Hang cleans and hang snatches produce similar improvements in female collegiate athletes.

Olympic weightlifting movements and their variations are believed to be among the most effective ways to improve power, strength, and speed in athletes. This study investigated the effects of two Olympic weightlifting variations (hang cleans and hang snatches), on power (vertical jump height), strength (1RM back squat), and speed (40-yard sprint) in female collegiate athletes. 23 NCAA Division I female athletes were randomly assigned to either a hang clean group or hang snatch group. Athletes participated in two workout sessions a week for six weeks, performing either hang cleans or hang snatches for five sets of three repetitions with a load of 80-85% 1RM, concurrent with their existing, season-specific, resistance training program. Vertical jump height, 1RM back squat, and 40-yard sprint all had a significant, positive improvement from pre-training to post-training in both groups (p≤0.01). However, when comparing the gain scores between groups, there was no significant difference between the hang clean and hang snatch groups for any of the three dependent variables (i.e., vertical jump height, p=0.46; 1RM back squat, p=0.20; and 40-yard sprint, p=0.46). Short-term training emphasizing hang cleans or hang snatches produced similar improvements in power, strength, and speed in female collegiate athletes. This provides strength and conditioning professionals with two viable programmatic options in athletic-based exercises to improve power, strength, and speed.

Time course of salamander spinal cord regeneration and recovery of swimming: HRP retrograde pathway tracing and kinematic analysis.

The time course of regeneration of supraspinal and descending brachial intraspinal axons was studied using HRP retrograde tracing and kinematic analysis. Five groups of salamanders (10 salamanders/group) received complete thoracic transection 1.0 cm rostral to the hind limbs abolishing swimming. Groups 1-4 recovered for 2, 4, 6, and 8 weeks, respectively, before being filmed to record the animal's ability to swim. After filming, a second transection was made 1.0 cm caudal to the first (at the level of the lumbar enlargement) and HRP was used to label descending axons which had grown past the first lesion. The fifth group was filmed every 2 weeks for 12 weeks before the second transection was made for HRP application. The films were used to perform frame by frame computer analysis of the amplitude and timing of cyclic lateral flexion waves which make up swimming behavior. The earliest return of coordinated swimming behavior was seen 4 weeks after transection (1 of 20 animals). At 6 weeks post-transection, 5 of 10 animals exhibited coordinated swimming. However, the behavior in these animals was subnormal. In the group surviving 8 weeks post-transection, 5 of 10 animals recovered coordinated swimming behavior. In the group that was filmed every 2 weeks, 5 of the 10 salamanders which did recover, exhibited coordinated swimming behavior by the eighth week post-transection. Kinematic analysis of salamanders that exhibited a return of coordinated swimming revealed quantitative differences compared to normal salamanders. While continuous head to tail undulatory waves were present, the propagation time and period were faster than those in normal salamanders. Retransection of the spinal cord abolished coordinated swimming. The numbers and distribution of HRP-labeled supraspinal neurons varied greatly among the animals that displayed recovery of locomotor abilities. In the salamanders examined 6 weeks post-transection the majority of labeled cells were found in medullary nuclei. In recovered salamanders examined 8 and 12 weeks post-transection, HRP-labeled neurons were found in the red nucleus, in the interstitial nucleus of the fasciculus longitudinalis medialis, and in the mesencephalic as well as the medullary reticular neurons. Recovery of coordinated swimming was only observed in salamanders in which descending supraspinal and intraspinal axons were present at the level of the lumbar enlargement (as demonstrated by HRP retrograde labeling). These results indicate that recovery of locomotion is dependent on the reestablishment of descending input and is not a result of changes in spinal reflexes or propagation of electrical activity through the body wall.

Acute dystonic reactions in childhood to drugs.

Twelve children who exhibited acute dystonic reactions to drugs are described. The frequency of these complications is noted. We would stress the requirements for strict weight/dosage schedules especially with anti-emetic drugs. The indications for the use of these preparations in young children is questioned.

Reported sleep: needed minus obtained sleep, family resemblance, and age.

