ABSTRACT
Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is characterized by visual acuity decrease and visual field loss. However, the impact of visual field loss on the cognitive performance of RP patients remains unknown. In the present study, in order to understand whether and how RP affects spatial processing and attentional function, one spatial processing task and three attentional tasks were conducted on RP patients and healthy controls. In addition, an EZ-diffusion model was performed for further data analysis with four parameters, mean decision time, non-decision time, drift rate, and boundary separation. It was found that in the spatial processing task, compared with the control group, the RP group exhibited a slower response speed in large and medium visual eccentricities, and slower drift rate for the large stimulus, which is strongly verified by the significant linear correlation between the visual field eccentricity with both reaction time (p = 0.047) and non-decision time (p = 0.043) in RP patients. In the attentional orienting task and the attentional switching task, RP exerted a reduction of speed and an increase of non-decision time on every condition, with a decrease of drift rate in the orienting task and boundary separation in the switching task. In addition, the switching cost for large stimulus was observed in the control group but not in the RP group. The stop-signal task demonstrated similar inhibition function between the two groups. These findings implied that RP exerted the impairment of spatial cognition correlated with the visual field eccentricity, mainly in the peripheral visual field. Moreover, specific to the peripheral visual field, RP patients had deficits in the attentional orienting and flexibility but not in the attentional inhibition.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: This study was aimed to determine the expression of HSP70, ER and PR in ovarian carcinomas and to explore the relationship between HSP70 and sex steroid receptor. METHODS: The immunohistochemical way SP was performed to estimate the expression of HSP70, ER and PR in 41 cases of ovarian carcinomas and in 11 cases of normal ovarian tissue. RESULTS: The positive staining rate of HSP70 was 68.29% (28/41), which was remarkably higher than that in normal ovarian tissue (18.18%) (P<0.05). Furthermore, the expression rate of HSP70 was much higher in poorly differentiated ovarian carcinomas than in well differentiated ovarian carcinomas (P<0.05). ER positive staining was observed in 19 cases (46.34%), and PR in 24 cases (58.54%). ER and PR positive staining occurred more frequently in the group of HSP70 negative staining than in the group of HSP70 positive staining. related with the expression of PR (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The expression of HSP70 was negatively related with the expression of PR (P<0.05).
