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Biomedical subjects

R Steinberg

Publications and source records attributed to R Steinberg.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1993

[Detoxication therapy according to section 64 StGB. Socio-demographic data and therapeutic results of a random 3 year sample].

In the context of a prospective study of alcohol-dependent men, who were committed to compulsory treatment after violations of the law, all patients of a treatment unit in Rheinland/Pfalz during the years 1988-90 were studied. Sociodemographic data, results of psychological testing and records of therapeutic progress of 76 men are evaluated. Besides the evidence of severe social deficits, particular attention is paid to the negative effect of marked delinquency and the additional abuse of drugs and medicaments upon therapeutic outcome.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Measurement of gamma-enolase release, a new method for selective quantification of neurotoxicity independently from glial lysis.

We have developed a sensitive enzymatic-immunoassay to quantify the level of gamma-enolase (a specific neuronal enzyme) which is released from cultured cells after exposure to various toxins. We show that this method can estimate selectively neuronal cell death without significantly interfering with glial cell death. Indeed, no gamma-enolase is released when glial cells are killed with free-radical producing agents. Experiments comparing the levels of neuronal cell death induced by NMDA or free-radical producing drugs, performed either by measuring gamma-enolase release or using the classical fluorescein diacetate method, yielded similar results. In addition to selectively follow neuronal death in a mixed population of neurons and glial cells, this method provides a way of determining the cell death kinetics from a single culture dish, since enolase can be measured on small samples taken from the culture medium. Finally, we propose these two methods as being complementary and useful neuronal and other cellular death indexes and also to understand the complex problem of glial influence on neuronal survival or death.

Animals↗
PubMed1992

Calcium homeostasis, bone metabolism and safety aspects during long-term treatment with a GnRH agonist.

Thirty-five women with symptomatic fibroids were treated with monthly injections of 3.2 mg microcapsulated D-Trp-6-LHRH for 6 months. During treatment serum 17 beta-oestradiol levels decreased, falling to castration levels associated with a reduction in the volume of the fibroids. In 16 patients a complete calcium homeostasis and bone metabolism work-up was carried out during treatment and subsequently for a 6-month follow-up period. Bone mineral content (BMC) and Compton bone densitometry readings remained unchanged. There were significant increases in serum calcium phosphate and alkaline phosphatase concentrations. A slight although not significant increase was observed in osteocalcin and parathyroid hormone (PTH) serum levels. Serum 1,25(OH)2D3 values decreased significantly after 3 months of treatment. Urinary hydroxyproline/creatinine and calcium/creatinine ratios as well as 24-h urinary calcium values increased significantly during the treatment period but decreased rapidly to pretreatment values after 3 months in the follow-up period. The endocrine changes induced by the GnRH-agonist treatment were associated with reversible biochemical signs of increased bone turnover and no significant changes in bone mass, suggesting that the treatment can be administered safely for a period of 6 months in patients with oestrogen-dependent diseases.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

The topography of microthrombi in ischemic brain infarct.

Following cerebral ischemia a tendency to increased coagulation can be detected. Vascular occlusion may develop either as a result of local thrombus formation or from emboli caused by circulating platelet aggregates. We studied the localization of microthrombi and their effects on tissue in double-hemisphere sections. Fresh brain infarcts showed a large number of microthrombi limited to the ischemic region. In more advanced infarcts they were found mainly at the border of the necrosis and diffusely distributed over both hemispheres. Older, subsiding infarcts showed only isolated microthrombi limited to the area of the necrosis. This indicates that great importance must be attached to microthrombi in infarct progression.

Aged↗
PubMed1992

Music psychopathology. V. Objective features of instrumental performance and psychopathology.

Mental disease systematically impairs musical expression according to nosologic classification. This was demonstrated with a polarity profile of the instrumental performances of 60 inpatients and 14 controls matched for musical aptitude. Objective performance characteristics such as irregularities and playing faults were analyzed too. No meaningful correlation between these features and psychopathology resulted. This indicates that even in severe psychopathologic alterations performance features, which depend mainly on education and actual training, are not altered in a systematic manner, in contrast to expressive qualities.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Music psychopathology. VI. The course objective instrumental performance characteristics with psychiatric inpatients.

The impairment of musical expression due to mental disease is reversible with growing remission. This finding resulted from follow-up examinations of instrumental playings assessed by means of a polarity profile with 60 psychiatric inpatients and 14 controls. A follow-up comparison of objective performance characteristics as defined by careful analysis of the recordings did not reveal a meaningful variation. This is taken as a strong indication that even in severe psychopathologic alterations, learned motor patterns of music performance are fairly stable. A simple reduction in playing irregularities cannot explain the systematic influence of psychopathology on musical expression.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Brain dysfunction during motor activation and corpus callosum alterations in schizophrenia measured by cerebral blood flow and magnetic resonance imaging.

