摘要:

Twenty-four right-handed female students were divided, by means of a median split on the Defense Mechanism Inventory repression (REP) index, in a high-REP and a low-REP group. All subjects participated in a tachistoscopic unilateral letter recognition task. There were three conditions of concurrent word presentations. In the neutral condition, neutral words were presented in central fixation prior to each lateral stimulus. In the negative and positive conditions, negative and positive words were used. During the neutral condition the low-REP group showed a right visual field advantage for letter recognition, whereas the high-REP group showed a left visual field advantage. The deviation of the high-REP group from the expected field advantage is thought to be associated with the experienced stress of the task situation. During both emotional word conditions, the high-REP group exhibited significant performance enhancements in the right visual field. It is hypothesized that this activation of the left hemisphere indicates that repression is a function of this hemisphere. During the negative word condition, the high-REP group exhibited a performance decrement in the left visual field, while the low-REP group tended to show a performance decrement in the right visual field. Apparently, in high-REP subjects the right hemisphere is inhibited during the negative condition, whereas in low-REP subjects the left hemisphere is inhibited.

ISSN:0894-878X    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1995

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

This study examined the neuropsychological and personality functioning of four groups of “normal” subjects: (1) “clean”; (2) positive drug screen; (3) prior psychiatric diagnosis; and (4) first-degree relative with a psychiatric history. Researchers usually exclude these latter three groups based on the assumption that their neuropsychological functioning will be worse than “clean” normal subjects. Of the four groups, there was a trend for the drug group to perform worse on neuropsychological tasks and for subjects with a personal or family history of psychiatric disorder to perform better. Within the drug group, the five subjects who tested positive for cocaine or barbiturates showed worse performance than the marijuana group. Thus, it appears that it is important to screen normals for drugs, especially for cocaine and barbiturates, because of adverse neuropsychological performance.

ISSN:0894-878X    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1995

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

The goal of this systematic examination of Luria's hypothesis regarding frontal lobe functions was to identify the types of gesture and motor programming errors most closely associated with lesions in different areas of the frontal lobes. A test protocol based on Luria's examination techniques was given to 75 patients with isolated frontal involvement. This protocol identified the three most prominent types of errors: simplification, deautomatization, and disinhibition. Simplification was linked with prefrontal lesions (p<.02), deautomatization was associated with premotor lesions (p<.001). and disinhibition tended to be linked with lesions involving the orbitomedial region (p <.001).

ISSN:0894-878X    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1995

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

The purpose of this study was to determine how well orientation and three-word recall predict performance on a neuropsychological measure of short-term memory. The relationship between orientation/three-word recall and Logical Memory II (LMII) of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised was analyzed using Pearson coefficients and discriminant function analyses. An initial analysis of three patient groups (cerebrovascular accident, mixed neurologic disorders, and traumatic brain injury), which differed also by age, revealed that orientation was insignificantly correlated with LMII across all patient groups. Three-word recall was most highly correlated with LMII with the older. CVA group and least correlated with the younger, traumatic brain injury sample. Discriminant function analyses in predicting impaired or normal LMII scores from orientation and three-word recall revealed the lowest false-negative error rate for memory impairment with the CVA group and the highest false-negative error rate with the traumatic brain injury group. Subsequent analyses with two younger, age-matched groups (a traumatic brain injury group and a mixed neurological group) confirmed that the above findings were related to age and not to diagnosis. Implications for using mental status measures to predict cognitive functioning in different clinical and age groups are discussed.

ISSN:0894-878X    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1995

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Domain-specific differences in awareness of deficit were investigated in 43 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Impairment of awareness was measured by calculating the degree to which patients and their caregivers disagreed on ratings of patient memory, health status, self-care ability, depression, anxiety, and irritability. The results indicated that patient awareness differed according to domain assessed with greatest patient-caregiver disagreement occurring in ratings of memory and self-care, moderate disagreement in ratings of anxiety and irritability, and least disagreement in ratings of depression and health status. Overall, impairment of awareness was associated with more advanced disease and greater dementia severity, but not with age, age at onset, education, or duration of illness. These findings argue against conceptualizing awareness as a unitary construct and are congruent with neuropsychological models of awareness that emphasize potential dissociations according to functional domain.

ISSN:0894-878X    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1995

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Twelve patients meeting strict criteria for probable Alzheimer's disease were asked to name pictures of 20 familiar objects twice over a 2-week period. These patients were also administered standard tests of attention. We postulated that naming errors on the same drawings on both occasions (consistent errors) reflect a disruption of lexical semantic representations, while inconsistent errors reflect difficulties in lexical access. The results revealed highly variable naming consistency across the subject group. The less consistent subjects were significantly more impaired on tasks of attention. Neither disease severity nor severity of anomia could be used to explain the naming patterns. We conclude that both deficits in lexical knowledge and impaired attention cause anomia in AD. and these two different underlying problems have distinct effects on naming performance.

