On the surface, Robert Browning‟s poem, “Porphyria‟s Lover” is a straightforward piece. 1 The plot begins with the speaker, a man, being visited at night by his lover, Porphyria, and ends ultimately with him strangling her. It is a simple story, albeit a distressing one. As literary critic Catherine Ross notes in her article, “Browning‟s Porphyria’s Lover,” the “standard reading” of the poem is...

Peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) is currently considered the least invasive, innovative endoscopic intervention for permanent treatment of all types of esophageal achalasia [1]. POEM, however, is a technically demanding procedure, necessitating high-quality endoscopic abilities to manage the individualized technical diffi culties. Herein we report a successful POEM in a 75-year-old male with s...

E ffective teachers do no simply present information for students to learn by rote for a good grade. Rather, they provide an environment in which students can engage with course material and both learn and interpret it for their own interest and goals. With this in mind, I have spent a considerable amount of time developing an active learning format for my introductory biology course, including...

Peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) is a safe and effective procedure for patients with achalasia [1]. Mucosal perforation is an inadvertent complication that is difficult or impossible to treat with standard clips [2]. Over-the-scope clips, endoluminal suturing devices, and fully covered stents have been used successfully [3,4]. Cyanoacrylate is used as a sealant because of its rapid solidificat...

To date very few studies with small sample size have compared peroral esophageal myotomy (POEM) with the current surgical standard of care, laparoscopic Heller myotomy (LHM), in terms of efficacy and safety, and no recommendations have been proposed.To investigate the efficacy and safety of POEM compared with LHM, for the treatment of achalasia.The databases of Pubmed, Medline, Cochrane, and Ov...

In the automatic imitation task (AIT) participants make a cued response during simultaneous exposure to a congruent or incongruent action made by another agent. Participants are slower to make the cued response on incongruent trials, which is thought to reflect conflict between the motor representation activated by the cue and the motor representation activated by the observed action. On incong...

The discovery of mirror neurons (MNs), deemed to be at the basis of action understanding, could constitute the potential solution to the 'correspondence problem' between one's own and others' action that is crucial for of imitative behaviours. However, it is still to be clarified whether, and how, several imitative phenomena, differing in terms of complexity and cognitive effort, could be expla...

The psychological aspects of epilepsy are lifelong. To maximize a healthy life, it is critical that the patient with epilepsy not view such illness as a stigma. During the Twentieth International Epilepsy Congress, the author presented an autobiographical poem entitled: 'Life with epilepsy: 1960-1992 '1 . The following poem represents his feelings following the presentation, and his underlying ...

Pattern poetry is an art form that combines literary and visual elements to produce poems in which the text and the shape of the poem work together as an aesthetic whole. To fully appreciate a pattern poem one needs to see it as well as hear it. Although varied forms of this art existed throughout history and across cultures, it is only in the 19 century that pattern poetry became a recognized ...

Automatic imitation or "imitative compatibility" is thought to be mediated by the mirror neuron system and to be a laboratory model of the motor mimicry that occurs spontaneously in naturalistic social interaction. Imitative compatibility and spatial compatibility effects are known to depend on different stimulus dimensions-body movement topography and relative spatial position. However, it is ...