PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

A Asbjørnsen

Publications and source records attributed to A Asbjørnsen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Neuropsychological test profiles in schizophrenia and non-psychotic depression.

OBJECTIVE: The study examined to what degree schizophrenia is characterized by a neuropsychological (NP) test profile specific in shape and level compared with depression and normal functioning. METHOD: Fifty-three patients with schizophrenia, 45 with non-psychotic depression, and 50 normals were assessed with a comprehensive NP test battery and clinical instruments. NP test scores were factor analyzed into seven composite scores. RESULTS: Schizophrenia patients performed significantly below normals across all seven composite scores, whereas depression patients were impaired in two. Verbal memory was most impaired. Sixty-two percent of schizophrenia patients were moderately or severely impaired, the corresponding figure for depression was 28%. Impairment was moderately associated with IQ level and clinical symptom load in schizophrenia, but not in depression. CONCLUSION: Schizophrenia is characterized by deficits across a wide range of NP functions. Thirty-eight percent of the patients are within normal limits. A mild and limited NP disturbance is apparent in depression.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

General psychopathology is more important for executive functioning than diagnosis.

OBJECTIVE: Impaired executive functioning (EF) has often been reported in patients with major depression or schizophrenia. We hypothesize that the variance in EF is more affected by level of general psychopathology than by diagnosis. METHOD: Forty-three patients with major depression and 47 with schizophrenia were included. EF was measured with Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Stroop Colour Word Test, Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test, Digits Backwards and Controlled Oral Word Association Test. The level of general psychopathology was measured with Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale - Expanded and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, the General psychopathology subscale. RESULTS: The level of general psychopathology predicted more of the variance in EF than diagnosis. In multivariate analyses, the effect of general psychopathology on EF was more robust for adjustment for diagnosis than vice versa. CONCLUSION: Future research on cognitive functioning in psychiatric patients should include level of general psychopathology to avoid overemphasising effects of diagnoses.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Cortisol level predicts executive and memory function in depression, symptom level predicts psychomotor speed.

OBJECTIVE: On a group level depression is related to hypercortisolism and to psychomotor retardation, executive dysfunction and memory impairment. However, intra-group heterogeneity is substantial. Why some are impaired while others remain in the normal range, is not clear. The present study aims at discerning the relative contribution of present symptom severity and hypercortisolism to impairment in the three domains of cognition. METHOD: Morning saliva cortisol was measured in 26 subjects with recurrent major depression prior to a neuropsychological examination with tests known to be sensitive to cognitive impairment in depression. RESULTS: Cortisol level correlated with executive dysfunction and post-encoding memory deficits, but not with processing speed. Depression level correlated with processing speed. These patterns remained significant after controlling for confounders through partial correlations. CONCLUSION: The association between cortisol and cognition is not an artifact of psychiatric symptom load. High level of saliva cortisol is associated with aspects of cognition that can be dissociated from psychomotor retardation, which is dependent on symptom load.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Attention profile in schizophrenia compared with depression: differential effects of processing speed, selective attention and vigilance.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study is to investigate whether subjects with schizophrenia and major depression display attention deficits for different reasons. METHOD: Subjects with schizophrenia (n = 53), recurrent major depression (n = 50) and normal controls (n = 50) were administered with 11 measures of processing speed, selective attention and vigilance. Indices of basal speed, speeded attention, non-speeded attention and vigilance were computed. RESULTS: Both clinical groups were impaired on all chronometric tests. The schizophrenic subjects were also more impaired on speeded attention compared with basal processing speed. Only the schizophrenics were impaired on the non-speeded measures of selective attention. Compared with the schizophrenics, the depressives showed a decrement in vigilance. CONCLUSION: Reduced performance on attention tests in major depression is because of a non-specific speed reduction and loss of vigilance consistent with lack of effort. In addition to generally impaired processing speed, the schizophrenic subjects exposed a deficit in selective attention, indicating executive dysfunction.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Honig's model of working memory and brain activation: an fMRI study.

The present study investigated changes in neuronal activation with fMRI related to Honig's model of working memory, which is much less studied compared with other working memory models. In contrast to other studies which have applied recognition procedures, the primary aim with the present study was to examine brain activation when subjects had to continuously recall and forget items held in working memory. The results showed that the mid-ventrolateral frontal cortex was particularly activated in the left hemisphere, whereas the mid-dorsolateral frontal cortex was particularly activated in the right hemisphere during execution of the working memory task. The findings are discussed in relation to process- and domain-specific accounts of working memory.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Brain asymmetry for language in dyslexic children.

