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Biomedical subjects

R E Tarter

Publications and source records attributed to R E Tarter.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
PubMed1988

Ethanol, its metabolism and gonadal effects: does sex make a difference?

The role of gender as a variable that might affect the metabolism of ethanol and thus the consequences of ethanol metabolism is reviewed. First, the pharmacodynamics of ethanol are reviewed. Specific differences between males and females relative to ethanol pharmacokinetic parameters are discussed including gender differences in the volume of distribution and putative hormonal effects on achieved blood alcohol levels. In addition, attention is directed toward the metabolic capacity of alcohol dehydrogenase and the microsomal ethanol oxidizing system with respect to effects of both sex differences and hormonal manipulations on the activities of these ethanol metabolizing enzymes. Finally, the data upon which the concept of sex-related differences in susceptibility to alcohol induced end organ failure are presented.

Alcohol Dehydrogenase↗
PubMed1988

The quality of life following liver transplantation: a preliminary report.

Quality of life is a multidimensional construct that encompasses functional behavioral and cognitive capacities, health status, emotional well-being, and psychosocial adjustment. A program of interdisciplinary investigation at the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Center has been directed at studying the outcome of liver transplantation with respect to the impact of such surgery on improving life quality. The data obtained have been subjected only to descriptive and univariate analyses but indicate that liver transplantation surgery results in a sharp improvement in quality of life relative to one's pretransplant status, although it does not return the recipient to their premorbid baseline. Following transplantation, a substantial reversal of identified pretransplant neuropsychological impairments also occurs, although performance does not appear to return to normal levels. Specifically, visuopractic impairments, which are the most salient neuropsychologic concomitants of hepatic encephalopathy, are still detectable 3 years after transplantation. Nonetheless, normal or near normal functioning on measures of cognitive capacity, health status, emotional well-being and social, vocational, and behavioral competency are found in liver transplant survivors.

Family↗
PubMed1987

Sensory information processing in patients with nonalcoholic cirrhosis. Short-latency visual, auditory, and somatosensory event-related potentials.

Visual, auditory and brainstem event-related potentials were obtained from patients with hepatocellular and cholestatic disease and a control group of normal subjects. The results did not reveal systematic neurophysiologic disturbances in persons with well compensated cirrhosis. It is concluded that short-latency event-related potentials are rather insensitive for detecting subclinical hepatic encephalopathy.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

DSM-III criteria for alcohol abuse: associations with alcohol consumption behavior.

DSM-III criteria for diagnosing alcohol abuse in a sample of hospitalized alcoholics highly correlated with each other and were poorly correlated with self-reported drinking pattern, quantity, and consequences of alcohol consumption. These findings question the specificity and the construct validity of the DSM-III criteria for diagnosing alcohol abuse.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Comparisons of the cognitive functioning of familial and nonfamilial alcoholics.

Alcoholic men (N = 81) participating in a Veterans Administration inpatient program were classified using four different strategies to describe the extent of familial alcoholism. These classification schemes included: (1) a comparison of alcoholics with no familial alcoholism, parental alcoholism or alcoholism in other relatives, (2) a unilineal-bilineal approach, (3) a multigenerational approach and (4) an approach that quantified the degree of familial alcoholism. Comparisons were made of the performance of the different familial history groups on a series of neuropsychological tests. No differences in cognitive functioning were found using any of the four classification schemes.

Alcoholism↗
PubMed1987

Inflammatory bowel disease: psychiatric status of patients before and after disease onset.

Compared to normal controls, individuals with Crohn's Disease manifest an increased prevalence of anxiety, depression and panic disorder occurring at any time in their life. Only panic disorder had an excess prevalence in Crohn's disease relative to community dwelling normals prior to the time of disease onset. Individuals with ulcerative colitis did not demonstrate an increased prevalence of psychiatric disorder before or after disease onset. The results suggest that there is a higher prevalence of psychiatric disorder in patients with Crohn's Disease relative to the normal population and that a small but significant percentage of individuals with Crohn's Disease may have a psychiatric disturbance which predates their medical illness.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Memory impairments concomitant with nonalcoholic cirrhosis.

A battery of memory tests was administered to a group of patients with nonalcoholic cirrhosis and to a group of normals. Deficits observed in the former group indicate that there are detectable neuropsychological impairments on measures of higher cognitive functioning in persons who do not otherwise exhibit overt signs or symptoms of hepatic encephalopathy. These findings extend the range of impairments that have been documented to be present as part of the neuropsychiatric syndrome of portal-systemic encephalopathy.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Sequential concept formation capacity in subclinical (latent) portal-systemic encephalopathy.

