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Biomedical subjects

C Caltagirone

Publications and source records attributed to C Caltagirone.

155 records · Page 9Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Alexithymic features in stroke: effects of laterality and gender.

OBJECTIVE: Stroke patients suffer from a high rate of behavioral disorders, and the laterality of the lesion may affect the expression of emotional disturbances. This study tested the hypothesis that stroke patients with a lesion in the right hemisphere are at high risk of developing alexithymic features. METHODS: Forty-eight patients were interviewed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (patient edition), the Mini-Mental State Examination, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (state form), the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (20-item version). Alexithymic differences between stroke patients with a lesion in the right hemisphere and those with a lesion in the left hemisphere were computed by analysis of covariance, using scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination, Beck Depression Inventory (psychic subscore), and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory as covariates and the score on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale as the dependent variable. A multivariate analysis of covariance and a series of follow-up analyses of covariance with the same covariates were used to discriminate differences in subscores on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. An exploratory analysis of covariance was also performed to determine the effect of gender on alexithymic features in both groups of stroke patients. RESULTS: The 21 stroke patients with a lesion in the right hemisphere were more alexithymic than the 27 patients with a lesion in the left hemisphere. This evidence was strengthened by the categorical analysis: 48% of the patients with a right-hemisphere lesion had alexithymia, compared with 22% of patients with a left-hemisphere lesion. Univariate analyses of covariance showed significant differences between the two groups in difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings, but not in externally oriented thinking. The last exploratory analysis of covariance suggested that gender may influence alexithymic features. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides direct evidence that alexithymia, and more specifically difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings, is more common in stroke patients with a right-hemisphere lesion than in those with a left-hemisphere lesion. It also provides preliminary evidence that gender may affect alexithymic expression.

Affective Symptoms↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Cerebral hemodynamics in asymptomatic patients with internal carotid artery occlusion: a dynamic susceptibility contrast MR and transcranial Doppler study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Perfusion imaging with dynamic susceptibility contrast MR imaging (DSC-MRI) has been used to evaluate hemodynamic status in patients with symptomatic occlusive cerebrovascular disease. The aim of the present study was to determine the hemodynamic changes occurring in asymptomatic patients with unilateral internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion by use of DSC-MRI with transcranial Doppler (TCD) measurement of the breath-holding index (BHI). METHODS: Nine patients with asymptomatic unilateral ICA occlusion underwent DSC-MRI and TCD examination. One patient was excluded from final analysis because of severe movement artifacts. On a separate workstation, regional cerebral blood volume (rCBV), regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), and regional mean time to peak (rMTT) were calculated on the basis of signal decay rate during the passage of gadolinium bolus through the sampled volume in the territory of the middle cerebral artery. TCD-BHI was calculated in all patients. Six healthy subjects underwent the same MR protocol as the patients. RESULTS: Compared with control subjects, patients with unilateral ICA occlusions had hemodynamic changes in the ipsilateral hemisphere: rCBF was significantly lower than in controls (P <.01), and r MTT was significantly increased in both white (WM) and gray matter (GM) in the affected side (WM: P <.01; GM: P <.05). No statistically significant difference in rCBV was found in the group of patients (occluded versus contralateral, P <.1) or between the patient and control groups (occluded side versus controls, P <.1). The correlation of rCBV and BHI showed a strong relation of the two variables, showing a decrease of the latter when the former increased. CONCLUSION: DSC-MRI is a valuable tool for measuring hemodynamic changes in the presence of carotid disease with hemodynamic impairment. In our opinion, hemodynamic changes and efficiency of collateral pathways can be evaluated in occlusive carotid disease by using paired measurement of BHI and DSC-MRI. In the patient group, MR-determined rCBV and TCD-determined BHI showed a significant inverse correlation, suggesting similar significance of the two indices.

Angiography, Digital Subtraction↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[An experimental study of autotopagnosia (author's transl)].

