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Biomedical subjects

Herman van Engeland

Publications and source records attributed to Herman van Engeland.

47 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed2004

Cortisol and treatment effect in children with disruptive behavior disorders: a preliminary study.

OBJECTIVE: Basal cortisol and cortisol stress responsivity are valuable biological characteristics of children with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD). In this study, the predictive value of cortisol to outcome of intervention was investigated. METHOD: Basal cortisol levels and cortisol levels under stress were studied in 22 children with DBD before the start of a psychotherapeutic treatment. The disruptive behavior of the child was assessed before treatment and after cessation (9 months later). RESULTS: Children with DBD with relatively high and low basal cortisol levels differed in the severity of problem behavior at pretreatment, with the low basal cortisol group having more severe problems. During stress, children with DBD showed either increasing or decreasing cortisol values. Although these cortisol responsivity groups were similar in the severity of behavioral problems at pretreatment, the behavioral problems of the group with high cortisol stress responsivity were significantly lower after the intervention than the behavioral problems of the group with low cortisol stress responsivity. CONCLUSIONS: In children with DBD, the basal cortisol level was related to the severity of behavioral problems at pretreatment but not to the severity of behavioral problems after treatment. The cortisol response pattern during stress was related to treatment outcome.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Executive functioning in children: a comparison of hospitalised ODD and ODD/ADHD children and normal controls.

BACKGROUND: Deficits in executive functioning are supposed to have a predisposing influence on impulsive or aggressive behaviour. We tested the hypothesis that oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD) children with or without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have problems in executive functioning. METHOD: Seventy-seven 7- to 12-year-old children (15 ODD, 26 ODD/ADHD, and 36 normal controls), all with normal IQ, completed 7 neuropsychological measures of executive functioning, assessing the abilities of set shifting, planning, working memory, inhibition/attention, and impulsivity. Some of these tasks involved the possibility of monetary rewards with a view to testing the prediction of a specific motivational inhibitory deficit. RESULTS: We found no evidence of deficits in working memory, planning, inhibition, or impulsivity. However, the ODD/ADHD group was worse than the normal control (NC) group in set shifting, and both the ODD and ODD/ADHD groups performed worse on a response perseveration task. Moreover, on the basis of one variable derived from a motivational inhibition task, 77% of the children could be correctly classified as ODD or NC. CONCLUSIONS: The findings do not support the hypothesis that ODD and ODD/ADHD children have a deficit in executive inhibitory control; rather, they emphasise that they have problems in regulating their behaviour under motivational inhibitory conditions.

Attention↗
PubMed2004

Evidence of fearlessness in behaviourally disordered children: a study on startle reflex modulation.

BACKGROUND: Patterns of low heart rate, skin conductance and cortisol seem to characterise children with disruptive behaviour disorder (DBD). Until now, the startle paradigm has not been used in DBD children. We investigated whether DBD children, like adult psychopaths, process emotional stimuli in an abnormal way. METHOD: Twenty-one DBD and 33 normal control children viewed a series of 27 positive, neutral and negative slides. Startle probes were presented unpredictably during slide presentations and eye blink reflexes were measured. RESULTS: DBD and control children showed a similar linear relationship between slide valence and startle magnitude, but the startle-elicited blinks of the DBD children were significantly lower for all categories of slides. Moreover, the more delinquent the DBD children were, the lower their startle responses during unpleasant states. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest a deficit in neurophysiological fear modulation. The implications of the findings for the fearlessness theory of antisocial behaviour are discussed.

Antisocial Personality Disorder↗
PubMed2002

Differentiation between autism and multiple complex developmental disorder in response to psychosocial stress.

