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T Benke

Publications and source records attributed to T Benke.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

Asymmetric termination of secondarily generalized tonic-clonic seizures in temporal lobe epilepsy.

In patients with secondarily generalized tonic-clonic seizures (sGTCS) an asymmetric termination of the clonic phase can be observed. The authors systematically analyzed this phenomenon in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Thirty-nine sGTCS from 29 patients with TLE who underwent successful epilepsy surgery were analyzed, in addition to a prospectively collected group of 28 patients with TLE who had 35 sGTCS. The clonic phase of sGTCS did not end synchronously in 65.7% of all patients and in 59.4% of all seizures. In 79.3% to 80% this was ipsilateral to the hemisphere of seizure onset, and there was excellent interobserver agreement.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Palilalia and repetitive speech: two case studies.

Palilalia, a disorder of speech characterized by compulsive repetitions of utterances has been found in various neurological and psychiatric disorders. It has commonly been interpreted as a defect of motor speech. This article describes palilalia and other variants of verbal repetitive behavior, such as monosyllabic iterations and conduite d'approche. The clinical features of palilalia, its prevalence in different language tasks, and the individual patterns of verbal repetitive behavior are illustrated in two patients with a long-standing cerebrovascular disease. An attempt is made to locate the origin of different forms of verbal repetitions in a standard model of speech production (Butterworth, 1980a; Garrett, 1980; Levelt, 1989) by analysis of their morphology and correlation with impairments of lexical or phonological processes. From these observations it is suggested that palilalia results from control malfunctions at the level of the Articulator, whereas other variants of pathological verbal iterations result from an impairment of the Formulator or from malfunctions of both the Articulator and the Formulator.

Aged↗
PubMed2001

Riluzole in Huntington's disease (HD): an open label study with one year follow up.

In an open label study, we administered riluzole (50 mg twice a day) to nine patients with genetically confirmed Huntington's disease (HD) (clinical stages 1-3; mean age 46.4 (SD 9.3) years; mean disease duration 8 (SD 3.3) years). The study was designed to evaluate (1) safety and tolerability of riluzole and (2) effects of riluzole on motor impairment, functional disability, cognitive impairment, and behavioral abnormalities using the Unified HD Rating Scale. Patients were evaluated at baseline and after three and twelve months of riluzole therapy. Laboratory tests (hematology and liver enzymes) were repeated monthly. All adverse experiences, reported spontaneously or observed directly by the investigator, were recorded. Riluzole was well tolerated. No increase of serum liver enzymes was seen throughout the study in all but one patient showing a mild elevation. At three months, mean total motor scale (TMS), mean TMS chorea subscore, and mean total functional capacity scale were significantly improved compared with baseline. At twelve months, however, this beneficial effect on motor status and overall function was not sustained. In contrast, severity and frequency of behavioral dysfunction as well as psychomotor speed assessed by the symbol digit modalities test were improved compared with baseline. Our data suggest that there are transient antichoreatic effects and more sustained effects of riluzole on psychomotor speed and behavior in patients with HD. A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial appears highly warranted to establish definitely the symptomatic versus neuroprotective actions of riluzole in HD.

Administration, Oral↗
PubMed2000

Repetitive speech phenomena in Parkinson's disease.

OBJECTIVES: Repetitive speech phenomena are morphologically heterogeneous iterations of speech which have been described in several neurological disorders such as vascular dementia, progressive supranuclear palsy, Wilson's disease, and Parkinson's disease, and which are presently only poorly understood. The present, prospective study investigated repetitive speech phenomena in Parkinson's disease to describe their morphology, assess their prevalence, and to establish their relation with neuropsychological and clinical background data. METHODS: Twenty four patients with advanced Parkinson's disease and 29 subjects with mid-stage, stable idiopathic disease were screened for appearance, forms, and frequency of repetitive speech phenomena, and underwent a neuropsychological screening procedure comprising tests of general mental functioning, divergent thinking and memory. Patients with advanced Parkinson's disease had a significantly higher disease impairment, longer disease duration, and an unstable motor response to levodopa with frequent on-off fluctuations. Both groups were well matched as to their demographical, clinical, and cognitive background. Perceptual speech evaluation was used to count and differentiate forms of repetitive speech phenomena in different speech tasks. To compare the effect of the motor state, the appearance of repetitive speech phenomena was also assessed in a subgroup of patients with advanced Parkinson's disease during the on versus the off state. RESULTS: Speech repetitions emerged mainly in two variants, one hyperfluent, formally resembling palilalia, and one dysfluent, stuttering-like. Both forms were present in each patient producing repetitive speech phenomena. The repetitive speech phenomena appeared in 15 patients (28.3 %), 13 of whom belonged to the advanced disease group, indicating a significant preponderance of repetitive speech phenomena in patients with a long term, fluctuating disease course. Repetitive speech phenomena appeared with almost equal frequency during the on and the off state of patients with advanced Parkinson's disease. Their distribution among different variants of speech was disproportional, with effort demanding speech tasks producing a significantly higher number of repetitive speech phenomena over semiautomatic forms of speech. CONCLUSIONS: In idiopathic Parkinson's disease repetitive speech phenomena seem to emerge predominantly in a subgroup of patients with advanced disease impairment; manifest dementia is not a necessary prerequisite. They seem to represent a deficit of motor speech control; however, linguistic factors may also contribute to their generation. It is suggested that repetitions of speech in Parkinson's disease represent a distinctive speech disorder, which is caused by changes related to the progression of Parkinson's disease.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Arithmetic reasoning and implicit memory: a neuropsychological study on amnesia.