ISSN:0894-878X    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1995

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

While dysthymia and major depression are frequent findings among patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) the mechanism of these affective disorders in AD is not well known. We examined the presence of significant regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) correlates of dysthymia and major depression in a consecutive series of patients with AD. Ten AD patients with major depression, 18 AD patients with dysthymia, 2 1 AD patients with no depression, and 10 normal controls were studied with99mTcHMPAO-single photon emission tomography (SPECT). AD patients with major depression showed a significantly lower rCBF in the left temporal superior and parietal regions as compared to nondepressed AD patients. AD patients with major depression had a significantly lower rCBF over the left hemisphere (mainly involving the frontal dorsal, temporal, and parietal cortices), and the right temporal cortex and basal ganglia as compared to AD patients with dysthymia. On the other hand, no significant rCBF differences were found between AD patients with dysthymia and no depression. While major depression in AD may result from metabolic deficits in specific brain regions, dysthymia may have a different mechanism.

ISSN:0894-878X    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1995

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

ObjectivesWe tested the hypothesis that gestational injuries in some patients with schizophrenia would leave their mark as a subtle reduction in head circumference (subclinical microcrania). It had been previously shown that prenatal injuries can differentially affect members of an MZ pair. We therefore examined the relationship between head circumference and a marker of prenatal injury (i.e., an in-utero, nonshared environmental effect) in monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs discordant for schizophrenia.MethodTwenty-two probands with DSM-III-R schizophrenia were compared to their unaffected MZ co-twins. Fetal-size discrepancy between MZ twins is a marker of differential-intrauterine injury to one of the two MZ members. Fingertip dermal cells migrate to form ridges during the fifth month of gestation. Finger-ridge count is lower in the MZ twin which wasphysically smallerduring this fifth-month cell migration period. The intrapair-MZ-unsigned-percent difference in ridge count (MZu%dRC) is thus an index of fifth-month fetal injury. The variables of a priori focus in this study were two within-pair physical measures: MZu%dRC and “MZ percent difference in head circumference” (MZ%dHC).ResultsThere was no overall head-circumference-group difference in the 22 pairs between the affected and unaffected twins; however, we were able to draw some conclusions because of our access to genetically identical controls, which serve as an indicator of what each patient's head circumference and dermal-ridge countwould have been if he or she were not afflicted with schizophrenia:among the 12 affected twins with subclinical macrocrania. none had markers of second-trimester injury, but of the 10 affected MZ twins with subclinicalmicrocrania, five had such injury markers (three had ridge-count markers of second-trimester edema and another two had ridge-count markers of second-trimester-growth retardation,p=.0228). Overall, in the 22 MZ twin pairs, a significant relationship was found between MZ%dHC and MZu%dRC (Spearman'srs=−0.45;p<.036). Of the variance in head circumference, 20.2% were predicted by within-pair discrepancy in ridge counts.ConclusionsThe head circumferences of all subjects were in the normal range. Decreased head circumference in affected MZ co-twins (relative to unaffected MZ co-twin) characterizes discordant MZ pairs with larger finger-ridge-count differences (i.e., second-trimester fetal-size differences). This study using ideal genetic controls suggests that, while present only in some patients with schizophrenia, the decrease in head circumference is most likely a consequence of in-utero nonshared environmental

ISSN:0894-878X    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1995

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Cocaine abuse is a public health problem of epidemic proportions. Prominent victims have succumbed to its use, including athletes, movie stars, and businessmen. Whether through ignorance or misinformation, many who have neglected to understand the health hazards of cocaine have paid with their life. This article presents a concise review of the complications of cocaine use as seen in both my practice and in the corresponding literature search, with emphasis on its impact on the nervous system, since stroke and panic attacks seem to be the most frequent medical complications. This article further offers a succinct approach to the diagnosis and treatment of cocaine abuse.

ISSN:0894-878X    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1995

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

BackgroundA number of reports have indicated that carbamazepine (CBZ) may be effective in the treatment of aggressive behavior. It has been suggested that performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) may be a marker for this antiaggressive effect. We report on a multiple crossover trial of CBZ monotherapy of a violent forensic patient.MethodA man with organic personality syndrome and a history of violent behavior received CBZ monotherapy in an A-B-A-B design with measures of behavior, mood, and WCST scores collected during each phase of the study.ResultsThe patient exhibited significant decreases in hostility, improvement in mood, and increased WCST performance in response to CBZ therapy. This improvement was reversed when CBZ was withdrawn and was restored when CBZ was subsequently reintroduced.ConclusionThis pattern provides support for the literature documenting the antiaggressive effect of CBZ. It supports the suggestion that the WCST may be a marker for that effect, and that the frontal lobe may be the site of its mechanism of action.

ISSN:0894-878X    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1995

数据来源: OVID