One hundred and twenty patients with unilateral cerebral hemisphere damage (54 aphasics, 21 non-aphasic left and 45 right brain-damaged patients and 57 control subjects without cerebral lesions were given a battery of verbal and non-verbal tests of autotopagnosia, with the aim of studying the relationships between disorders of body schema and the side of the hemispheric lesion. A second aspect of our research consisted in understanding whether impairment in naming and pointing to body parts following verbal commands was really a specific symptom or if the same difficulty was found when patients were asked to name or to point to parts of objects other than the human body. Our results have shown that: 1) the aphasic patients are significantly more impaired than the non-aphasic patients on all the tests, non-verbal as well as verbal; 2) when results obtained on tests of naming and of pointing to parts of the human body were matched with results obtained on tests of naming and of pointing to parts of objects other than the human body, no difference could be demonstrated. These findings suggest that autotopagnosia is a nonspecific symptom, and that it does not find a satisfactory explanation in terms of "disorders of the body schema".

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Alzheimer's disease and Down's syndrome: a review].

In the last few years a number of studies highlighted striking similarities between Alzheimer's Disease and Down's Syndrome. More specifically, neurochemical, pathologic, genetic and clinical features of the Alzheimer's Disease were described also in the Down's Syndrome, but with some particular differences. The most significant literature reports investigating these aspects are reviewed.

Alzheimer Disease↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Evaluation of cognitive functions in patients with chronic renal insufficiency].

Fifteen undialyzed and thirteen dialyzed patients affected by chronic renal failure were studied by means of an extensive neuropsychological battery with the aim of assessing the incidence of a deterioration of cognitive functions. Mean performances scores obtained by the two groups of patients were compared with analogous scores obtained by a group of control subjects similar as for literacy and age. The comparisons among the three groups did not reveal any difference as for performance scores obtained to various tasks nor for the global assessment derived for the entire battery. Furthermore our data do not point out any significative correlation between global performances on neuropsychological battery and blood levels of creatinine and urea nitrogen or duration of dialytic treatment of renal subjects. In conclusion, the results of our study do not show evidence of cognitive impairment in subjects affected by chronic renal failure and do not confirm the hypothesis of a detrimental effect of prolonged periods of dialytic treatment on cognitive functions.

Blood Urea Nitrogen↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Disorders of autonomic responses to emotional stimuli in patients with unilateral hemispherical lesions].

The authors have studied in 31 patients affected by right (N = 12) or left (N = 19) hemispheric lesions and in 10 normal controls the autonomous response to emotional stimuli. Stimuli consisted of 3 short films, aiming to provoke respectively a negative emotional reaction, a positive emotional response or a non-emotional reaction. Galvanic skin response and heart rate were considered as the dependent variables of our research. Both normal controls and left brain-damaged patients were very influenced by the emotional nature of the stimuli and showed clear signs of activation of the sympathetic and para-sympathetic systems in front of emotional films. By contrast, right brain-damaged patients were not influenced by the emotional or non-emotional nature of the stimuli and showed neither a clear galvanic skin response nor a significant decrease of heart rate in front of emotional films.

Brain Diseases↗
PubMedDate not supplied

P3 components evoked by unilateral and bilateral somatosensory stimulation: normative data for the study of neglect syndrome.

Latency and amplitude of an "odd-ball" somatosensory P3 component evoked either by unilateral or bilateral somatosensory target stimulation, were measured in 15 healthy right-handed subjects (age range 42-79 years) in order to obtain normative data useful for studying the neglect syndrome. The bilateral stimulation protocol was designed to investigate the tactile extinction phenomenon. P3 waves were recorded from nine electrodes. A three-way Anova showed that mean P3 latency on the whole scalp following unilateral stimulations, regardless of side (i.e. right or left stimulations), was significantly longer than that observed after bilateral stimulation. Both "early" and "late" peaks were usually observed in P3 complex. The bilateral modality stimulation showed a more evident "early" peak than the two unilateral stimulations. No significant mean P3 amplitude differences were observed on the whole scalp between bilateral and unilateral stimulations. No significant amplitude differences were observed either for the right or the left hemisphere. The reported latency decrease in the bilateral target stimulation may be a valuable cue for studying possible modifications in patients affected by neglect.

Adult↗