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Biomedical subjects

A Rothenberger

Publications and source records attributed to A Rothenberger.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1990

The brain development and behaviour of autistic children. Notes on the research situation.

The relationships between brain functions and behaviour characteristics during various phases of the development of autistic children were looked into. In doing so, the concept of stability on the one hand as well as change on the other hand is the main topic and is illustrated with examples. The state of neuroscientific ideas and methodical possibilities on the theme is not only broached but also discussed in connection with the treatment (in the sense of an optimal coordination between brain and environment). It thus results that the connections between genetical disposition, brain development, environmental influences and behaviour in autistic children become more and more clear. Utilizing this, though, better treatment possibilities can only be expected on the basis of integrating bio-psychosocial research which emphasizes the development aspect.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Somatic findings in children and adolescents with anorexia nervosa.

94 patients (mean age 15,4 years) with anorexia nervosa were investigated. We found cardiovascular parameters in correlation with body weight. ECG-changes had no connection with weight and concentration of potassium. Pulse and systolic blood pressure decreased, concentration of urea and SGOT and SGPT increased with weight decreases. Compared with the results of the adults of Fichter (1985), pulse and blood pressure changed more often, whereas the concentration of potassium often rested unchanged. Therapy with neuroleptics calls for ECG-controls. Interesting was the finding that we found less raised levels of cortisol in the group with extremely low weight on admission.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Clinical and neurobiological findings in children suffering from tic disease following treatment with tiapride.

Tiapride, a substituted benzamide derivative, possesses good clinical antidyskinetic properties due to its DA2-blocking activities. It has been shown to be clinically effective in the treatment of tic disease in children. In order to study tiapride's antidyskinetic properties in the treatment of the tic syndrome in children, we conducted a simple, placebo-controlled study on 10 children followed by a double-blind crossover study on 17 children. Tiapride was shown to have a positive therapeutic effect on tics in children; whereas it has no adverse effects on neuropsychologically measurable cognitive performances in children. Neurophysiological parameters such as the EEG frequency analysis and sensory evoked potentials were not affected by tiapride, nor was the neurosecretory, hypothalamic-hypophyseal regulation of the sex hormones, thyroid stimulating hormone, growth hormone, or thyroid hormone impaired. The hyperprolactinemia caused by tiapride's dopaminergic properties was moderate and restricted to the duration of therapy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Do event-related potentials (ERPs) reflect right hemisphere's processing of semantics?

To test the right hemisphere's functional difference in relation to semantically related vs. semantically unrelated linguistic tasks we investigated 25 young right-handed healthy adults. A S1-S2 design was used. At S1 one word was presented binaurally, at S2 two words dichotically. S1-S2 was composed of sentence-like (syntagmatic) and nonsentence-like (paradigmatic) word sequences with and without semantic relations. As control trials we used pure tones and modulated noise. The EEG was recorded over frontal, central and temporoparietal areas of both hemispheres. Referring to semantics it could be shown only that semantic relations between words increased the amount of recalled words. Additionally, ERPs reflected: modes of presentation (binaural vs. dichotic) processing of different linguistic categories (e.g., syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic) and frontocentrally focused neuronal processes of both hemispheres before language production.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

[Aphasia in children].

The acquired aphasia in children is a rarely seen speech and language disorders. Disturbances develop after the child has already achieved the capacity for language comprehension and verbal expression. Brain trauma is most often the cause. The clinical picture of the disorder varies over different age groups and, in contrast to adults, shows no consistent typology. In most of the cases there exists a disturbance of speech production; problems with writing and comprehension are seen less often (although comprehension of language is primarily affected in the Landau-Kleffner syndrome). Only once and a while logorrhoea and jargon can be diagnosed. Besides the speech and language disorders cognitive, motor und emotional problems may appear. Therefore, several diagnostic levels have to be considered (e.g. clinical neurology, neuropsychology, psychophysiology, psychopathology). Course and prognosis of the acquired aphasia in childhood (30% longterm difficulties) depend on several factors like etiology and extension of the lesion, the development of the functional hemispheric dominance for language and the initial recovery velocity after the symptoms appeared. The plasticity of the child's brain is a source for compensating mechanisms which might be triggered by three aspects of therapeutic activities which should be used synchronously: speech and language training, principles of psychotherapy and social medicine and treatment of additional disorders.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Auditory evoked potentials to verbal stimuli in health, aphasic, and right hemisphere damaged subjects. Pathway effects and parallels to language processing and attention.

