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Biomedical subjects

T G Bolwig

Publications and source records attributed to T G Bolwig.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

[Electric stimulation (ECT) in Parkinson disease].

A case report and a review of the literature concerning electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in the treatment of Parkinson's disease with special reference to the therapy of "on-off" phenomena is given. The first report of positive effect appeared in 1959 and, with a single exception, all published articles on this topic point to a positive outcome of ECT. There seems to be a specific anti-Parkinsonian effect alongside the well-known effect on various psychotic conditions. ECT thus must be considered a valuable intervention when drug therapy is insufficient, when prolonged medication leads to decreased efficacy, or when patients develop neuro-psychiatric manifestations. A short review of the pathophysiological mechanisms which may underly the effect of ECT in Parkinson's disease is given.

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Kidney functioning during lithium treatment: a prospective study of patients treated with lithium for up to ten years.

A cohort of 53 patients with affective disorders who originally carried through renal functional tests before start of prophylactic lithium treatment were followed up prospectively after an average period of 8.5 years (range 7-10 years). Ten patients who had continued lithium treatment were re-examined. In this subgroup, the glomerular function was unaffected by the treatment, whereas the average urine volume increased during lithium treatment (NS). Polyuria and low renal concentrating abilities were also found before start of treatment and these findings underline the importance of access to renal baseline information prior to lithium treatment.

Adult

Hippocampal kindling in the rat is associated with time-dependent increases in the concentration of glial fibrillary acidic protein.

The effect of hippocampal kindling on the regional brain concentration of total glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), a marker of reactive astrocytes, was studied in partially kindled rats, and in fully kindled rats after a post-kindling period of 24 h, 1 week, and 2 months. GFAP concentration was measured in arbitrary units by dot-blots. In the hippocampus, dentate gyrus, basolateral amygdala, pyriform cortex, and entorhinal cortex, limbic structures which are known to be involved in the kindling process, there was an increase in GFAP concentration which was maximal in the fully kindled animals studied after 24 h. In most brain areas, GFAP concentration was still elevated 1 week post-kindling, but had declined to control level 2 months post-kindling. A significant increase in GFAP was also found in septum, ventral pallidum/accumbens nucleus, and primary motor cortex of kindled rats with a post-kindling period of 24 h, whereas in several other brain regions GFAP was unchanged. These results suggest that astrocyte activation, indicative of degenerative changes in nearby neurons, is a transient and regional phenomenon in kindling occurring only during the development of the kindled state.

Animals

Lithium: long-term effects on the kidney. A prospective follow-up study ten years after kidney biopsy.

Forty-six patients with recurrent affective disorders, who began prophylactic treatment with lithium an average of 20 years previously, were followed up prospectively after a ten-year observation period to assess renal function. Nineteen patients had maintained lithium therapy, and eight patients had died. Tubular function was almost unchanged and patients who had continued lithium had not shown increasing urine volumes, but patients who had received lithium in a single daily dosage at night had a significantly lower urinary output than those on a multiple-dosage schedule. The GFR decreased significantly, but the decline was essentially dependent on increasing age, except in two patients who had developed renal insufficiency. Renal function during chronic lithium treatment is related to age, lithium intoxication episodes, pre-existing renal disease, and treatment schedule rather than to duration of prophylactic lithium therapy.

Adult

Intermittent versus continuous neuroleptic treatment in a rat model.

The treatment schedule for neuroleptic therapy is of relevance when evaluating the development of side-effects. Seventy-five rats were treated discontinuously or continuously with the predominantly dopamine D2 receptor blocker haloperidol or the combined dopamine D1/D2 receptor blocker zuclopenthixol for 15 weeks. During and after treatment, a broad spectrum of behavioural parameters including vacuous chewing movements and tongue protrusions were observed. Discontinuous neuroleptic treatment as opposed to continuous neuroleptic treatment produced a significant long-lasting increase in oral activity. The changes were most pronounced in haloperidol-treated rats. The differences observed may have methodological implications for animal models of neuroleptic-induced movement disorders. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that pharmacological sensitization to the dyskinetic side-effects of neuroleptics develops when the drug effect is allowed to wear off between repeated administrations.

Animals

Hippocampal kindling alters the concentration of glial fibrillary acidic protein and other marker proteins in rat brain.

The effect of hippocampal kindling on neuronal and glial marker proteins was studied in the rat by immunochemical methods. In hippocampus, pyriform cortex and amygdala there was an increase in glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), indicating reactive gliosis, and an increase in the glycolytic enzyme NSE, suggesting increased anaerobic metabolism. Neuronal cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) decreased in pyriform cortex and amygdala of kindled rats, indicating neuronal degeneration.

Animals

Grafts of fetal locus coeruleus neurons in rat amygdala-piriform cortex suppress seizure development in hippocampal kindling.

Hippocampal kindling was investigated in rats with a 6-hydroxydopamine-induced lesion of the forebrain catecholamine system after implantation of neural tissue from the fetal locus coeruleus region either bilaterally into the amygdala-piriform cortex (i.e., distant to the kindling site) or unilaterally into the hippocampus (close to the kindling site). Lesioned animals with either sham grafts or control grafts consisting of fetal striatal tissue showed a kindling rate much faster than that of normal controls. In contrast, in rats with bilateral locus coeruleus grafts in the amygdala-piriform cortex (implanted at three sites) the development of seizures was similar to that of controls and significantly slower than that in lesioned animals with sham grafts. All these animals had bilateral surviving grafts with a mean of 125 noradrenergic cells per implantation site. In the animals with locus coeruleus grafts in the stimulated hippocampus the kindling rate did not differ from that in the lesioned animals with control grafts. Most of these animals had large surviving grafts and showed a dense noradrenergic reinnervation of the implanted hippocampus. The present findings indicate that grafting of fetal pontine tissue (rich in noradrenergic neurons) to a site distant to the stimulation focus, but important for the generalization and spread of seizures, can retard the development of seizures in hippocampal kindling. Together with the data of our previous report this study also indicates that noradrenergic reinnervation of both hippocampi is important for the seizure-suppressant action in hippocampal kindling of locus coeruleus grafts implanted in the hippocampus.

