Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Latent Modulation Of Neuropathic Pain Intensity Via Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Thyroid Axis Of Psychogenic Stress, Roger J. Allen

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Background: In patients with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) delayed pain flares consistently occur ten days following salient psychogenic stress episodes. Timing of latent flares suggests pain modulation via hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis hormones.

Objective: To determine if thyroxine (T₄) may modulate latent stress-related neuropathic pain flare intensity, temporal relationships between daily stress, serum T₄ levels, and perceived pain intensity in patients with CRPS were investigated.

Patients and Methods: Daily, for ten weeks, three patients with type I CRPS and no thyroid pathology Hx provided blood samples for T₄ assay and ratings of stress and pain. Measures …

An Automated Procedure For Detecting Human Frequency-Following Responses To Voice Pitch, Fuh Cherng Jeng, Jiong Hu

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The frequency-following response (FFR) to voice pitch has been widely examined in research laboratories and has demonstrated its potential to be transformed into a useful tool for patients with hearing, speech, and language disorders in the clinic. During the past decade, many aspects of the FFR have been reported. The presence of such a response, however, still relies on subjective interpretation of the observer. Aside from a recent study reporting two algorithms for detecting such a response, there has been limited number of studies reporting the development of an automated procedure for FFR. The purpose of this study is (1) …

Influence Of Cochlear Implantation On Sentence Intelligibility And Duration, Olga Peskova, Nirmal Kumar Srinivasan, Sujin Shin, Madhu Sundarrajan, Emily Tobey

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Cochlear implants (CI) allow children with hearing loss (HL) to achieve speech perception and production outcomes that make their spoken speech understandable to normal hearing adult listeners. This capability is characterize by wide variability of scores. In order to understand the factors that contribute to the overall variability, we investigated the effects of duration of cochlear implantation on speech intelligibility and sentence duration over time. Participants were 107 children implanted between the ages of 2 and 4 and tested at 2 time points there they were 8 and 16 years old. Participants repeated McGarr sentences, which vary in length from …

Shots For Tots?, Eric A. Feldman

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By endorsing the use of a vaccine that makes the experience of puffing on a cigarette deeply distasteful, Lieber and Millum have taken the first few tentative steps into a future filled with medical interventions that manipulate individual preferences. It is tempting to embrace the careful arguments of “Preventing Sin” and celebrate the possibility that the profound individual and social costs of smoking will finally be tamed. Yet there is something unsettling about the possibility that parental discretion may be on the cusp of a radical expansion, one that involves a new and unexplored approach to behavior modification.

Neuroscience And The Future Of Personhood And Responsibility, Stephen J. Morse

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This is a chapter in a book, Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change, edited by Jeffrey Rosen and Benjamin Wittes and published by Brookings. It considers whether likely advances in neuroscience will fundamentally alter our conceptions of human agency, of what it means to be a person, and of responsibility for action. I argue that neuroscience poses no such radical threat now and in the immediate future and it is unlikely ever to pose such a threat unless it or other sciences decisively resolve the mind-body problem. I suggest that until that happens, neuroscience might contribute to the reform of …

Health Insurance, Employment, And The Human Genome: Genetic Discrimination And Biobanks In The United States, Eric A. Feldman, Chelsea Darnell

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Does genetic information warrant special legal protection, and if so how should it be protected? This essay examines the most recent (and indeed only) significant effort by the US government to prohibit genetic discrimination, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). We argue that the legislation is unlikely to have the positive impact sought by advocates of genetic privacy and proponents of biobanks. In part, GINA disappoints because it does too little. Hailed by its promoters as “the first civil rights act of the 21^st century,” GINA’s reach is in fact quite modest and its grasp even more so. But …

A Good Enough Reason: Addiction, Agency And Criminal Responsibility, Stephen J. Morse

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The article begins by contrasting medical and moral views of addiction and how such views influence responsibility and policy analysis. It suggests that since addiction always involves action and action can always be morally evaluated, we must independently decide whether addicts do not meet responsibility criteria rather than begging the question and deciding by the label of ‘disease’ or ‘moral weakness’. It then turns to the criteria for criminal responsibility and shows that the criteria for criminal responsibility, like the criteria for addiction, are all folk psychological. Therefore, any scientific information about addiction must be ‘translated’ into the law’s folk …

Brain Overclaim Redux, Stephen J. Morse

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No abstract provided.