For a normal population from 13 to 89 yr. of age there was a correlation of .02 between age and sleep obtained, -.07 between age and sleep needed, and -.33 (p less than .01) between age and sleep needed minus sleep obtained. Also, significant family resemblance was found for all three of the above sleep variables.

Psychometric assessment of alcoholism in convicted felons.

Felons' scores on the Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test tended to be positively correlated with their scores on clinical scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personaltiy Inventory.

Serum glutamic acid decarboxylase activity in normal dogs.

Serum concentrations of glutamic acid decarboxylase, a nearly brain-specific enzyme, were determined in 290 samples from 29 normal Beagle dogs, using a modification of a fluorometric method. Mean glutamic acid decarboxylase activity was 214 micromoles/hr/L (units). Seemingly, 95% of clinically normal Beagles would have values between 93 and 335 units and 99% of the values would fall between 50 and 378 units.

Trail Making Test improvement in abstinent alcoholics.

The improvement in Trail Making Test performance of men alcoholics over a period of 3 weeks suggests that long-term recovery from brain dysfunctioning is a common occurrence in alcoholics.

The Watson and the Hovey MMPI scales: do they measure organicity or "functional" psychopathology?

Both the Hovey MMPI Scale of Organicity and the Watson MMPI Sc-O Scale, developed to differentiate schizophrenics from organics, demonstrated substantial association with psychopathology as measured by the MMPI regular clinical and validity scales. These findings occurred with both penitentiary inmates and psychiatric patients. For the Sc-O Scale the correlations with the regular MMPI Scales for the patients tended to be higher than for the prisoners, presumably because of the greater psychopathology present in the former. With the psychiatric patients there was actually a significant inverse relationship between the organicity direction of Sc-O and Hovey Scales, a finding that had been reported in a previous study. The inference from these findings was that MMPI-based organicity scales probably have seriously limited utility, especially in differentiation between organicity and "functional" psychopathology.

WAIS digit span differences between prisoners and psychiatric patients.

37 prisoners tended to exceed 29 psychiatric patients in having WAIS Digit Sapn scaled scores higher than the mean of their 5 other Verbal scaled scores. MMPI T scores were slightly to moderately inversely related to Digit Span performance.

Synaptic control of an endogenous pacemaker network.

1. The present study consists of an analysis of the coordinating effects of monosynaptic EPSPs and IPSPs on the discharge of the endogenous pacemaker neurons which drive the pyloric motor system of the spiny lobster. The experiments were performed on isolated nervous systems. 2. An analysis of the characteristic phase response curves to both classes of input (fig. 1) shows that the pyloric oscillator possesses the necessary characteristic for entrainment: i.e. a periodically varying sensitivity to synaptic drive. 3. By repetitive stimulation of either input at frequencies near the endogenous frequency of the PD slow wave, it was possible to entrain the discharge of the pacemaker system to the cyclic stimulus (figs. 2b and 3b). The pyloric discharge tends to occur at different characteristic phase relations in response to the two inputs (figs. 2c and 3c), which reflect features of the corresponding phase response curves (fig. 1). 4. It is argued that the periodic sensitivity of these neurons to synaptic input reflects interactions between the synaptically induced currents and the endogenous currents which underlie the slow wave.

The intelligence of rapists.

IQs of rapists were compared to IQs of nonrapist prisoners convicted of violent crimes and nonrapist prisoners convicted of nonviolent crimes. Subjects were 136 male convicted felons in the Kentucky State Penitentiary. Determination of violent vs. nonviolent crimes other than rape was made upon consultation with a Kentucky Commonwealth Attorney. The results revealed significantly lower IQs for rapists compared to nonrapists convicted of violent crimes and compared to heterogeneous nonrapist convicts. The present research supports the findings of Karacan and co-workers, indicating a general tendency for rapists to have lower IQs than other convicted prisoners.

Locomotion: control by positive-feedback optokinetic responses.

Several species of arthropods perform forward locomotory movements when restrained in place and exposed to a pattern of stripes moving backward at normal locomotory velocities. Locomotory effort varies directly with stripe velocity. In nature such locomotory reactions would increase the visual stimulus that elicits them; hence, the reactions represent a new class of optokinetic responses employing positive visual feedback. Stabilizing mechanisms include response decrement during constant stripe velocities.