Thoracic Complications of Liver-Directed Therapy and Interventions

ABSTRACT

Liver-directed percutaneous and endovascular therapies are effective methods to diagnose and treat various hepatic disorders and malignancies. Because of the close anatomic proximity of the liver to the right hemidiaphragm, pleura, and lung bases, complications can arise involving these structures. Although they are rare, awareness of intrathoracic complications associated with liver-directed therapies and their imaging features will ensure timely detection and management. We aim to review the clinical and imaging features of thoracic complications related to liver-directed therapy and interventions.

Effects of medial septal lesions on an operant go/no-go delayed response alternation task in rats

Previous work in our laboratory has found that whereas medial septal lesions impaired an operant left-right delayed alternation task in rats, the lesion also facilitated the performance of rats on a cued go/no-go discrimination task with a delay between the cue and the required response. These findings suggested to us that the medial septal lesions impaired "response" working memory, which in turn led to a compensatory enhancement of attention to stimulus cues. If this hypothesis is true, then the lesions should impair a go/no-go task based on "response" working memory. The current experiment tested this hypothesis. Rats (12 with medial septal lesions and 12 with sham operations) were tested on a discrete trial operant go/no-go response alternation task. The rats were first tested for 20 days without a delay contingency, followed by 35 days of testing with a 15-s delay between "go" and "no-go" trials. Both groups became proficient at the task under nondelay conditions and their terminal performance (averaging about 85% correct) did not differ. However, under delay conditions the performance of the lesioned rats was significantly impaired compared to the controls. As the go/no-go task does not require a spatial discrimination, the best explanation for our findings is that the lesions impaired response working memory.