Traumatic facial paralysis can be improved with surgical techniques but alone will not restore full function. EMG sensory (bio) feedback can, however, facilitate rehabilitation. Four cases are described using a combined treatment technique of EMG, behavioural modification and specific action exercises. Retraining of eyelid control was also accomplished. Standardized evaluation methods are described. All four patients showed improvement, despite the failure of traditional retraining methods.

Conditioning techniques were developed demonstrating that pure tone frequencies under water can exert nearly perfect control over the underwater click vocalizations of the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus). Conditioned vocalizations proved to be a reliable way of obtaining underwater sound detection thresholds in Zalophus at 13 different frequencies, covering a frequency range of 250 to 64,000 Hz. The audiogram generated by these threshold measurements suggests that under water, the range of maximal sensitivity for Zalophus lies between one and 28 kHz with best sensitivity at 16 kHz. Between 28 and 36 kHz there is a loss in sensitivity of 60 dB/octave. However, with relatively intense acoustic signals (> 38 dB re 1 mub underwater), Zalophus will respond to frequencies at least as high as 192 kHz. These results are compared with the underwater hearing of other marine mammals.

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SUMMARY Investigators have recently reported that specific practice facilitates-the restitution of visual fields in partially blinded humans with lesions to the striate cortex. In order to further evaluate this work, attempts were made to retrain twelve homonymous hemianopic or quadrantanopic patients with similar methods, but under conditions in which possible contaminating experimental variables were controlled, including: (a) reliance on gross subjective impressions, (b) large visual stimuli response variability, (c) changes in detection strategies with practice and (d) compensatory eccentric fixation. The results indicate that visual field increases are not trainable. It is concluded that previous studies should be regarded with caution and the restitution of visual fields after damage to the striate cortex in humans is probably not possible with existing methods.