
Acute and prolonged reduction in joint stiffness in humans after exhausting stretch-shortening cycle exercise.
2002
The purpose of the present study was to examine the acute and long-term fatigue effects of exhausting stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) exercise on the stiffness of ankle and knee joints. Five subjects were fatigued on a sledge apparatus by 100 maximal rebound jumps followed by continuous submaximal jumping until complete exhaustion. Neuromuscular fatigue ef- fects were examined in submaximal hopping (HOP) and in maximal drop jumps (DJ) from 35 (DJ35) and 55 cm (DJ55) heights on a force plate. Additional force and reflex measurements were made using an ankle ergom- eter. Jumping tests and ankle ergometer tests were car- ried out before, immediately after, 2 h (2H), 2 days and 7 days (7D) after…
Swallowing disorders after thyroidectomy: What we know and where we are. A systematic review.
2017
Abstract Introduction Dysphagia and hoarseness are possible complications that can be observed in patients undergoing thyroidectomy or other neck surgery procedures. These complaints are usually related to superior and inferior laryngeal nerves dysfunction, but these can appear even after uncomplicated surgical procedure. Methods We reviewed the current literature available on MEDLINE database, concerning the swallowing disorders appearing after the thyroidectomy. The articles included in the review reported pathophysiology and diagnostic concerns. Results Twenty articles were selected for inclusion in the review. Depends on the possible causes of the difficulty swallowing (related to nerve…
Cortical stimulation and reflex excitability of spinal cord neurones in man.
1995
The H reflex technique was used to evaluate the influence exerted by cortical conditioning on the excitability of the alpha-motoneurone pool and on IA interneuronal activity (reciprocal inhibition). In ten subjects at absolute rest electrical and magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex was transcranially applied during flexor carpi radialis H reflex eliciting and in conditions of reciprocal inhibition induced by radial nerve stimulation. The time courses showed that at intensities below motor threshold, electrical brain conditioning induced an increase in the amplitude of the test reflex when the cortical shock was given 4 ms after the test H reflex. On the contrary, reciprocal inhibition …
Brainstem reflex circuits revisited
2004
Our current understanding of brainstem reflex physiology comes chiefly from the classic anatomical-functional correlation studies that traced the central circuits underlying brainstem reflexes and establishing reflex abnormalities as markers for specific areas of lesion. These studies nevertheless had the disadvantage of deriving from post-mortem findings in only a few patients. We developed a voxel-based model of the human brainstem designed to import and normalize MRIs, select groups of patients with or without a given dysfunction, compare their MRIs statistically, and construct three-plane maps showing the statistical probability of lesion. Using this method, we studied 180 patients with…
A Single-Channel Algorithm for Land-Surface Temperature Retrieval From ASTER Data
2010
This letter presents an adaptation to Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data of the generalized single-channel (SC) algorithm developed by JimE?nez-MuN?oz and Sobrino, also adapted to the Landsat thermal-infrared (TIR) channel (band 6) later by JimE?nez-MuN?oz The SC algorithm relies on the concept of atmospheric functions (AFs), which are dependent on atmospheric transmissivity, upwelling, and downwelling atmospheric radiances. These AFs are fitted versus the atmospheric water-vapor content for operational purposes, despite the fact that other computation options are also possible. The SC algorithm has been adapted to ASTER TIR bands 13 (10.659 ?m) and …
Multisensor comparison of NDVI for a semi‐arid environment in Spain
2009
The joint use of multiresolution sensors from different satellites offers many opportunities to describe vegetation and its dynamics. This paper introduces the concept of a virtual constellation (defined as an ensemble of all Earth Observation satellites in orbit that satisfy common requirements) for agricultural applications and contributes to providing the necessary inter-sensor calibration methodology for spectral reflectances and NDVI. For this purpose, we performed an observational study, comparing reflectances and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), from near-synchronous image pairs of Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), as the reference sensor and Landsat 5…
Improved land surface emissivities over agricultural areas using ASTER NDVI
2006
Abstract Land surface emissivity retrieval over agricultural regions is important for energy balance estimations, land cover assessment and other related environmental studies. The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) produces images of sufficient spatial resolution (from 15 m to 90 m) to be of use in agricultural studies, in which fields of crops are too small to be well-resolved by low resolution sensors. The ASTER project generates land surface emissivity images as a Standard Product (AST05) using the Temperature/Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm. However, the TES algorithm is prone to scaling errors in estimating emissivities for surfaces with low s…