The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter 2003, Volume 24, Number 1, Pages 91–118, ISSN 0271–0137 This paper focuses on a logical systems flow-down of a set of consciousness requirements, which together with biological quantification of human brain anatomy sets limits on the neurological network in the cerebrum in order to produce the mind. It employs data to validate inferences, or when data do not exist, proposes methods for acquiring valid evidence. Many of these systems requirements will be imposed after (...) some fundamental assumptions are made. These assumptions are not new to theories on consciousness. However, their application as fundamentals may actually represent a new approach. Concurrent with these fundamentals, explicit periods of awareness while conscious are employed. Justification for their use is found in a theoretical process described as cerebral fusion. Additionally, storage of memory elements is postulated within local glia sites, proximal to synaptic nodes, and conductive transport through the astrocytes responsible for recall of data. The model permits variations in neural–glial interface physics and allows forecasts of mind/brain dysfunctions to be inferred. One key result from the model is hypothesized and expanded upon, and may have impact in certain types of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease. (shrink)

Disorders of Consciousness (DoCs) raise difficult and complex questions about the value of life for persons with impaired consciousness, the rights of persons unable to make medical decisions, and our social, medical, and ethical obligations to patients whose personhood has frequently been challenged and neglected. Recent neuroscientific discoveries have led to enhanced understanding of the heterogeneity of these disorders, and focused renewed attention on the medical and ethical problem of misdiagnosis. -/- This book examines the entanglement of epistemic and ethical (...) uncertainty in DoCs and other medical contexts, and how they interact to create both epistemic and ethical risks. Philosopher and bioethicist L. Syd M Johnson pulls together multiple threads in this work: the ontological mysteries of consciousness, medical uncertainty about unconsciousness, ableist bias, withdrawal of treatment in neurointensive care, and the rarely questioned view that consciousness is essential to personhood and moral status. Johnson challenges longstanding bioethical dogmas about DoC patients, and argues for an ethics of uncertainty for contexts where there is a need for decisive action in the presence of unavoidable uncertainty. The ethics of uncertainty refocuses ethical inquiry concerning persons with DoCs, placing less emphasis on their contested personhood, and more on inductive risk and uncertainty, on respect for autonomy, and especially on epistemic justice. With applications to various decisional contexts where uncertainty and ethical risk interact, this ethical approach enables surrogate decision makers facing fraught and risky choices to fulfill their obligations as moral and epistemic agents. (shrink)

Concussion is a common, serious injury in youth ice hockey, affecting up to 25% of players per season by one estimate. • Bodychecking is a major cause of injury and concussion in hockey, yet some Canadian provinces allow players as young as nine years to engage in bodychecking. • Reducing rates of concussion requires eliminating bodychecking for all except elite hockey players aged 16 years and older, as per the recommendations of the Canadian Academy of Sports and Exercise Medicine.

A weak form of intuitionistic set theory WST lacking the axiom of extensionality is introduced. While WST is too weak to support the derivation of the law of excluded middle from the axiom of choice, we show that beefing up WST with moderate extensionality principles or quotient sets enables the derivation to go through.

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect (delayed response due to interference) elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

Although activated spinal cord glia contribute importantly to neuropathic pain, how nerve injury activates glia remains controversial. It has recently been proposed, on the basis of genetic approaches, that toll-like receptor 4 may be a key receptor for initiating microglial activation following L5 spinal nerve injury. The present studies extend this idea pharmacologically by showing that TLR4 is key for maintaining neuropathic pain following sciatic nerve chronic constriction injury. Established neuropathic pain was reversed by intrathecally delivered TLR4 receptor antagonists derived (...) from lipopolysaccharide. Additionally, -naltrexone, -naloxone, and -naloxone, which we show here to be TLR4 antagonists in vitro on both stably transfected HEK293-TLR4 and microglial cell lines, suppressed neuropathic pain with complete reversal upon chronic infusion. Immunohistochemical analyses of spinal cords following chronic infusion revealed suppression of CCI-induced microglial activation by -naloxone and -naloxone, paralleling reversal of neuropathic pain. Together, these CCI data support the conclusion that neuron-to-glia signaling through TLR4 is important not only for initiating neuropathic pain, as suggested previously, but also for maintaining established neuropathic pain. Furthermore, these studies suggest that the novel TLR4 antagonists -naloxone and -naloxone can each fully reverse established neuropathic pain upon multi-day administration. This finding with -naloxone is of potential clinical relevance. This is because -naloxone is an antagonist that is inactive at the -opioid selective receptors on neurons that produce analgesia. Thus, these data suggest that -opioid antagonists such as -naloxone may be useful clinically to suppress glial activation, yet -opioid agonists suppress pain. (shrink)