Multiple Complex Developmental Disorder (MCDD) represents a distinct group within the autistic spectrum based on symptomatology. Unlike autistic children, part of MCDD children develop schizophrenia in adult life. Despite the differences, patients of both disorders are mainly characterized by abnormal reactions to their social environment. At the biological level, we showed in a previous study that MCDD children have a reduced cortisol response to psychosocial stress. Given the fact that autistic children clinically show more social impairments, it was hypothesized that they may have even further decreased cortisol responses to psychosocial stress than MCDD patients. Therefore, 10 autistic children were compared to 10 MCDD children and 12 healthy control children in their response to a psychosocial stressor, consisting of a public speaking task. In order to test whether any impairments in the biological stress response are specific for psychosocial stress, the autistic children were compared with 11 MCDD children and 15 control children in their response to a physical stressor, consisting of 10 min of bicycle exercise. Heart rate and salivary cortisol levels were used as indicators of response to the stress tests. Autistic children showed a relatively elevated cortisol response to psychosocial stress, in contrast to MCDD children who showed a reduced cortisol response. No differences in heart rate or cortisol responses to the physical stress test were found. The specific difference between autistic and MCDD children in their cortisol response to psychosocial stress indicates that the disturbed reactions to the social environment observed in these disorders may have different biological backgrounds.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2002

Inhibition in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a psychophysiological study of the stop task.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the study was to investigate and identify abnormal brain activity, as revealed by event-related potentials (ERPs) concurring with deficient inhibitory control in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHODS: Performance and ERPs from 16 children with ADHD and 16 control subjects were compared in the stop-signal paradigm. RESULTS: The ADHD children showed a lower inhibition percentage and their (estimated) response time to the stop signal was disproportionally longer compared to the slowing of reaction times to primary-task stimuli. In normal control subjects, fronto-central positivity (100-400 msec) after the onset of the stop-signal was larger in case of successful inhibition, relative to failed inhibition; this was less so in ADHD children. A late positive wave (500-700 msec), maximal at Oz on failed inhibition trials, and possibly related to error-detection, was smaller in ADHD children. CONCLUSIONS: These results point to abnormalities in brain processes involved in motor inhibition and error-detection in ADHD children.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗
PubMed2002

Serotonergic functioning in children with oppositional defiant disorder: a sumatriptan challenge study.

BACKGROUND: Several studies support the notion that disturbances in the central serotonergic function are related to impulsive aggression. There is recent evidence from studies on 5-HT(1B) knock-out mice that this specific receptor is involved in impulsive aggressive behavior. The aim of the present study was to investigate 5-HT(1B/1D) receptor functioning in normal intelligent hospitalized children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). METHODS: The growth hormone (GH) response to a challenge with the 5-HT(1B/1D) agonist sumatriptan was examined in 20 children with an ODD, of whom 13 had an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder comorbidity, and 15 normal control subjects (NC). Blood samples for growth hormone were collected repeatedly between 8:30 and 12:00 AM. Sumatriptan was administered at 10 AM. The effect of stress due to this procedure was assessed by measuring salivary cortisol. RESULTS: The GH response was significantly stronger in the children with ODD. After sumatriptan injection NC children showed a significant increase in cortisol; no such pattern was present in the ODD group. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the postsynaptic 5-HT(1B/1D) receptor is functionally more sensitive in children with ODD.

Aggression↗
PubMed2002

Brain volume changes in first-episode schizophrenia: a 1-year follow-up study.

BACKGROUND: Imaging studies of patients with schizophrenia have demonstrated that brain abnormalities are largely confined to decreases in gray matter volume and enlargement of the lateral and third ventricles. Global gray matter volume has been reported to progressively decrease in childhood-onset and chronic schizophrenia. Global gray matter volumes have not been examined longitudinally in patients with first-episode schizophrenia. One would expect global gray matter to decrease progressively, particularly in first-episode patients, because clinical deterioration is greatest in the early stages of the disease. METHODS: Patients with first-episode schizophrenia who had taken antipsychotic medication for 0 to 16 weeks (n = 34) and matched healthy comparison subjects (n = 36) were included in the study. For all subjects, magnetic resonance imaging scans of the whole brain were obtained at inclusion and after 1 year (mean [SD], 12.7 [1.1] months). Outcome was measured 2 years after inclusion. To compare morphological changes over time between patients and healthy comparison subjects, multiple repeated-measures analyses of variance were conducted with intracranial volume as a covariate. Outcome and cumulative antipsychotic medication were related to changes in patients' brain volumes. RESULTS: Total brain volume (-1.2%) and gray matter volume of the cerebrum (-2.9%) significantly decreased and lateral ventricle volume significantly increased (7.7%) in patients. The decrease in global gray matter volume significantly correlated with outcome and, independently of that, with higher cumulative dosage of antipsychotic medication. CONCLUSIONS: The loss of global gray matter in schizophrenia is progressive, occurs at an early stage of the illness, and is related to the disease process and antipsychotic medication.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Preference for aggressive and sexual stimuli in children with disruptive behavior disorder and normal controls.