Amygdala

Long-term effects of lithium on the kidney: functional-morphological correlations.

Correlations between quantitative kidney biopsy findings and clinical renal function in 46 unselected patients treated with lithium for an average of eight years were studied. A significant relationship between maximum renal concentrating capacity and degree of tubular atrophy was found. GFR correlated significantly with sclerotic glomeruli as well as atrophic tubules in patients on a multiple dosage schedule, whereas no relationship was seen in patients receiving lithium in a single daily dose. Thus, renal dysfunction may have a structural basis in a subgroup of lithium-treated patients on a multiple dosage schedule.

Adult

Personality characteristics and epilepsy.

Patients with a long history of temporal lobe epilepsy or primary generalized epilepsy entered a questionnaire study of personality characteristics, based on a modification of the Bear-Fedio inventory for temporal lobe behavioural syndrome. Psoriasis patients and healthy volunteers served as controls. Four clinical meaningful dimensions of included personality traits were identified: ixoide, ideational, obsessive-compulsive and affective features. Analyses based on the Rasch model approved of all dimensions except for affective features. The epilepsy group obtained the highest scores on all 3 dimensions, healthy volunteers the lowest, while the psoriasis group repeatedly held an intermediate position in all sets of assessment (subjects, interviewers and relatives). A logistic regression analysis showed ixoide features being most important when the entire epilepsy group was compared with other study groups, while the dimension ideational features was significant when the temporal lobe epilepsy group was entered as target group and opposed to primary generalized epilepsy. The intermediate position of the psoriasis group, however, suggests that in addition to the presence of a cerebral dysfunction in the epilepsy group, the mere presence of a chronic disorder with potential social stigmatization influences personality.

Adult

Local cerebral glucose consumption during ethanol withdrawal in the rat: effects of single and multiple episodes and previous convulsive seizures.

Local cerebral glucose consumption (l-CMRgl) was studied using [14C]2-deoxyglucose autoradiography in minimally restrained rats during acute (12 or 18 h postwithdrawal (p.w.] and late (14 days p.w.) ethanol withdrawal, as well after 10 previous, weekly withdrawal episodes as after a similar period of isocalorical feeding. A period of two days of intoxication was established by gastric intubation. Spontaneous incomplete convulsive seizures were observed during the 8th to 10th withdrawal episode. Audiogenic seizures occurred following stimulation during the 6th and 10th withdrawal episode. Animals with previous spontaneous or audiogenic seizure were distributed randomly and evenly among the groups. l-CMRgl values were adjusted to a temperature of 38 degrees C. During acute withdrawal, l-CMRgl was significantly reduced by 18-32% in cortical and most limbic regions, but unchanged in cerebellum and subcortical structures as compared with the neutral state (late withdrawal and control groups). l-CMRgl was relatively more lowered in the amygdala in animals with previous spontaneous withdrawal seizures and in structures belonging to the auditory system in animals with previous audiogenic seizures. l-CMRgl did not differ among neutral groups. The lowered l-CMRgl in cortical and limbic regions during withdrawal contrasts to the results of previous studies. This difference may be attributed to the minimal restraint of animals in this study. The pattern of l-CMRgl in acute and late withdrawal animals with previous spontaneous withdrawal seizures is consistent with a mechanism comparable to electrical amygdala kindling contributing to seizure genesis.

Animals

Ego functions in epilepsy.

Two groups of epilepsy patients (28 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and 15 patients with primary generalized epilepsy) entered a study of personality traits related to epilepsy, based on a modification of Bellak's semistructured interview for assessment of ego strength. Two groups of subjects served as controls: 15 patients with a non-neurological but relapsing disorder, psoriasis, and 15 healthy volunteers. Compared with the group of healthy volunteers, a decreased adaptive level of ego functioning was found in the epilepsy groups, regardless of seizure types and EEG findings, and, to a lesser extent, compared with the psoriasis group. Areas of ego functioning most affected were "reality testing", "cognitive functioning", "integrative functioning" and "regulation and control of drives". Patients with more than one type of seizure were the most affected, as were patients who were younger than 15 years when the disease began. The number of anticonvulsants administered did not influence the results. No difference on adaptive level of ego functioning was found between the group with primary generalized epilepsy and the group with temporal lobe epilepsy. Similarly, the temporal lobe epilepsy group with predominantly right-sided and left-sided EEG changes, respectively, showed similar adaptive levels of ego functioning.

Adult

Blood-brain barrier studies with special reference to epileptic seizures.

A review is given of the structure and function of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) with special reference to the situation during and after epileptic seizures including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Based on the literature describing different models of epilepsy the development of the theories concerning the early observations of a BBB dysfunction in connection with seizure activity is given, and gross morphology, ultrastructural and dynamic findings are briefly reviewed.

Animals

Cerebral blood flow during delirium tremens and related clinical states studied with xenon-133 inhalation tomography.

The regional cerebral blood flow of 12 patients with severe alcohol withdrawal reactions (delirium tremens or impending delirium tremens) was measured during the acute state before treatment and after recovery. Greater cerebral blood flow was significantly correlated with visual hallucinations and agitation during the acute withdrawal reaction. The results suggest that delirium tremens and related clinical states represent a type of acute brain syndrome mainly characterized by CNS hyperexcitability.

Adult