Acute upper airway obstruction--fiberoptic bronchoscopy in diagnosis and therapy

Twenty-two patients were referred over a 3-year period for endoscopic evaluation of the upper airways. The diagnosis of acute upper airway obstruction was suspected from clinical means, and 8 of the 22 did prove to have critical encroachment of the upper airways requiring tube passage for stabilization. This technique utilizing the fiberoptic bronchoscope for diagnosis and tube placement represents the approach of choice in the adult population with acute upper airway obstruction.

Deficits in behavioral responding to regulatory challenges after lesions of ventrobasal thalamus in rats

Electrolytic lesions of the posteromedial portion of the ventrobasal thalamic complex of rats impaired the feeding response to glucoprivation produced by systemic injection of 2-deoxy-D-glucose and the sodium appetite induced by injections of desoxycorticosterone, and produced abnormally low water intake in the absence of food. Drinking elicited by intracellular dehydration was not consistently affected. Lesions of the ventral anterior nucleus of the thalamus only impaired the feeding response to glucoprivation. The behavioral changes observed after posterior ventrobasal thalamic damage may be related to a disruption of gustatory, visceral, and somatosensory thalamic connections with the corpus striatum and neocortex.