Acoustic evoked potentials to meaningful words were recorded in healthy, aphasic, and right hemisphere-damaged subjects under four conditions: monaural left and right, binaural, and dichotic stimulation. Four major findings emerged. First, healthy and brain-damaged subjects differed in amplitude and latency values of the N1 and P2 components. In healthy subjects N1 was greater and P2 smaller than in aphasics. Both components peaked earlier inpatients than in normals. Second, evoked potentials of healthy subjects showed a late sustained component which was decreased in aphasics. Third, the latencies of P1 and N1 as well as the amplitude of N1 showed a "pathway effect", i.e. shorter latency and greater amplitude to contralateral stimulation. Fourth, under the dichotic condition, P1 and N1 peaked earlier over the left hemisphere. The N1 amplitude behaved differently in the three groups depending upon stimulating conditions. It is suggested that these differences reflect linguistic coding and related attentional processes in patients and normals.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Perceptual discrimination of vowels in aphasia.

In the present study 3 hypotheses were investigated: first, the notion that an aphasic impairment of vowel perception is not associated with particular aphasic syndromes or lesion sites, second, that it is a disorder comparable to a general impairment of perception in a normal speaker caused by some form of interference, and third, that perceptual phonemic discrimination is a separate process from the phonemic discriminative function necessary for speech production. The hypotheses were tested by means of a vowel discrimination test administered to 50 German-speaking aphasic patients (roughly equally divided between Broca's, mixed non-fluent, Wernicke's and mixed fluent groups); the same test, masked by white noise at -10 dB was also administered to 20 normal native speakers of German. Results were in support of all 3 hypotheses. First, aphasic patients' error patterns were similar across fluent and nonfluent groups and for all lesion sites. Second, the error distributions of aphasics with slight auditory impairment resembled those of normal subjects in the -10 dB white noise condition, while distributions of aphasics with severe auditory impairment were indicative of an added component of guessing behaviour. And third, the patients' performance on the discrimination task differed from that shown on a comparable repetition test. (It was argued that repetition involves a patient's expressive capacity in addition to his perceptual capacity). The differentiation of perceptual and expressive phonemic discrimination was further supported by an analysis of the speech errors occurring in the spontaneous (purely expressive) speech and in the repetition (expressive plus perceptual) tasks of 16 French Canadian and 5 English Canadian aphasics.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

[Organic versus functional factors in the diagnosis of conversion disorders (author's transl)].

Conversion symptoms involving conspicous pseudoneurological signs of the motor system are very seldom today. To differentiate in these cases between organic and functional disturbances is highly difficult. Two patients are described. A 25 year old soldier with the symptomatology of a repetitive transverse lesion of the spinal cord and a 70 year old pensioner with a blepharospasm. They both showed an accompanying depression. Diagnostic criteria, psychodynamic models and especially the organic background of conversion symptoms are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1980

Subdural effusions in children under two years--clinical and computer-tomographical data.

We investigated 161 children under 24 months of age by CT of the skull and reviewed the anamnestic and clinical history. 87 children showed subdural effusions, and 74 did not. There were 33 patients with other pathological findings in CT, and 41 had normal scans. Age and sex distribution as well as localization of the subdural effusions were consistent with the literature. The 87 children with subdural effusions represented 1.7% in a sample of about 5.000 CT scans. CT was the most reliable method for diagnosis of subdural effusions, compared to other techniques. There was a preponderance of small subdural effusions from 1 to 7 mm thickness (51%). Other CT abnormalities accompanying subdural effusions were found. Most frequently the interhemispheric sulcus was dilated and an internal hydrocephalus was present. Also in our group there were 7 anamnestical and 6 clinical symptoms highly diagnostic of subdural effusions.

Female↗
PubMed1978

[Dichotic listening performance in children--development of a reliable test (author's transl)].

With a new developed and reliable dichotic test (one part monosyllable words, other part monosyllable digits) we could show a significant Right-Ear-Advantage (REA) in children from age six to eight. The determination of an auditory-dominance-index (DI)--in analogy to the DI of handedness by Schilling (1977)--made it possible to determine the different degrees of REA/LEA in individuals or groups. Within the near future the auditory-dominance-index could be an important measure in diagnosis and therapy of child development (i.e. discrimination of language features like phonematics, syntax, semantic, and their lateralisation within ages) as far as standard-scales for all-over-accuity and lateralisation will exist. Our test is the first step to do this.

Auditory Perception↗