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Language plays a well-documented role in perceptual object categorization, but little is known about its role in the categorization of complex events. We explored this here with a perspective from age or developmentally appropriate language capacities in neurotypical children between the ages of two and four years (N = 21), and from delayed language development in a clinical group of children (N = 20), whose verbal mental ages (VMA) often fell far below their chronological ages (CAs). All participants watched two demonstrations of a series of transitive events (e.g. tiger jumps over a girl ). The toy agents were then moved out of sight, and participants had to act out the same event type, based on a different tiger and girl that were selected among two distractors. We aimed to determine how mastery of this task relates to CA in the neurotypical group, and whether task performance in the clinical group was predicted by VMA and a standardized measure of grammatical comprehension. Results from a series of logistic mixed-effect regression models showed that neurotypical children start to perform correctly on this task with a chance of around 50% during their third year of CA but reach ceiling performance only during their fourth. A similar pattern emerged for VMA in the clinical group, despite a wide range of CAs and diagnoses. In addition, grammatical comprehension predicted performance. These patterns suggest that language competence plays a role in the perceptual categorization and encoding of complex reversible events., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2022 The Authors.)

Background: To know the clinical usefulness of the diagnostic tests habitually used to diagnose an acute myocardial infarction (MI), in a group of patients in which this diagnosis is clinically highly suspected., Patients and Methods: A cross sectional study was designed. The sample (n = 114) was randomized and selected by term and specific of days from the patients attending the Emergency Service at Elda General Hospital (Alicante, Spain) in a year period. The method we used was is a validity study, making 2 x 2 tables. The clinical outcome was the gold standard and was cross matched with some of the clinical criteria habitually used to diagnose acute myocardial infarction: thoracic pain character, irradiation, ECG findings and CK-MB levels., Results: Clinical suspicion of MI was confirmed in only 27.8% (IC--95%: 19.3-36.3). The best validity indexes of clinical usefulness to confirm the MI diagnosis were obtained from ECG findings (CP+ = infinity) and CK-MB (CP+ = 24.2 at the end of the observational period and CP = 17.9 at the beginning). The best negative clinical validity indexes were CK values obtained at the end of the observational period (CP- = 0.07) and the ECT findings obtained at the end of the observational period (CP- = 0.10)., Conclusion: Clinical carefulness is essential to avoid a diagnostic mistakes in MI patients, since the symptoms we used as a diagnostic guide do not offer good validity indexes. Changes in ECG or CK-MB levels could confirm the MI diagnosis but normal findings in both tests did not discard this diagnosis. We should keep the possibility of a mistake till the end of the observational period.

Aims: The clinical usefulness of the diagnostic tests (usually employed to diagnose an acute appendicitis in a group of patients in which this diagnosis is clinically highly suspected)., Patients and Methods: A cross sectional study was designed. The sample (n = 116) was randomly selected by term and specific days from the patients attending the Emergency Service at Elda General Hospital in a year period. The method used was is a validity study making 2 x 2 tables. We have cross matched the habitual routine tests with: a) the clinical outcome if the patient was not surgically treated, or b) the result of the biopsy for those operated. Being these the gold standard. The validity indexes studied were sensibility (S), specificity (E). The 95% confidence index of the CF were calculated., Results: Acute appendicitis clinical suspicion was confirmed in 29.4% (IC 95%: 20.8-38). The best validity indexes were: a) kind of pain (S = 81.3; E = 33.8); b) peritoneal inflammatory signs (S = 78.5%, E = 45.9%); c) presence of leucocytosis in blood exam (S = 100%, E = 54.5%), and d) a greater difference in axillary-rectum temperature (S = 13.6%, E = 96.6%). Only leucocytosis reached 0 for PP- and CP-; the blood leucocytosis (PP+ = 47.8%, CP+ = 2.20) and the axillary-rectum temperature (PP+ = 60%, CP+ = 4.0) dissociation were the test with most valuable indexes., Conclusions: Clinical suspicion of acute appendicitis in a group of patients having a great probability of suffering it over estimates this diagnosis. The symptoms or signs routinely used in the diagnosis did not reach high validity indexes in these patients. They are a poor help to stress or reject the diagnosis of acute appendicitis. To be careful is the main tool the doctors have. Blood leucocytosis is the test that has the best agreement indexes of clinical usefulness and it has the best countence with the gold standard.

Objective: We analyzed the preventive effect of immunoglobulins for intravenous use (IVIgs) in endotoxin-induced uveitis (EIU), a disease related to tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) production., Materials and Methods: EIU was the experimental model in Lewis rats, injecting a systemic dose of 150 microg of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) into the rat's footpad. Half of them were treated with 5 serial intravenous doses of 100 mg of IVIg during the 5 days prior to LPS injection. Eyes were repeatedly examined with a slitlamp, rats were killed and their eyes enucleated for histopathologic study at the 2nd, 16th and 24th hours. TNF-alpha serum levels were measured in aqueous humor at several time intervals by a bioassay using L-929 mouse fibroblasts. Aqueous humor proteins were detected by the Bradford method., Results: IVIg treatment prevented EIU development, treated animals showing a lower grade of ocular inflammation beyond the 2nd hour (Fisher test, p > 0.05). Inflammatory cell infiltration was significantly reduced in the iris, ciliary body and anterior chamber at a 24-hour interval (Wilcoxon test, p < 0.05). This protection was associated with lower levels of TNF-alpha in serum at all time intervals and in aqueous humor at 16 h (Student's t test, p < 0.05), while differences were not significant between the samples of aqueous humor collected at 2 h. Protein exudate was not reduced in the treated group., Conclusions: Repeated IVIg injections could be useful in the preventive treatment of EIU probably mediated by a decrease in TNF-alpha release.