A card sorting task measuring sequential concept formation capacity was administered to a group of patients with nonalcoholic cirrhosis and to a group of normal controls. Hepatic disease subjects did not differ from normal controls in abstraction ability as measured in this study, suggesting that not all higher cognitive functions are impaired in persons with subclinical PSE.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Neurobehavioral correlates of cholestatic and hepatocellular disease: differentiation according to disease specific characteristics and severity of the identified cerebral dysfunction.

Subjects with three different types of hepatic cirrhosis were compared on a battery of neuropsychological tests to determine if cerebral dysfunction varied according to the type of liver disease. It was found that the manifest cognitive impairments varied according to the type and etiology of the liver disease. These findings underscore the sensitivity of neuropsychological tests in the detection of hepatic encephalopathy, particularly in cases where there are no overt clinical signs or symptoms of neurologic disturbance. They also suggest that the nature and severity of the measurable neuropsychological abnormalities may vary within patient populations depending upon the etiology of the individual's liver disease and the specific pathophysiological mechanisms involved in its progression.

Cholangitis↗
PubMed1987

Relationship between hepatic injury status and event related potentials.

Visual, auditory and somatosensory event related potentials were recorded from 58 patients with chronic nonalcoholic liver disease. The results of this study indicate that a significant, although somewhat modest, amount of variance on brainstem auditory, pattern visual and somatosensory ERP latency can be predicted by routinely obtained liver functional measures, albumin, prothrombin time, fasting ammonia level, globulin and especially indocyanine green clearance. Moreover, these associations are present in persons who are not overtly encephalopathic, underscoring the sensitivity of neurophysiologic measurement for detecting hepatic encephalopathy concomitant to only moderate severity of hepatic injury.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Cerebral morphological abnormalities associated with non-alcoholic cirrhosis.

Disturbance of cerebral morphology, as assessed from computed tomography (CT) scan images, was related to liver function in patients with non-alcoholic cirrhosis. These findings show that even in well compensated cirrhosis there are measurable disturbances of cerebral morphology, the extent of which is related to severity of liver dysfunction.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Neuropsychological capacity of Prader-Willi children: general and specific aspects of impairment.

Although most Prader-Willi syndrome children perform in the mentally retarded ranges on standardized IQ tests, it is not known if their cognitive impairments are global in nature or if they exhibit a particular pattern of strengths and weaknesses in their psychological capacities. To examine this question, a cohort of children suffering from Prader-Willi syndrome was administered a battery of neuropsychological tests. The results indicated that, relative to other cognitive capacities assessed, particularly severe deficits were noted on tasks that involved information processing using the auditory modality. No differences in cognitive capacity were found between children with a number 15 chromosome defect and those with a normal karyotype configuration. Based on these initial findings, it appears that the clinical diagnosis of Prader-Willi syndrome is more important than a karyotype configuration in understanding these youngsters' manifest cognitive deficits.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Drinking behavior of high risk college men: contradictory preliminary findings.

Seventeen high risk and seventeen low risk college-aged men were compared with respect to drinking behavior/problems and certain implicated personality characteristics. The low risk subjects were, surprisingly, found to drink and become intoxicated more frequently than high risk subjects. They also reported significantly higher sensation seeking scores. This latter variable accounted for the greatest amount of variance in both risk status and frequency of drinking. By contrast, high risk subjects reported somewhat more lifetime alcohol-related symptomatology and significantly more preadult antisocial symptoms. Preadult antisocial symptoms, alone, explained 39% and 29%, respectively, of the variance in alcohol-related symptoms and the amount consumed on a typical drinking day. The implications and limitations of the findings with respect to the development of alcoholism are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

The influence of both drinking and familial risk statuses on cognitive functioning of social drinkers.

Problem and nonproblem drinking, college student sons of alcoholics were compared to problem and nonproblem drinking college student sons of nonalcoholic fathers with respect to cognitive functioning. Problem drinkers performed more poorly on two of the four cognitive tasks, Group Embedded Figures and Symbol-Digit Paired Associates Learning Task, thus supporting earlier findings of cognitive deficits in problem drinking nonalcoholics. Additionally, sons of alcoholics tended to perform more poorly than sons of nonalcoholics on the Group Embedded Figures Test. Cognitive performance was not predicted by any of four measures of impulsive/antisocial personality and behavior-preadult antisocial behavior, childhood behavior problems, sensation seeking, and the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale. The findings of the research pointed to the importance of considering both drinking and familial alcoholism risk statuses in studies of the cognitive performance of nonalcoholics. Further implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Perceptual field dependency: predisposing trait or consequence of alcoholism?

Perceptual field dependency often has been reported in alcoholics and frequently implicated as a predisposing trait in alcoholism. Comparing sons of alcoholics who are at high risk for alcoholism to sons of depressed fathers and control fathers (nonalcoholics without history of depression) revealed, however, no differences on the rod and frame test. These results do not support the hypothesis that field dependency is a risk factor in alcoholism.

Adolescent↗