Children with disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) have poor social skills and show aggressive interaction patterns. There is evidence from prospective studies of an association between early physical abuse, later social information-processing patterns, and aggressive behavior. A pattern of hypervigilance to hostile cues has been found in DBD children, but very few studies have investigated encoding or perceptual preference for specific classes of stimuli. Some DBD children have a suspected history of sexual abuse and a few have themselves been sexually offensive. Our belief that the sexuality of DBD children should be investigated raised the issue of how to go about doing this. A procedure was developed in which we measured the relative preference for sexual and aggressive stimuli in comparison to other stimulus categories, and the data of DBD children were compared with those of normal controls. It was found that DBD children preferred viewing sexual slides and had a lower preference for nonaggressive slides. Furthermore, boys in general preferred viewing aggressive slides, did so for longer, and chose them earlier, whereas the more aggressive DBD children distinguished themselves in selecting aggressive stimuli earlier. The implications of these findings were discussed and it was concluded that sexuality is clearly an important topic to address in aggressive children in general and not only in the abused ones.

Aggression↗
PubMed2002

Open-label study of olanzapine in children with pervasive developmental disorder.

The effects of olanzapine on the symptomatology of children with pervasive developmental disorder with emphasis on problems of communication and the safety of the drug were investigated in a 3-month open-label, open-dosage study. Participating in the study were 25 children age 6 to 16 years with a diagnosis of either autistic disorder or pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified. Psychometric measures included the Clinical Global Impression of Severity/Improvement, the Aberrant Behavior Checklist, and the TARGET (a checklist of five target symptoms). Communication skills were assessed during behavioral analysis of a playroom session. Safety measures included clinical chemistry variables, electrocardiography, the SimpsonAngus Neurological Rating Scale, the Barnes Akathisia Scale, and vital signs. Twenty-three children completed the study and showed significant improvement on three subscales of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (Irritability, Hyperactivity, and Excessive Speech) and the TARGET. The final mean dose was 10.7 mg/day. Several aspects of communication were also improved after olanzapine treatment. However, only three children were considered responders in terms of the Clinical Global Impression of Severity/Improvement scores. The most important adverse events were weight gain, increased appetite, and loss of strength. Three children showed extrapyramidal symptoms that disappeared after the dose was lowered. Thus, while olanzapine was a relatively safe medication in children, its clinical relevance in children with pervasive developmental disorder may be limited.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Normal P50 gating in children with autism.

BACKGROUND: An important characteristic of children with autism is their unusual reaction to stimuli, which may be related to problems in the filtering of sensory input. For this reason, sensory filtering was measured in children with autism using the P50 gating paradigm. METHOD: Twelve non-mentally retarded children with autism (i.e., having a DSM-IV diagnosis of either autistic disorder or pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified) and 11 healthy control children were tested for their ability to suppress P50, measured at the Cz electrode. RESULTS: No differences were found between the children with autism and the control children with regard to absolute P50 amplitudes and P50 suppression. CONCLUSION: The excitability of the neuronal substrate that causes P50 is normal in children with autism, as are the early, inhibitory processes related to P50 gating. These results distinguish between subjects with autism and subjects with schizophrenia, in whom sensory gating is abnormal.

Acoustic Stimulation↗