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Biomedical subjects

I Daum

Publications and source records attributed to I Daum.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

Classical conditioning after temporal lobe lesions in man: sparing of simple discrimination and extinction.

Recent reports of impaired conditional discrimination learning in temporal lobectomy subjects have raised the question of response inhibition deficits in these patients. In the present study, left and right temporal lobectomy subjects and healthy controls completed an eyelid conditioning task, which required simple two-tone discrimination learning, followed by extinction. There were no group differences with regard to discrimination learning or extinction. General deficits in response inhibition are therefore not likely to account for the impairment in conditional discrimination observed in temporal lobectomy patients.

Acoustic Stimulation

The Maudsley Mentation test: a method for extended monitoring of mental status after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

A new scale for the repeated, rapid assessment of mental function in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage is described. Its reproducibility is evaluated and early experience with its use in the intended clinical setting is reported. The test (Maudsley Mentation Test) proved to be more sensitive to fluctuations in cerebral functioning than existing measures of conscious level, and the results were reproducible among observers with different backgrounds (surgeons, nurses, and psychologists). The results suggest a relationship between performance on mentation testing and quality of outcome. The Maudsley Mentation Test is thought to offer a suitable measure with which to monitor patients during the acute phase of their illness to supplement clinical assessment and provide evidence of deterioration at an early stage. It is also potentially useful as an end point in acute protection and treatment studies.

Adult

Incidence and clinical risk factors for bleeding and thrombotic complications in myeloproliferative disorders. A retrospective analysis of 260 patients.

Bleeding and thrombosis are frequent complications in myeloproliferative disorders (MPD) and are associated with severe organ damage and a high mortality. Elevated platelet count, elevated hematocrit, and patient age are regarded as risk factors for bleeding and thromboembolic events in MPD, although the significance of these parameters was not confirmed by clinical studies. We retrospectively analyzed vascular complications in 260 patients with MPD and tried to identify parameters predictive for bleeding and thrombembolic events. Our cohort consisted of 115 patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), 84 patients with polycythemia vera (PV), 26 with essential thrombocythemia (ET), 25 with osteomyelofibrosis (OMF), and 10 patients with unclassifiable MPD. During a median follow-up period of 31 months, 126 patients with chronic MPD suffered bleeding or thrombotic events. Bleeding was observed in 57% of patients with OMF, 23% with PV, 20% with chronic phase CML, and 16% with ET. Thrombotic events were most common in patients with PV (36% of patients), followed by ET, OMF, and chronic phase CML (20%, 17%, and 6% of patients, respectively). Recurrent thrombotic episodes frequently occurred in patients with PV and ET, whereas patients with OMF often had more than one bleeding event. Thirty patients died of thrombohemorrhagic complications during follow-up. Multivariate analysis, including all patients with chronic MPD, revealed that elevated red blood cell count, higher hemoglobin level, and increased percentage of segmented neutrophils at the time of diagnosis were associated with thrombosis, whereas patients with bleeding complications were characterized by low red cell count, lower hemoglobin, and a lower percentage of segmented neutrophils. However, when analyzed by MPD subgroup, none of these parameters retained a predictive value for bleeding or thrombotic events. Moreover, elevated platelet count and patient age were not risk factors for bleeding complications. Thrombotic events were less frequent in patients below the age of 40, and were increased in patients aged 70 and above. However, this was primarily due to the high percentage of elderly patients in subgroups mainly affected by thrombosis (PV and ET). In most MPD subgroups, the rate of bleeding and thrombosis was highest just before and during the first months after diagnosis, and declined thereafter. Thrombohemorrhagic complications were less frequent after phlebotomy in PV and after therapy with alkylating agents in CML. The institution of cytoreductive therapy soon after the diagnosis was made may explain the reduced incidence of complications later in the disease. We conclude that morbidity and mortality from thrombohemorrhagic complications are high in myeloproliferative disorders.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Bloodletting

T-maze discrimination and reversal learning after unilateral temporal or frontal lobe lesions in man.

