AIM To determine the long-term effect of argon plasma coagulation (APC) of gastric inlet patches in the cervical esophagus for patients suffering from globus sensation. METHODS We intended to follow up all patients between 2004 and 2011 (n = 49) who received argon plasma ablation of gastric inlet patches for globus sensation at our clinic. Symptoms were assessed by a visual analogue scale (VA...

OBJECTIVE The authors investigated structural abnormalities in brain regions comprising cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical loops in pediatric patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). METHOD Volumes of the caudate nucleus, putamen, and globus pallidus and gray and white matter volumes of the anterior cingulate gyrus and superior frontal gyrus were computed from contiguous 1.5-mm mag...

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of the substantia nigra has shown promise in detecting and quantifying neurodegeneration in Parkinson disease (PD). It remains unknown, however, whether differences in microstructural changes within the basal ganglia underlie PD motor subtypes. We investigated microstructural changes within the basal ganglia of mild to moderately affected PD patients using DTI and...

High frequency deep-brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (deep brain stimulation, DBS) relieves many of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in humans and animal models. Although the treatment has seen widespread use, its therapeutic mechanism remains paradoxical. The subthalamic nucleus is excitatory, so its stimulation at rates higher than its normal firing rate should worsen the disea...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Information about age-related changes in the striatum comes almost exclusively from cross-sectional studies. We examined age-related differences and longitudinal changes in the volume of the striatal nuclei, compared longitudinal measures of changes with their cross-sectional estimates, and addressed the question of differential aging of the basal ganglia. METHODS We me...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE In the brains of newborns, changes in signal intensity in most structures can be explained by the development of myelination. However, there are some structures for which signal intensity changes cannot be accounted for by myelination alone. We examined the STN and globus pallidus signal intensities and tried to determine whether a relationship exists between the signal i...

OBJECTIVES This study was performed to investigate the effectiveness of treatment of globus pharyngeus with proton pump inhibitors, gabapentin, or both. METHODS The subjects all presented with globus pharyngeus during the years 2006 to 2011. The inclusion criteria included a chief (primary) complaint of globus pharyngeus; a trial of proton pump inhibitor therapy for at least 2 months and/or a...

During July and August 2004 we visited various applied science and middleware groups in the U.K. in order to gather basic information on the services and functionality these projects are using. Our motivation was to help guide the development of future activities and priorities within the U.K.’s Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute [OMII] and the Globus Alliance [Globus] and to inform the w...

Dopamine D3 receptors are preferentially localized in the limbic system and midbrain, and thus may be involved in the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatry disorders. [11C](+)-PHNO is the first preferential D3 receptor radioligand in humans, yet there are no blockade studies with a D3 receptor antagonist in humans. This study characterized the blockade of [11C](+)-PHNO binding by ABT-925, a D3 rec...

In this paper, we present a performance evaluation of a wide-area cluster system based on a rewallenabled Globus metacomputing toolkit. In order to establish communication links beyond the rewall, we have designed and implemented a resource manager called RMF (Resource Manager beyond the Firewall) and the Nexus Proxy, which relays TCP communication links beyond the rewall. In order to extend th...