Biomedical subjects

M A Persinger

Publications and source records attributed to M A Persinger.

At least 235 records · Page 13Linked to original sources

PubMed1990

Failure to acquire an inhibitory task following seizure-induced brain damage.

Male rats that had displayed limbic seizures following a single pair of systemic injections of lithium and pilocarpine were trained 2 months later on an operant schedule that required differential low rates of responding (DRL). The seizured rats never acquired schedules that required either 6-sec. or 12-sec. inhibition of responses following a reward; these rats displayed more perseverative responding and shorter interresponse times than controls. Histomorphology indicated severe brain damage primarily within the entorhinal cortices (and adjacent amygdala) and dorsal thalamus.

Animals↗

PubMed1990

Elevated, specific temporal lobe signs in a population engaged in psychic studies.

We tested the hypothesis that a special population of people who maintain exotic beliefs and report frequent subjective psi experiences should display more frequent temporal lobe signs and symptoms. Clusters of items, that reflect various temporal lobe factors for 20 women who were actively (greater than 1 year) involved with a local psychic and spiritual development group, were compared to items for an age-matched reference group (n = 61). T-scores for the reference group did not differ from those of the normal population. Whereas the psychic group did not differ from the reference group on various control and psychiatric measures, mean T-scores on clusters that infer complex partial epileptic signs (specifically a sense of presence, olfactory experiences, and intense meaning) ranged between 65 and 70. Group affiliation explained 22 to 50% of the variance for each of these variables; with discriminant analysis, they correctly classified 95% of both groups of participants.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Temporal lobes signs and Jungian dimensions of personality.

Phenomenological experiences that suggest temporal lobe lability were correlated with Jungian personality (Myers-Briggs) indicators. People with frequent temporal lobe indicators were more intuitive than sensing and more perceiving than judging; in the more general population temporal lobe indicators were also weakly associated with feeling rather than thinking. Students who were actively engaged in a drama class also displayed more frequent temporal lobe signs than psychology students. The data are commensurate with the hypothesis that the relationship between belief in psi phenomena, psi experiences, and specific cognitive styles is derived from a temporal lobe lability factor.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1989

Temporal lobe signs and enhanced pleasantness scores for words generated during spontaneous narratives.

Temporal lobe function has been strongly implicated in the processes of semantic selection. Within this context, enhanced activity of deep mesiobasal structures is expected to influence the affective dimensions of language use. Quantitative measures of the evaluative (pleasantness) dimension but not the activity (arousal) dimension of words generated during narratives of subjective experiences within an exotic setting were significantly correlated with the numbers of temporal lobe signs.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Geophysical variables and behavior: LIV. Zeitoun (Egypt) apparitions of the Virgin Mary as tectonic strain-induced luminosities.

Temporal analyses were completed between the occurrence of intense displays of exotic luminous phenomena over a church in Zeitoun (Egypt) during the years 1968 through 1969 and regional seismicity. These phenomena, viewed by thousands of onlookers, began one year before an unprecedented increase (factor of 10) in seismic activity about 400 km to the southeast. Monthly analyses also demonstrated a moderate (0.56) correlation between increases in seismicity and the occurrence of luminous phenomena during the same or previous month. These results were interpreted as further support for the hypothesis that most anomalous (terrain-related) luminous phenomena are generated by factors associated with tectonic strain.

Disasters↗

PubMed1989

Geophysical variables and behavior: LV. Predicting the details of visitor experiences and the personality of experients: the temporal lobe factor.

The visitor experience, a more intense form of the normal sense of presence, emphasizes the deep belief of personal contact with an extraterrestrial (or religious) entity. Phenomenological details of visitor experiences are expected to reflect the functions of deep temporal lobe structures; common details involve cosmic meaningfulness, vestibular experiences, flickering, complex visual sensations and alimentary references. After intense experiences, interictal-like behaviors similar to religious conversions (widening affect, sense of personal, desire to spread the word, concern about Man's destiny) emerge. Normal people who are prone to these experiences show frequent temporal lobe signs and specific personality characteristics that include enhanced creativity, suggestibility, mild hypomania, anxiety, and emotional lability. Learning histories that encourage the use of right temporal lobe functions for the consolidation of memory, such as compartmentalization of beliefs or repression due to early sexual abuse, predispose to intense visitor experiences. The most frequent precipitants are psychological depression, personal (existential) stress and proximal exposure to the focal tectonic strain fields that accompany luminous phenomena. Possible neuropsychological mechanisms are discussed.

Amygdala↗

PubMed1988

Conditioned taste aversion is reduced in rats with a history of lithium/pilocarpine-induced limbic seizures.