Résumé : Le PPBS a été conçu comme un instrument destiné à ceux qui décident de l'allocation des ressources publiques : il doit leur permettre de prendre de meilleures décisions. S'il est très difficile de repérer et de juger les choix que le développement du système a inspirés aux Etats-Unis, il n'en est pas mains certain que ses résultats tangibles sant maigres car la masse des anciens programmes, principale source potentielle de moyens nouveaux, n'a guère été remise en question.La valeur (...) intrinsèque du PPBS ne peut être mise en cause. Ce qui doit l'être, c'est la lenteur de son développement, qui demeure peu avancé. Cette lenteur s'explique, car le système ne peut produire des fruits dans une terre stérile qu'on n'a pas préparée.La brutalité et les maladresses de l'opération déclenchée en 1965 dans le gouvernement fédéral américain ne pouvaient que renforcer la résistance au changement et retarder, sinon compromettre, le succès final. Les perspectives demeurent heureusement favorables, puisque la nouvelle administration ne semble pas décidée à faire machine arrière et que les Etats et Villes ont démarré sous de bien meilleurs auspices.La principale conclusion qu'imposent les expériences américaines est que toute juridiction intéressée par le PPBS doit impérativement développer, de la façon la plus générale, la volonté d'instaurer le système et s'assurer les moyens de le faire. C'est dire qu'il est peu sage d'engager la bataille sur tous les fronts à la fois : il faut tenter des percées. Mais c'est dire aussi combi en l'information et la formation sant essentielles. A cet égard, l'installation généralisée de certains éléments du système, à savoir la structure de programmes et le budget-programme, loin de présenter des inconvénients, peut constituer un excellent exercice en dehors de son utilité directe pour le preneur de décision. La bataille en cause est surtout celle de la conviction: l'outil est prêt, il est bon, encore faut-il que l' ouvrier accepte de s'en servir.Samenvatting:Planning-programming-budgeting werd ontworpen als een instrument voor diegenen die beslissen over de toewijzing van de overheidsmiddelen.Dit instrument moet de beslissers in staat stellen betere beslissingen te treffen. Het is niet makkelijk deze beslissingen op te sporen en te beoordelen welke in de Verenigde Staten getroffen werden onder invloed van de ontwikkeling van deze systeembenadering. Toch is het met vrij grote zekerheid te stellen dat de tastbare resultaten gering zijn omdat de veelheid aan oude programma's die tenslotte toch de voornaamste potentiële bronnen zijn van nieuwe middelen, nooit werden aangevochten.De intrinsieke waarde van PPBS kan daarom evenwel niet worden genegeerd. Wat wel dient aangeklaagd is de traagheid van zijn aanslepende ontwikkeling. Deze traagheid is te verklaren door het feit dat het systeem slechts vruchten kan afwerpen zo het ingeplant wordt in degelijk voorbereid terrein.De brutaliteit en de onhandigheden bij de operatie die in 1965 werd ingezet in het amerikaans federaal overheidsbestel konden niets anders dan de weerstand tegen de verandering versterken en afbreuk doen aan het uiteindelijk slagen van het systeem. Gelukkiglijk blijven de vooruitzichten gunstig want de nieuwe beleidsvoerders sinds de presidentsverkiezingen, blijken ermee te willen doorgaan en de staten en lokale overheden zijn ermee van wal gestoken onder veel betere omstandigheden. Het doorslaggevend besluit uit de amerikaanse ervaringen terzake is wel dat elke instantie welke belangstelling heeft voor PPBS, nodig moet op zo breed mogelijk vlak de wil doen groeien om het systeem te ontwikkelen en er ook de nodige middelen toe ter beschikking stellen. Dit betekent tevens dat het weinig aan te bevelen is de strijd op alle fronten terzelvertijd aan te binden maar wel geleidelijk doorbraken te verwezenlijken. Dit brengt dan evenwel ook met zich dat informatie en vorming essentieel zijn bij deze strategie. In dit verband moet dan ook gezegd worden dat reeds het invoeren van sommige deelementen van het systeem, zoals de programmastructuur en het programmabudget, voor de beslisser nuttig kan zijn voor zijn persoonlijk inzicht en vorming.De te voeren actie dient nog slechts te worden toegespitst op het overtuigen van de verantwoordelijken. Het instrument is immers gebruiksklaar en degelijk, er is alleen nog het wachten op de wil van de gebruiker dit instrument ter hand te nemen. (shrink)

Adenosine transport in cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) was characterized and shown to be mediated by a single facilitated diffusion mechanism. Initial rates of adenosine influx at 22 degrees C were saturable [apparent Michaelis constant, 69 +/- 10 mu M; maximum velocity (V-max), 600 +/- 70 pmol.10(6) cells(-1).s(-1)] and inhibited by nitrobenzylthioinosine (NBMPR). Formycin B had an unusually high affinity [inhibitory constant K-i), 18 +/- 4.3 mu M], whereas inosine had a low affinity (K-i, 440 +/- 68 mu (...) M) and nucleobases were without effect on adenosine influx. The number of transporters (1.2 x 10(6) sites/cell) was estimated by NBMPR equilibrium binding (apparent dissociation constant, 0.11 +/- 0.01 nM; maximum binding, 2.0 +/- 0.15 pmol/10(6) cells). In addition, we compared these endothelial cells with those obtained from cords from pregnancies complicated by diabetes (HUVEC-D), since embriopathy may occur in these conditions. HUVEC-D exhibited a 2.3-fold reduction in both the V-max for adenosine influx and the maximum number of NBMPR binding sites (260 +/- 40 pmol.10(6) cells(-1).s(-1) and 0.86 +/- 0.08 pmol/10(6) cells, respectively). However, the turnover number for each nucleoside transporter in normal and diabetic HUVEC was similar (approximate to 300 adenosine molecules/s). Adenosine metabolism at 10 mu M in HUVEC-D was modified compared with normal cells. Intracellular phosphorylation (> 90%) was the predominant pathway in normal HUVEC, whereas in HUVEC-D, substantial levels of adenine and adenosine were detected. The present results demonstrate therefore the downregulation of the NBMPR-sensitive nucleoside transporter and changes in adenosine metabolism in HUVEC from diabetic pregnancies. (shrink)

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