Studies of brain asymmetry in dyslexia have yielded mixed results both with respect to patterns of asymmetry and their cognitive correlates. This paper assessed language lateralisation inferred from dichotic listening with forced attention in a clinical group of young dyslexic subjects. As a whole the dyslexic group showed a deviant asymmetry pattern compared to a control group. Subdivision into two subgroups by receptive language abilities yielded differential patterns within the dyslexia group. Both subgroups exhibited a weaker response pattern to right ear stimuli than the control group. In addition, the subgroup with no language impairment showed bilateral language representation, whereas the subgroup with impaired receptive language abilities showed reversed dominance patterns.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2000

Lasting auditory attention impairment after persistent middle ear infections: a dichotic listening study.

Dichotic listening performance was studied in children who at an early age had undergone a myringotomy with insertion of ventilating tubes for persistent middle ear infections (otitis media with effusion; OME) and compared with age-equivalent children who had no history of otitis media or hearing problems. The OME group consisted of 19 children with a median age of 9 years; 15 of whom were right-handed, and 14 were boys. The comparison sample comprised 18 children with a median age was 9 years 4 months. Hand preference and sex were matched with the OME group. Both groups were tested with dichotic listening to consonant-vowel syllables and additional forced-attention tasks. The comparison sample showed a weak right-ear advantage, and age-adequate attentional modulations. The children in the OME group showed a strong right-ear advantage, but were not able to modulate the ear advantage during directed-attention tasks. Models for interpreting the result are discussed.

Attention↗
PubMed2000

Executive functions in dyslexia.

This study focused on executive functions in dyslexia. A group of 43 heavily-affected young dyslexics, divided into two groups based on the results of a receptive language test, and 20 non-dyslexic controls, were tested with a Dichotic Listening Test, the Stroop Color Word Test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The dyslexic subjects demonstrated significant impairment on all tasks, but with different patterns of impairment according to the subgrouping. The subgroups were equally impaired on the Dichotic Listening Test, but differed on the Stroop and the Wisconsin Tests. The data support a hypothesis suggesting executive problems in dyslexia, depending on receptive language skills.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Lasting effects of otitis media with effusion on language skills and listening performance.

Otitis media with effusion (OME) and its related hearing loss has been associated with delayed language development, particularly if the disease is recurrent or of long duration. To find out more about the long-term effects of OME on language skills and listening performance we performed a retrospective study. A group of 19 otherwise healthy 9-year-old children with an earlier history of long lasting bilateral OME were compared with an age-matched control group of 19 children with no history of OME or hearing impairment and normal otoscopy, tympanometry and audiometry. The children in the OME group had an average of 1.4 treatments with ventilation tubes. Mean hearing levels for 500, 1,000 and 2,000 Hz in the OME group were 13 dB in the right ear and 11.3 dB in the left ear. All children were examined with the Illinois test of psycholinguistic abilities (ITPA), test for articulation, Boston naming test, dichotic listening tests with additional tasks of directed attention and tests for word and sound discrimination. In the OME group we found significant lower scores in the articulation test and small, but significant, lower scores in the test regarding sound discrimination. No significant differences on other language skills were detected in the ITPA test or Boston naming test. We found a significantly higher degree of right ear advantage and lower attentional effectiveness in the OME-group.

Attention↗
PubMed1995

Absence of ear advantage on the consonant-vowel dichotic listening test in adolescent and adult dyslexics: specific auditory-phonetic dysfunction.

The present study investigated auditory-phonetic processing in a group of adolescent and adult reading disabled subjects. Right- and left-handed dyslexic subjects were compared with an age, sex, and handedness matched control group. All subjects were studied with a consonant-vowel version of the dichotic listening task with repeated presentations of dichotically presented pairs of CV-syllables. Left and right ear correct scores were compared for ear advantage in each of the different subgroups of subjects. The main finding was the absence of an expected right-ear advantage (REA) in the right-handed dyslexic group as compared to the right-handed normal readers. Both the dyslexic and normal left-handed groups did not show a REA. The findings are discussed within a theoretical framework that focuses on a basic auditory-phonetic processing dysfunction in developmental dyslexia that persists into adulthood.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Hemispheric asymmetry effects in children studied by dichotic listening and visual half-field testing.

