Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

S Scarone

Publications and source records attributed to S Scarone.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1995

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test performance in obsessive-compulsive disorder: no evidence for involvement of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) performances were studied in 33 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and 33 age-, sex-, and education-matched normal comparison subjects; the OCD patients were divided into four subgroups on the basis of their symptomatology. Neither the two groups of subjects nor the four OCD subgroups differed on any of the WCST neuropsychological indices. No relationship was demonstrated between test performance and clinical-epidemiological characteristics of the OCD patients. All of the OCD patients were being treated with fluvoxamine maleate, which improves OCD symptoms and could also improve WCST performances. Nevertheless, no remarkable differences in the WCST indices were observed in patients treated with fluvoxamine when compared with patients who had not received a specific therapy for at least 3 weeks. Since the WCST is widely considered sensitive to dysfunction of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, our results do not support the involvement of that brain region in OCD.

Anti-Anxiety Agents↗
PubMed1995

Frontal lobe dysfunction in schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder: a neuropsychological study.

Converging evidence suggests there is a specific role of dorso-lateral-prefrontal cortex (DLPC) in schizophrenic disorders and of orbito-frontal cortex (OFC) in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Here, 25 schizophrenic and 25 OCD patients were evaluated with Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Object Alternation Test; neuropsychological tools sensitive to DLPC and OFC damage, respectively; and compared with 25 subjects of a control group. Moreover, they all underwent Weigl's Sorting Test and the Word Fluency Test to assess global frontal functioning. The results indicated a DLPC deficit in schizophrenia and an OFC involvement in OCD. These data suggest that functional disorders of the central nervous system can be explored with neuropsychological instruments.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Notes on the use of fluvoxamine as treatment of depression in HIV-1-infected subjects.

Fluvoxamine belongs to the class of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) which have recently gained large popularity as antidepressant agents essentially because they lack the most troublesome adverse effects of older antidepressants (i.e. tricyclic antidepressants) such as anticholinergic effects and cardiotoxicity. Recent studies in the literature suggest that HIV-1 infected subjects are affected by depressive episodes with a relatively high frequency, often requiring an antidepressant treatment. Due to its favorable adverse effects profile, we used fluvoxamine as first line treatment for sixteen depressed HIV-1 infected subjects. They were administered the drug at a daily dosage of 100 mg in the evening. Fluvoxamine provided a good clinical efficacy for six of these patients, whereas the other ten had to discontinue the drug because of the presence of severe adverse effects such as acute total insomnia, gastro-intestinal disturbances together with anorexia, aggressive and impulsive behavior and excessive sedation. The observed fluvoxamine side-effects are not typical or specific for this particular patient group since they are also described in seronegative subjects taking fluvoxamine; however, our findings seem to indicate that they become more frequent and more severe when the drug is administered to HIV-1 infected patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

[18F]FDG PET study in obsessive-compulsive disorder. A clinical/metabolic correlation study after treatment.

BACKGROUND: We used [18F]FDG and PET in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) to evaluate cerebral metabolic involvement before and after treatment with serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitors. METHOD: In 11 untreated, drug-free adults, regional cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (rCMRglu) was compared with that of 15 age-matched normal controls. RESULTS: rCMRglu values were significantly increased in the cingulate cortex, thalamus and pallidum/putamen complex. After treatment a significant improvement in obsessive-compulsive symptoms on the Y-BOC scale (t = 3.59, P < 0.01) was associated with a significant bilateral decrease of metabolism in the whole cingulate cortex (P < 0.001). Clinical and metabolic data were significantly intercorrelated (Kendall's tau = 0.65; P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that OCD is associated with functional hyperactivity of a selected neuronal network and that treatment to reduce symptoms may have a selective neuromodulatory effect on cingulate cortex.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Anatomical characteristics of the corpus callosum and clinical correlates in schizophrenia.

Nineteen DSM-III-R schizophrenic patients and 15 normal subjects, matched for sex and age, were evaluated according to their clinical and corpus callosum structural characteristics. They were evaluated on their size of callosum by means of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Neither diagnosis nor sex significantly affects corpus callosum indices. Statistical analysis evidentiates a relationship between DSM-III-R axis-V scores and corpus callosum length in schizophrenics, and between age at onset of the illness and corpus callosum length in schizophrenics.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

An assessment of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test as an indicator of liability to schizophrenia.

In order to test the hypothesis that a poor performance in the Wisconsin test (WCST) may be an indicator of liability to schizophrenia, we compared the WCST performances of patients with DSM III-R schizophrenia, normal controls, and patients with schizotypal personality disorder (SZT PD). While schizophrenic patients performed significantly worse than subjects in the other two groups, schizotypal and normal subjects showed no significant differences in the WCST execution. Moreover, patients with SZT PD with or without positive family history for the schizophrenic spectrum had similar WCST performances. Our observations are in keeping with other studies employing the WCST in paradigms of heightened liability to schizophrenia, and suggest that a poor performance in the test is more probably a feature of the disease process, than a trait marker of vulnerability to the illness demonstrable in high-risk subjects.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test performance in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEMs), voluntary saccadic eye movements (VSEMs), and neuropsychological test (Touluse-Pieron Test and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) performance were studied in 23 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder and 27 age-matched normal control subjects. The patients performed more poorly than the control subjects on the SPEM and, to a lesser degree, VSEM measures. They also showed impairment on some aspects of the neuropsychological tests. No relationship was found between eye movement performance and neuropsychological impairment.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Memory and attention dysfunctions in story recall in schizophrenia: evidence of a possible frontal malfunctioning.

