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Biomedical subjects

C L Della Malva

Publications and source records attributed to C L Della Malva.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Capture errors and sequencing after frontal brain lesions.

This study addresses the effect of strong routine associations (capture errors) in hindering the control of on-line serial or sequencing tasks. Patients with focal frontal lobe lesions were significantly inferior to normal control subjects and patients with posterior brain lesions, when conditions that may lead to capture errors were present. The results suggest that the primary dysfunction exhibited by patients with frontal lobe lesions on capture error tasks may lie not in the disengagement from the invalid associations but in focusing attention to alternative strategies of response.

Adult↗

Language functioning after bilateral prefrontal leukotomy.

Three groups of patients with orbital frontal lesions secondary to leukotomy were compared to psychiatric and normal control groups on a series of tasks involving language. The results indicated that chronic orbital frontal lesions, at least in the patients in this study, do not affect language as defined by the tasks used in the study. The frontal lobes, when implicated in language, appear to require dorsal-lateral or medial cortical involvement.

Aphasia↗

The effects of prefrontal leucotomy on visuoperceptive and visuoconstructive tests.

Visuoperceptive and visuoconstructive tests were administered to three groups of schizophrenics who had undergone bilateral prefrontal leucotomy approximately 25 years earlier. A nonoperated schizophrenic patient group and a normal subject group served as controls for the effects of schizophrenic symptomatology and for age and education. The results demonstrated that orbital frontal white matter lesions do not disturb simple perceptions and constructions. The nonoperated schizophrenics had significant problems on many of the tests. Only one test, the WAIS Picture Arrangement, revealed deficits in all patient groups, including the good recovery leucotomized patients. This suggests impairment in the higher-order control and organization of perceptual material which may be secondary to orbital frontal white matter lesions or reflect aspects of the underlying schizophrenic disorder.

Frontal Lobe↗