Limbic seizures were evoked in rats by single subcutaneous injections of lithium and pilocarpine that are known to elicit severe damage to gustatory-affective centers in the brain. About two months later 12 of these rats and 12 control rats that received either lithium or pilocarpine (no seizures) were given free access to 10% sucrose solutions and then injected with 0.15 M LiCl (10 ml/kg). Whereas the control rats demonstrated the expected conditioned taste aversion (CTA) to later presentations of sucrose during single bottle drinking tests, the rats that had been seizured demonstrated a significant attenuation in CTA.

Animals↗

PubMed1988

Increased geomagnetic activity and the occurrence of bereavement hallucinations: evidence for melatonin-mediated microseizuring in the temporal lobe?

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that common bereavement apparitions are hallucinatory experiences evoked by transient electrical instability within the (glucocorticoid) sensitized mesiobasal temporal lobes. All first hand reports of 'postmortem apparition' experiences were collected from a published data base. The days on which the experiences occurred displayed significantly greater (mean increase = 10 gamma) geomagnetic activity compared to the days before or afterwards. These results suggest that bereavement apparitions are situation-specific hallucinations evoked by microseizures within sensitized temporal lobe structures; the occurrence of these microseizures might be facilitated by suppression in melatonin levels that could accompany sudden increases in geomagnetic activity.

Bereavement↗

PubMed1988

Characteristics of limbic seizures evoked by peripheral injections of lithium and pilocarpine.

The characteristics and consequences of limbic seizures evoked by single peripheral injections of lithium (3 mEq/kg) and pilocarpine (30 mg/kg) were investigated over a three-year period. The seizures occurred when 3 mEq/kg of lithium was followed 4 to 28 hours later by 30 mg/kg of pilocarpine. The seizures did not occur if the intervals were shorter or longer or if the pilocarpine preceded the lithium. The acute mortality or persistent aphagia and adipsia could be compensated by postseizure injections of acepromazine and a special milk-bread diet. Gender, age and preinjection environmental effects, but not hybrid genetics, influenced the seizure onset latency. Fifty to 100 days after the seizures massive lesions were found in the entorhinal-pyriform cortices, amygdala and selected thalamic groups.

Animals↗

PubMed1988

Temporal lobe signs and personality characteristics.

Mature university students (14 men and 16 women) were asked to complete the 16 PF and a scale that samples temporal lobe signs in the normal population. People who reported frequent temporal lobe experiences were more emotionally unstable, impulsive, emotionally sensitive (imaginative inner self, actions based upon intuition and self-anxiety), and tense (free-floating anxiety). The results were compatible with personality characteristics of people who report "temporal lobe experiences" and have been assessed by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the California Personality Inventory.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1988

Geophysical variables and behavior: LIII. Epidemiological considerations for incidence of cancer and depression in areas of frequent UFO reports.

Luminous phenomena and anomalous physical forces have been hypothesized to be generated by focal tectonic strain fields that precede earthquakes. If these geophysical processes exist, then their spatial and temporal density should be greatest during periods of protracted, localized UFO reports; they might be used as dosimetric indicators. Contemporary epidemiological data concerning the health risks of power frequency electromagnetic fields and radon gas levels (expected correlates of certain tectonic strain fields), suggest that increased incidence (odds ratios greater 1:3) of brain tumors and leukemia should be evident within "flap" areas. In addition the frequency of variants of temporal lobe lability, psychological depression and posttraumatic stress should be significantly elevated. UFO field investigators, because they have repeated, intermittent close proximity to these fields, are considered to be a particularly high risk population for these disorders.

Depressive Disorder↗

PubMed1987

Mental processes and disorders: a neurobehavioral perspective in human biometeorology.

Research concerning the complex relation between weather and psychological processes has emphasized three important issues: methodological problems, the determination of the major behavioral factors, and the isolation of neurobiological mechanisms. This paper reviews the current status of each issue. Weather changes are most frequently associated with behaviors that are the endpoints of inferred psychological processes that include mood, subclinical pain, anxiety, and the correlates of schedule shifts. Learning and conditioning appear to mediate a powerful influence over weather-related responses. This may explain the large individual variability in these behaviors. The most well-known group effects associated with weather changes involve psychiatric populations. Clinical subpopulations may respond in different ways to different aspects of the same weather system as well as to different types of air masses. Likely neurobiological mechanisms through which meteorogenic stimuli may mediate whole organismic effects include the locus coeruleal and limbic systems. Expected psychobiological consequences are examined in detail. The magnitude and temporal-spatial characteristics of weather effects indicate they are the subject matter of behavioral epidemiology.

Anxiety↗

PubMed1987

Geopsychology and geopsychopathology: mental processes and disorders associated with geochemical and geophysical factors.