The present study investigates implicit memory and arithmetic reasoning in a group of severely amnesic patients. Priming effects have been observed in the retrieval of arithmetic facts in amnesic patients (Delazer, Ewen and Benke, 1997), but no studies have so far investigated the effect of previous experience in a pure reasoning task. Findings indicate that answering to a first numerical series (e.g, 1 3 5 7, answer "9") facilitates answering to a second numerical series (2 4 6 8, answer "10") including different numbers but sharing the same underlying algorithm (+ 2). Within the model of Langdon and Warrington (1997) priming effects are attributed to the stage of abstract formula generation.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Neuropsychological, MRI and EEG findings after very mild traumatic brain injury.

Neuropsychological performance, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) were investigated in 12 consecutive patients with very mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) (Glasgow coma score 15) within 24 hours and 6 weeks after injury. The data were compared to 14 control subjects. There was a significant impairment in neuropsychological performance (verbal memory, arithmetic abilities and psychomotor reaction time) at onset and after 6 weeks, whereas verbal fluency and non-verbal memory test revealed no significant differences matching the control values. In MRI scans, three patients showed traumatic lesions (slight epidural haematoma, haemorrhagic contusions and white matter lesions indicating diffuse axonal injury). In the EEG recordings, no generalized slowing or focal changes were found. Structural and functional impairment can be identified using neuroimaging and neuropsychological examination, even in very MTBI patients.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

A study of emotional processing in Parkinson's disease.

This study investigated three aspects of processing materials with emotional content in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD): the ability to produce affective prosody, to discriminate affectively loaded speech, and to detect the surprise element in humorous sketches. Study aims were the characterization of an emotional processing deficit, and to test whether impaired emotional processing is mental state dependent. Forty-eight nondemented PD patients were divided according to neuropsychological criteria into a sample with intact mental functions and a sample with mild to moderate cognitive deterioration, particularly memory impairment. PD patients with intact cognitive functions were solely impaired at producing affectively loaded sentences, but otherwise displayed normal emotional processing abilities as compared to a clinical control group. PD patients with mental impairment were significantly disabled on all three tasks. The observed emo tional processing deficit was not related to variables like age, disease duration, de gree of functional impairment, motor disability or depression. Active and receptive emotional prosody were significantly correlated. Further strong positive correlations were found between the ability to disclose pictorial humour and tasks of visuoconceptual knowledge, as well as between the ability to produce affectively loaded speech and years of schooling. These results were interpreted as indicating that not only the production of emotional prosody, but also its recognition and the discovery of pictorial humour are reduced in a subgroup of PD patients with mental impairment. Impaired emotional processing skills are mental state dependent findings in PD which seem to be independent from demographic or disease variables and may indicate beginning dementia.

Affect↗
PubMed1997

Arithmetic facts without meaning.

The paper presents a single-case study of patient J.G. showing severe calculation problems (and also agraphia, finger agnosia, right-left disorientation and apraxia) after the surgery of a left parietal tumor. Although the patient completely lost conceptual knowledge of arithmetic, she preserved part of memorised fact knowledge (multiplications and some additions and subtractions). The study indicates that arithmetic facts can be represented at a superficial level without understanding of the operation performed. The study completes a valid double dissociation between two types of knowledge involved in calculation (memorised facts and conceptual knowledge).

Brain Neoplasms↗
PubMed1997

Priming arithmetic facts in amnesic patients.

In this study, amnesic patients showed significant repetition priming effects in arithmetic fact retrieval tasks. The results indicate that repetition priming effects in arithmetic depend not on explicit recognition, but on the activation of specific long-term representations of arithmetic facts. Processing dissociations between easy and difficult items suggest that the priming effects results from the stage of fact retrieval and not from peripheral activation. This claim is also supported by encoding and naming tasks, which showed only slight priming effects as compared to the priming found in calculation tasks. Significant priming was found for identical (5 x 6 and 5 x 6) and complement problems (5 x 6 and 6 x 5), the latter showing a smaller magnitude of priming.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Aura phenomena during syncope.

