Estrogen modifies arousal but not memory for emotional events in older women.

Emotional arousal and the affective content of events influence memory. These effects shift with age such that older people find negative information less arousing and remember proportionately more positive events compared to the young. The emotional enhancement of memory is mediated by medial temporal lobe limbic structures and the prefrontal cortex, which are both affected by sex hormones. We examined whether hormone use (estrogen or estrogen and progesterone) in older women modulated perceptions of valence and arousal, and subsequent memory for emotional images or stories. Their performance was compared to younger women. Hormone use in older women resulted in higher arousal for negative images and stories but memory was not affected. We hypothesize that estrogen modifies the influence of the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex on emotion, but that age-related changes in the hippocampus prevent the enhancement of emotional memory in older women.

Parental education and child's verbal IQ in adoptive and biological families in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

This study compared adoptive children and matched, biological children to estimate the genetic and environmental effect of years of mothers' and fathers' education on children's verbal intelligence (VIQ), as assessed by knowledge of vocabulary words. Adoptive and biological adolescent children in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) were matched for sex, age, parental education, and ethnicity. The adolescents all resided with two parents. Structural equation modeling was employed using Mx to estimate the genetic and transmissible environmental components of the correlation between parental education and children's VIQ. The mother-child and father-child correlations in biological families were .41 and .36, respectively, vs .16 and .18 in adoptive families. As suggested by these correlations, both genetic and shared environmental influences were statistically significant in the Mx models. We conclude that parental education exerts a modest shared environmental effect, explaining no more than 3 to 4% of the variation in verbal intelligence.

[A technic of experimental heterotopic hepatic transplantation]. / O tehnica de transplantare hepatica heterotopica experimentala.

In view of applying an experimental method of transplantation of the liver (of the heterotopic type) within the possibilities of the team, and that could be applied in humans, experiments were performed in both pigs and dogs. Details of this procedure are presented, as well as the factors that could lead to a successful completion of the experiment. The results obtained by the authors have improved in parallel with the standardization of the technique and the skill of the team.

[Normothermal extracorporeal perfusion of the liver]. / Perfuzie extracorporeala normoterma de ficat.

In view of providing hepatic assistance, and for conservation aims in attempts at transplantation conditions have been investigated for achieving extracorporeal normothermal perfusion of the liver isolated from pig and dog. A total of 33 experiments have been performed. The preparations and the devices used allow to apply the method in a patient only after stabilisation of the perfusion, and frees the medical team from a series of technical problems. The duration and the quality of the perfusion are especially influenced by the collecting technique. In the dog the liver should be removed 3--5 hours, and in the pig 7--8 hours before perfusion is started. The functional condition of the liver can be assessed at 45 minutes after the start of the perfusion by evaluating the following criteria: the macroscopic aspect of the liver, the blood flow, the biliary flow, the ascitis fluid, TGP and oxygen consumption. Adequate installations and a permanent involvement of the laboratory team are essential conditions for the application of this method to the treatment of acute severe hepatic failure.