Story recall deficits in schizophrenia have been related to some deficit in interhemispheric transfer of information, suggestive of a collosal pathology or, alternatively, to malfunctioning in attention and mnesic systems. The present investigation, performed on 61 DSM-IIIR schizophrenic inpatients and 40 age-and education-matched, normal controls demonstrates that story recall deficit is dependent on the length and complexity of the stories. This finding might implicate a critical role for the attention and mnesic functions in determining story recall performances. Both functions have an anatomo-functional substrate in neural circuits involving the frontal lobe, which also plays a critical role in determining the level of the conceptualization and abstraction capacities.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Size of the corpus callosum and auditory comprehension in schizophrenics and normal controls.

19 schizophrenic patients and 15 normal controls, matched for sex and age, were evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging for corpus callosal size and had neuropsychological functioning assessed using an auditory comprehension test. Although the MRI data did not reveal any significant differences between groups, the degree of laterality to the left versus right ear response was significantly correlated with the size of the posterior part of the corpus callosum in male schizophrenics.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test discriminates schizophrenic patients and their siblings.

The following report is an evaluation of the performances of 35 schizophrenic patients and 35 of their siblings on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), a neuropsychological test considered sensitive to frontal lobe functioning. Thirty five normal subjects matched for age and education were the comparison group. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of the neurofunctional basis for schizophrenia to its familiar occurrence. Non-schizophrenic siblings of schizophrenic patients did not perform significantly different from normal subjects on the WCST; however, schizophrenic patients performed significantly worse than both their siblings and normal subjects. These results indicate that WCST dysfunction seems to be a characteristic related to the presence of the disease and that non-genetic factors could contribute to the WCST pathological profile.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Caudate nucleus abnormalities in obsessive-compulsive disorder: measurements of MRI signal intensity.

A previous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study from our group reported increased size of the right caudate nucleus in obsessive-compulsive patients compared with control subjects. To test the hypothesis of a structural abnormality underlying such volume alteration, MRI signal intensity (SI), as an index of T1 relaxation values, was measured in the caudate nucleus of the same sampling data. Results showed higher SI values in the left caudate nucleus compared with the right in the patient group, whereas no asymmetry was found in the control group.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Memory functions and temporal-limbic morphology in schizophrenia.

Several psychopathological and morphological studies support the hypothesis of temporal-limbic involvement in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. In the present study, magnetic resonance imaging was used to evaluate the areas of the temporal lobes and related structures in 18 schizophrenic patients and 18 normal control subjects who were homogeneous for sex and age. The Wechsler Memory Scale was used to assess the memory functions of all subjects. Although the MRI data did not reveal any significant differences between the two groups, the Wechsler Memory Scale indices of memory functions showed significant differences between the schizophrenic patients and the control subjects.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Smooth pursuit eye movements and saccadic eye movements in patients with delusional disorder.

OBJECTIVE: This study used eye movement tests to examine whether frontal lobe dysfunction is present in delusional disorder. METHOD: Smooth pursuit and voluntary saccadic eye movements of 15 delusional patients, 40 schizophrenic patients, and 40 normal subjects were recorded and analyzed statistically. RESULTS: The schizophrenic patients differed significantly from the normal subjects in some smooth pursuit eye movement characteristics, whereas both the schizophrenic and the delusional patients showed more saccades than the normal subjects during the smooth pursuit test. The delusional patients and normal subjects differed significantly in some voluntary saccadic eye movement characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: The data support the idea of a biological dysfunction in eye tracking in delusional disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

EEG power modifications in panic disorder during a temporolimbic activation task: relationships with temporal lobe clinical symptomatology.

Computerized EEG activity derived from the temporal lobes was investigated in normal subjects and panic disorder patients with and without depersonalization and/or derealization, in a resting condition and during an odor stimulation task. Panic patients without depersonalization or derealization showed an increase of fast and a decrease of slow activities independent of odor stimulation. Panic patients with depersonalization and/or derealization showed an increase of slow activity and bilateral lack of responsiveness in the fast alpha frequency band during odor stimulation. Findings suggest there are different EEG patterns in the temporal regions of the two different groups of panic patients during rest and activating conditions.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Factor analysis and computerized EEG: preliminary data on schizophrenic patients.

Factor Analysis can extract salient features from EEG data and reduce redundancy of multi-channel computerized EEG data. A 16-channel computerized frequency analysis of background brain electrical activity during 3 functional conditions (eyes closed, eyes open and hyperventilation) was carried out in two groups, fifty healthy subjects and twenty-three schizophrenics. The power log-transformed relative values of normal subjects and schizophrenic patients were submitted to Factor Analysis and the resulting factor scores were compared. Schizophrenics showed EEG abnormalities in delta 2, theta 1 and alpha 2 bands for the first factor, accounting for the eyes closed condition, and in theta 2 and beta 2 bands for the second factor, accounting for the eyes open condition. This preliminary study demonstrates the utility of Factor Analysis in managing and comparing computerized EEG data.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Smooth pursuit eye movements and neuropsychological tests in schizophrenic patients: possible involvement of attentional components.

The relationships among different components of frontal lobe dysfunction and voluntary attention were studied. Drug-free schizophrenic patients and matched normal controls were recruited and assessed for smooth pursuit eye movements, voluntary saccadic eye movements and by means of neuropsychological tests (Toluse-Pieron test and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test). No clear-cut relationship was found between eye movement performance and neuropsychological impairment.

Adult↗