Attention selection may be guided by low-level stimulus properties, by the emotional value of the stimulus, or more voluntarily by the goals and plans of the observer. Whether these three systems operate independently during attention selection or not remains a debated question. We selleck report results from two studies investigating the extent to which these different attention mechanisms may interact with one another. Using a standard dot probe paradigm wherein effects of exogenous, emotional,

and endogenous attention were orthogonally manipulated, we found attentional facilitation effects for each component, indicated by faster decision times for validly, as opposed to invalidly cued targets. Moreover, results confirmed that these three attentional effects added up in a linear fashion. Complementing ERP results allowed us to disentangle the respective contributions of the two reflexive, bottom-up attention processes (exogenous vs. emotional) by showing non-overlapping

temporal loci for attentional effects related either to low-level physical properties or the emotional content of the stimulus. These findings suggest that multiple separate attention mechanisms can operate simultaneously to yield a rapid and efficient visual processing of various classes of potentially relevant stimuli. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Objective: This study compared outcomes between thoracic endovascular aortic repair and conventional open surgical and medical therapies for acute complicated BYL719 molecular weight type B aortic dissection.

Methods: From 2002 to 2010, a total of 170 patients with type B aortic dissections were HSP90 retrospectively identified from the University of Pennsylvania aortic database. Of these 170 patients, 147 had acute type B aortic dissections (uncomplicated 70, complicated 77). For patients with acute complicated type B aortic dissections, management included thoracic endovascular aortic repair (group

A) or conventional open surgical and medical therapies (group B).

Results: In the 77 patients with acute complicated type B aortic dissections, thoracic endovascular aortic repair (group A) was performed in 45 patients (59%). In group B, 20 patients (26%) underwent open surgical repair and 12 (15%) had their conditions managed with medical therapy. Thoracic endovascular aortic repair was associated with lower in-hospital or 30-day mortality (n = 2, 4%) than conventional therapy (open surgical repair n = 8, 40%, medical therapy, n 4, 33%, P = .006). Patients in group A (thoracic endovascular aortic repair) continued to show significantly improved survival at 1, 3, and 5 years (group A: 82%, 79%, and 79% vs group B: 58%, 52%, and 44%, P = .008).

Conclusions: Thoracic endovascular aortic repair for acute complicated type B dissection is associated with superior early outcome and improved midterm survival relative to conventional therapy.