Temporal and regional variations in psychological processes have been associated with three geological factors. They are geochemical profiles, geomagnetic variations, and tectonic stresses. In the geochemical domain, copper, aluminum, zinc, and lithium may influence the incidence of thought disorders such as schizophrenia and senile dementia. These common elements are found in many soils and ground water. Geomagnetic variations have been correlated with enhanced anxiety, sleep disturbances, altered moods, and greater incidences of psychiatric admissions. The effects are usually brief but pervasive. Transient and very local epidemics of bizarre and unusual behaviors are sociological phenomena that sometimes precede increases in earthquake activity within a region; they have been hypothesized to be associated with tectonic strain. Many of the contemporary correlations between geological factors and human behavior are also apparent within historical data. The effects of geophysical and geochemical factors upon human behavior are not artifactual, but they are complex and often not detected by the limited scope of most studies.

Behavior↗

PubMed1987

Temporal lobe epileptic signs and correlative behaviors displayed by normal populations.

With regard to epileptic signs and correlative behaviors, one hypothesis is that the experiences and nonconvulsive behaviors of patients with electrical foci within the temporal lobe are also displayed, but with less intensity, by normal people. If this is correct, then there should be quantitative relationships between the numbers of major complex partial epileptic signs (CPES) and the occurrence of other frequent clinical experiences and behaviors. An inventory to answer this question was developed. Over a 3-year period, 414 (6 groups) university students were administered an inventory that included themes of CPES as well as control and information items. Strong correlations were consistently found between CPES scores and reports of paranormal (mystical, with religious overtones) experiences and "a sense of presence." Results from three personality (CPI, MMPI, and IPAT anxiety) inventories clearly demonstrated similar profiles. In addition to being more anxious, people who displayed higher CPES scores were more suspicious, aloof, stereotyped in their behavior, ruminative (overthinking), intellectually inefficient, and overly judgmental. CPES scores were significantly (p less than .001) correlated with the schizophrenia and mania subscales of the MMPI. The results suggest that functional hyperconnectionism of cortical-limbic systems within the brain may be more prevalent in the normal population than previously suspected.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1987

Specific temporal-lobe signs and enhanced delayed cross-modal matching performance.

Structural damage to the amygdala severely retards delayed cross-modal (tactile-to-sight) matching in primates. Conversely, we hypothesized that people who display signs suggestive of specific temporal lobe lability should show enhanced delayed cross-modal matching performance. The hypothesis was supported. In a single experiment involving 25 subjects, significant negative correlations obtained between the numbers of errors on the cross-modal matching task and numbers of affirmative responses within clusters of items that contained themes of meaningfulness, religious beliefs or ictal, complex partial epileptic (limbic) states. On the other hand, the numbers of errors were not significantly correlated with either clusters of control items or items that are presumed to reflect the function of other temporal-lobe structures. Both matching and questionnaire data were collected under double-blind conditions.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

Positive correlations between temporal lobe signs and hypnosis induction profiles: a replication.

48 university students were tested singly. Each student was first asked to complete an inventory that determined the frequency of temporal lobe signs. The subject was then taken into an acoustic chamber and evaluated on the hypnosis induction procedure (HIP) of Spiegel. Positive correlations obtained between the intensity of the sensations of floating and the total induction score and also the number of responses on clusters of items considered as temporal lobe signs. There were no significant correlations between scores on the hypnotic measures and responses for two control clusters of items or a lie scale. The results support the hypothesis that temporal lobe "experiences" and hypnotic susceptibility may share a common factor.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

Geophysical variables and behavior: XXXIX. Alterations in imaginings and suggestibility during brief magnetic field exposures.

12 male and 12 female volunteers were evaluated for their suggestibility before and after an approximately 15-min. exposure to either sham, 1-Hz or 4-Hz magnetic fields that were applied across their mid-superior temporal lobes. During the field-application subjects were instructed to view a green light that was pulsating at the same frequency as the field and to imagine encountering an alien situation. Results were commensurate with the hypothesis that weak brain-frequency fields may influence certain aspects of imaginings and alter suggestibility.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

MMPI profiles of normal people who display frequent temporal-lobe signs.

Comparisons were made between personality (MMPI) profiles of 26 part-time university students who scored in the upper and 29 students who scored in the lower one-quarter of the range on a scale that measures temporal-lobe signs in the normal population. Compared to the reference group, the subjects who displayed more temporal-lobe signs showed statistically significant elevations above a T score of 70 on Schizophrenia and Hypomania. There were secondary elevations on Psychasthenia and frequency scales. Similar profiles whose high-point scores display greater amplitude are typical for patients with schizotypal disorders and for many patients who have long histories of temporal lobe epilepsy. These results support the existence of a continuum of temporal-lobe lability that extends into the normal population.

Adolescent↗