Sixteen unmedicated (14 never-medicated, 2 with washout periods of 1-2 weeks) schizophrenic patients displaying positive symptoms (e.g., formal thought disorder, hallucinations, delusions) without negative symptoms (e.g., flattening of affect, loss of energy, anhedonia--type I patients), 15 unmedicated (with washout periods from 1 week to 2 years) patients with marked negative symptomatology [type II patients; criterion score below 15/above 35 on the Munich version of the Scale of Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), respectively], and 31 matched normal controls were investigated using regional cerebral blood flow [rCBF; dynamic single-photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) with Xenon-133 as tracer] and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI; spin-echo technique, T1 weighted, midsagittal cuts). rCBF measurements were performed during both resting conditions and simple motor activation. Separately, on the same day, we performed a planimetric evaluation of the callosal-brain ratio in all subjects using MRI. In accordance with previous results on a smaller sample, we found signs of diffuse bilateral rCBF hyperactivation in type I patients, as compared with signs of nonreactivity in type II schizophrenics. Both activation patterns were different from a strictly contralateral sensorimotor rCBF activation seen in normal persons (only 8 studied with SPECT). The planimetry of relative callosal area did not reveal differences compared to normal persons, when type I/II patients were taken together. However, the threefold increased variance as compared with that found in normal persons suggested biological heterogeneity in patients. We found an increase of relative callosal size in type I as compared with type II patients. In the light of some recent findings linking lack of laterality of several brain functions to increased callosal size, we propose lack of laterality/diffuse hyperactivation and increased callosal size to be connected with positive symptomatology/good prognosis schizophrenia, and vice versa.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1991

Reduction of protein kinase C activity in the adult rat brain following transient forebrain ischemia.

Acute forebrain ischemia reduced protein kinase C (PKC) activity in the adult rat cortex, striatum and hippocampus by 60-70% after 20 min ischemia episodes, followed by 48 h of recirculation. Ischemia of 1 min, followed by recirculation, produced a less pronounced but significant decrease in PKC activity. The ischemia-induced decrease of PKC affected both the soluble and the membrane-bound kinase. Alterations of PKC predate neuronal death following ischemia.

Animals↗
PubMed1991

Brain dysfunction in psychiatric patients during music perception measured by EEG mapping: relation to motor dysfunction and influence of neuroleptic drugs.

We report here our findings on music perception obtained as a companion study to the investigation with 16-channel EEG mapping in psychiatric patients during motor activation, published recently elsewhere. We decided to add on a study of this functional circuit, since there is evidence that it is disturbed in various psychiatric patient groups (another "functio laesa"). Involved in the study were 23 male and 25 female schizophrenics, 11 male and 18 female non-endogenously depressed patients (not presently under medication, i.e. drug-naive or wash-out period from 1 week to 17 years), 26 male and 37 female endogenously depressed patients (medicated with tri- or tetracyclic antidepressants and/or benzodiazepines; no lithium), and 22 male and 17 female control subjects (i.e. n = 179). We compared resting conditions after a special relaxation procedure with three music perception tasks: (1) a standardised rumba rhythm generated by a keyboard and delivered binaurally by earphones, (2) the same as an arpeggio in D major, and (3) the same as an arpeggio with a tonic-subdominant-dominant cadence. Major results were obtained in the delta and alpha frequency bands, yielding signs of "diffuse hyperactivation", most prominent in schizophrenic males, and not observed to a similar extent in any other patient group or in normal controls. Interestingly, there were major sex differences, yielding a more diffuse EEG activation pattern in normal females than in males and thus possibly obscuring signs of brain function diffusion in female patients. Viewing our broader evidence of similar brain dysfunction when examining motor functional circuits, especially in schizophrenics, these findings provide further evidence of a brain disorganization with lack of laterality/diffusion which may be found in subgroups of these patients and not in other psychiatric disorders. In schizophrenic patients, these EEG signs of "diffuse hyperactivation" on simple motor and/or music stimulation were reduced to nearly normal by neuroleptic medication. The latter finding may contribute to possible clinical applications of EEG mapping, considering the EEG's unique suitability for long-term brain function monitoring. Other neuroimaging methods like SPECT and PET should be used for additional "external validation".