The interpretation of conditional discrimination and reversal learning as acquisition of declarative knowledge suggests that subjects with temporal lobe/hippocampal lesions are likely to be impaired on such tasks. Patients with unilateral left or right temporal lobectomy (and small hippocampal excisions) and patients with unilateral frontal lobe resections were compared with healthy controls on a discrimination reversal task, embedded in a computer game modelled on T-maze tasks traditionally used in animal experiments. The right temporal group showed a deficit in acquiring an initial conditional discrimination, and the frontal group tended to display a marginal impairment in discrimination reversal. These findings are compared with results from animal studies in terms of the mechanisms underlying reversal learning.

Adult

Classical conditioning after temporal lobe lesions in man: impairment in conditional discrimination.

Left and right temporal lobectomy patients, patients with frontal lobe lesions, and healthy control subjects participated in an eyelid conditioning study based on conditional discrimination learning. All groups acquired the first conditioned response at a similar time during learning, but both temporal lobectomy groups showed poorer discrimination than control subjects. The results support models that relate hippocampal function to operation of if-then rules.

Adult

Reaction times and visuospatial processing in Parkinson's disease.

Three motor reaction time tasks which differed in visuospatial complexity but not in motor demands were completed by a group of Parkinson's disease patients and a group of matched control subjects. Response initiation times increased with visuospatial difficulty, whereas movement times remained within a similar range. The two groups differed in response initiation and movement execution times across all reaction time conditions. However, there was no disproportionate increase in response initiation times between an initial nonspatial condition and more complex visuospatial conditions in Parkinson disease patients, and the patients did not make more errors than control subjects. The results do not give support to the hypothesis of a generalised visuospatial deficit in Parkinson's disease.

Affect

Lateralisation of language functioning by the Wada procedure and divided visual field presentation of a verbal task.

In cases of intractable epilepsy, language and memory functioning in the hemisphere contralateral to the lesion is determined prior to unilateral temporal surgery. Patients with unilateral temporal lobe lesions were assessed using the intracarotid sodium amytal (Wada) procedure to determine the lateralisation of language and memory functioning. They also performed a divided visual field task in which letters were presented in pairs for brief durations on a computer screen in a phonemic matching task. The results showed only moderate agreement between the two methods with regard to identification of the speech-dominant hemisphere, indicating the divided visual field matching paradigm to be unsuitable as a basis for surgical decision-making.

Adolescent

The effect of categorization on verbal memory after temporal lobectomy.

Epileptic patients with left or right temporal lobectomies were compared with normal subjects on a verbal memory task involving recall and recognition of categorized and uncategorized word lists. The left temporal group recalled significantly fewer words than the normal control subjects, and recognition performance was also poorer. The right temporal group did not differ significantly from the normal controls on recognition, although differences neared significance on recall. Categorization improved performance in all the groups. The left temporal patients improved if words were presented in order of category membership, but recalled less if category membership was randomized over order of presentation.

Adult

Classical conditioning in patients with severe memory problems.

Classical conditioning is one of the most fundamental forms of learning, and yet little is known regarding the effects of brain injury on conditioning processes in humans. Three patients with temporal lobe lesions and severe memory problems were therefore assessed in terms of eyeblink conditioning, extinction, discrimination and reversal learning, and in one patient electrodermal conditioning was also investigated. The acquisition of conditioned responses was seen to be intact, but the evidence regarding extinction was ambiguous. All of the patients were impaired in discrimination learning and also reversal learning.

Adult

Narcolepsy.

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Humans

Development of sleep during monotonous stimulation as related to individual differences.

This study was designed to examine whether the sleep-promoting effect of monotonous stimulation depends on individual differences in strength of the nervous system, as was suggested by Pavlov. Sixty male subjects were divided into three groups, depending on their score on the "strength of excitation" scale of the Strelau Temperament Inventory. Within each group, subjects were randomly assigned to be exposed to either a) a sequence of tones or b) "no tones" (i.e., a quiet room). Dependent variables were latencies to Sleep Stage 1 (SOL 1) and Sleep Stage 2 (SOL 2). The main effects of stimulation and strength of the nervous system were not statistically significant. However, there was a significant interaction between stimulation and strength for both dependent variables. "Weak" subjects tended to fall asleep more rapidly during monotonous stimulation, whereas the reverse was true of "strong" subjects. The results suggest that individual differences might play an important role in the development of sleep during monotonous stimulation.

Acoustic Stimulation