We studied the frequency and clinical characteristics of aura phenomena in 60 patients with cardiac and 40 subjects with vasovagal syncopes. The majority (93%) of all syncope patients recalled having experienced an aura. Aura phenomena were similar in both groups and were mostly compound auras comprising epigastric, vertiginous, visual, or somatosensory experiences, but were more detailed in the noncardiac group. The localizing significance of auras preceding a syncope was generally poor. Although hard to distinguish from epileptic auras from their structure and shape, syncope-related auras lacked symptoms that are commonly reported after epileptic seizures such as tastes, smells, déjà vu phenomena, scenic visual perceptions, and speech impairments. A detailed anamnestic exploration of auras seems worthwhile in unexplained disorders of consciousness.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Impaired arithmetic facts but intact conceptual knowledge--a single-case study of dyscalculia.

We present the case of a young, highly educated patient who showed severe problems in basic arithmetic after a bone marrow transplant followed by extensive irradiation and chemotherapy. Despite his inability to resolve arithmetical fact problems (as 2 + 3), he showed intact processing of algebraic expressions and excellent understanding of complex arithmetic text problems. He perfectly knew arithmetic principles and applied them in various tasks. The performance of the patient suggests that conceptual knowledge (in addition to arithmetical fact knowledge and arithmetic procedures) is a functionally independent component of the calculation system.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Lyme encephalopathy: long-term neuropsychological deficits years after acute neuroborreliosis.

We studied long-term cognitive deficits in 20 patients with previously diagnosed Lyme borreliosis several years (average 51.6 months) after their acute phase of illness. Compared with an age- and education matched control group Lyme patients revealed deficits of verbal memory, mental flexibility, verbal associative functions and articulation, but performed adequately on tests of intellectual and problem solving skills, sustained attention, visuoconstructive abilities and mental speed. The late cognitive outcome was unrelated to disease variables from the acute stage of illness, but also to the interval elapsed since infection with B. burgdorferi. These and similar observations (Krupp et al. 1991) suggest that the so-called Lyme encephalopathy may be associated with a long-lasting neuropsychological deficit predominantly affecting mnestic functions.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1994

Hemispheric disconnection in Marchiafava-Bignami disease: clinical, neuropsychological and MRI findings.

We report a single-case study of a patient suffering from Marchiafava-Bignami disease (MBD), a rarely intra vitam diagnosed syndrome with focal demyelination in the corpus callosum, which is usually found in patients with chronic alcohol abuse. Our study explored a variety of motor, sensory and visual functions. Striking features were left apraxia caused by two lesions in the rostral area, and left hemidyslexia related to a large splenial lesion demonstrated by MRI. As symptoms of disconnection may remain undetected clinically, MRI is a most useful tool for the diagnosis of MBD.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Two forms of apraxia in Alzheimer's disease.

Apraxia was tested in 12 DAT patients with mild to moderate dementia using two assessment procedures: conceptual tasks requiring object use and pantomime knowledge, and tasks based on the imitation of meaningless oral and hand movements. Both object use and pantomime performance were markedly impaired in the DAT group; imitation of hand postures, hand movements and multiple oral movements was also defective while single oral movements could be well imitated. Error analysis revealed several underlying deficits: on conceptual tasks, deficits in object and action knowledge and poor action planning were frequent, whereas impaired recall and coordination of spatial and temporal movement features were found on imitation tasks. A correlation analysis between both types of apraxia showed low and nonsignificant results. These and previous observations suggest that motor control is organized by two functionally separate systems: a conceptual system for purposeful and symbolic motor acts, and a system controlling sensorimotor and spatiotemporal movement features. Both systems may be subject to early damage in Alzheimer's disease.

Aged↗
PubMed1993

[Clinical and experimental use of Cogimir].

This paper introduces 3 applications of a computer-based methodology for the assessment of cognitive abilities which has been developed during the Cogimir space project: an experimental study comparing gender-related lexical decision abilities, an investigation of hemisphere-specific reading in a subject with a partial split-brain syndrome, and a follow-up study measuring the effect of rehabilitation in a patient with frontal brain damage. Computerized tasks have several advantages over conventional neurobehavioral measurement procedures, among them exact stimulus and response control, the ability to generate numerous alternate forms, and the capability of a subject and level-oriented approach. In addition to their broad experimental application they can easily be adapted for the diagnosis and treatment of patients suffering from cognitive deficits.

Adult↗