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Music psychopathology. IV. The course of musical expression during music therapy with psychiatric inpatients.

The music therapeutic productions of 67 psychiatric inpatients were analyzed concerning a systematic variation in the course of therapy. The impairment of performance was not as regular as with customary music, nevertheless with growing remission it was reversible in all diagnostic subgroups. The change for the better of rhythmic and motor skills of endogenous-depressed patients was seen to the same extent as with traditional music. The polarity profile developed for the assessment of music proved meaningful in the characterization of music therapeutic utterances.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Zinc excretion in osteoporotic women.

The relation of zinc to the aging skeleton was investigated in 140 women aged 36-85 years, mostly postmenopausal, who attended the Jerusalem Osteoporosis Center. Osteoporosis was determined by lumbar spine radiograms (Smith index). Bone density (BD) of the distal radius was assessed by Compton spectroscopy and bone mineral content (BMC) at the same site by single-photon absorptiometry. Urine samples (24 h) were analyzed for zinc (UZn), hydroxyproline (UHP), calcium (UCa), magnesium (UMg), and phosphorus (UP) and expressed per gram creatinine. Patients with definite osteoporosis (n = 94) compared to subjects with borderline or no osteoporosis (n = 34) had a significantly higher mean age (67.4 versus 58.6 years), postmenopausal age (PMA, 19.9 versus 11.0), UZn (811 versus 581), UHP (23.5 versus 18.2), and UMg (90.4 versus 74.3). Urinary calcium UCa and phosphorus UP were similar in both groups. The bone mass measurements BD, BMC, and CI were lower in the osteoporotic group. Hyperzincuria (UZn above 800 micrograms/g creatinine) was found in 41 osteoporotic patients (45%) compared to 6 subjects in the control group (17%). In view of the positive correlation between UZn and age (r = 0.35, p = 0.001) and to eliminate the effect of age, a separate analysis was performed for 66 subjects under the age of 65 in whom the mean age was similar for the osteoporosis patients (n = 38) and control group (n = 28). Nevertheless, the osteoporosis patients still had a significantly higher mean UZn and UHP.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Pharmacological characterization of the aminopyridazine SR 95639A, a selective M1 muscarinic agonist.

In order to design a selective M1 muscarinic agonist, we synthesized SR 95639A (morpholinoethylamino-3-benzocyclohepta-(5,6-c)-pyridazine, dihydrochloride), a semi-rigid analogue of the aminopyridazine antidepressant drug minaprine. SR 95639A displaced [3H]pirenzepine from its binding sites in rat hippocampal membranes with an IC50 value of 0.27 microM. It only weakly displaced [3H]N-methylscopolamine from cerebellar, cardiac and ileal membranes (10-48 microM), and, up to 100 microM, did not interact with the main other receptors of the rat brain. In rat isolated sympathetic ganglia, SR 95639A induced dose-dependent depolarizations which were antagonized by pirenzepine, and dose dependently suppressed the M current. These latter effects were also pirenzepine-sensitive. After i.p. or oral treatment in mice, SR 95639A never induced the classical cholinergic syndrome, up to lethal doses. Finally, SR 95639A (i.p. and p.o.) antagonized contralateral rotations induced by intrastriatal injection of pirenzepine, in mice. These results suggest that SR 95639A is a selective agonist at central muscarinic M1 receptors and may represent a useful tool for further characterization of the nature and function of muscarinic receptor subtypes.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

[Problems in long-term benzodiazepine treatment].

The risk of drug dependency following long-term use of benzodiazepines is reviewed and complemented with own experiences. Withdrawal from high- and low-dose dependency was followed by systematically recording symptoms. Insomnia, a cardial symptom, was recorded in the sleep-laboratory during withdrawal. Benzodiazepines suppress the deep phases of sleep almost completely. In the course of withdrawal induced rapidly by a 50% reduction of the administered dose at five day intervals leading to substantial withdrawal symptoms sleep-EEG's improved considerably. The patients felt substantially better after withdrawal.

Anti-Anxiety Agents↗
PubMed1989

[Chronic hyposomnia].

The problem area of chronic insomnia will be discussed in view of diagnostic, causal and therapeutic aspects. A duration of an insomnia more than 3 weeks is regarded as chronic, it demands a detailed anamnestic interview as well as physical examinations. The chronic intake of hypnotics rather often causes insomnia. The reversible influence of chronic intake of hypnotics on polygraphic sleep parameters are shown during withdrawal, which was carried out stepwise. Alternative therapeutic strategies are discussed.

Anti-Anxiety Agents↗