Dichotic listening (DL) and visual half-field (VHF) testing were used to study hemisphere asymmetry in a developmental perspective. Five-, 8-, and 11-year-old children were presented lists of fused words using a DL technique in Experiment 1, and 8- and 11-year-old children were presented pictures of common objects using a VHF technique in Experiment 2. In both experiments, measures of identification, free recall, and recognition of the words/pictures were employed. The results revealed effects of ear input (right-ear advantage) and half-field presentation (right visual half-field advantage) for all age groups, although the magnitude of this lateralization effect differed between the three memory measures. The results are discussed in relation to developmental aspects of language laterality, and in relation to the clinical utility of non-invasive lateralization techniques.

Child↗
PubMed1991

Auditory neglect after right frontal lobe and right pulvinar thalamic lesions.

Auditory unilateral neglect or extinction to simultaneous stimulation is reported in a right-handed male with a lesion in the right frontal lobe and in the right thalamic pulvinar area. The patient was submitted to stereotactic thalamotomy for a post-traumatic intentional ataxia in the left extremities. He was subjected to repeated tests with dichotic listening to consonant-vowel syllables under three different attentional instructions. He was also tested monaurally with the same stimulus materials as used in the dichotic test. The results showed almost complete extinction of the left ear input during dichotic presentations, despite normal hearing when tested with audiometer screening. The left ear extinction effect was independent of instructions to attend to the left or right ear input. However, during monaural presentation, correct left ear reports increased to about 85%. The results are interpreted as showing an auditory attentional neglect caused by the right frontal and pulvinar lesions.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Anticipatory nausea and vomiting in cancer patients.

The present study reports on a mediating mechanism for anticipatory nausea and vomiting (ANV) in cancer chemotherapy. ANV is usually explained as a classically conditioned response. However, conditioning models have failed to explain individual variation in ANV susceptibility. On the basis of the positive correlation between degree of autonomic reactivity (AR) and conditionability, it is proposed that individual AR is predictive of ANV development. Of the 31 patients who participated in the study, 74% experienced postinfusion nausea and vomiting (PNV). Of the 23 patients who experienced PNV, 52% developed ANV. AR was recorded in a habituation paradigm before chemotherapy treatment was initiated. The patients in the ANV group showed significantly increased sympathetic reactivity as compared with the no-ANV group, implying that AR is a mediator of ANV development.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Dichotic listening during forced-attention in a patient with left hemispherectomy.

A young left-handed girl with an extensive posttraumatic lesion in the left hemisphere was tested with dichotic listening (DL) under three different attentional instructions. The major aim of the study was to evaluate a structural vs attentional explanation for dichotic listening. As both her expressive and receptive language functions were intact after the lesion, it was assumed that the right hemisphere was the language-dominant one. In the free-report condition, she was free to divert attention to and to report from both ear inputs. In the forced-right condition, she was instructed to attend to and report only from the right ear input. In the forced-left condition, she was instructed to attend to and to report only from the left-ear input. Her performance was compared with data from a previously collected sample of normal left-handed females. Analysis showed that the patient, in contrast to the normal sample, revealed a complete right-ear extinction phenomenon, irrespective of attentional instruction. Furthermore, she showed superior correct reports from the left ear, compared with those of the normal sample, also irrespective of attentional instruction. It is concluded that these results support a structural, rather than attentional explanation for the right-ear advantage (REA) typically observed in dichotic listening. The utility of validating the dichotic listening technique on patients with brain lesions is discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

The role of the left and right thalamus in language asymmetry: dichotic listening in Parkinson patients undergoing stereotactic thalamotomy.

Fourteen patients with Parkinson's disease (rigidity and unilateral tremor as main symptoms) were treated with stereotactic thalamotomy. The operation was performed in either the left or right ventrolateral thalamus, depending on which hand (or foot) was most affected with tremor. Nine patients were operated on the left side and four on the right side. All patients were tested for asymmetry of language functioning with dichotic presentations of consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. The patients had to indicate which of the two syllables he/she heard on each trial. Dichotic listening was performed before and after the operation, as well as during electrical stimulation of the VL nucleus just before the lesion was carried out. The results revealed essentially three things: an overall reduced right ear advantage (REA) in the patient group compared to what is known from studies of healthy individuals; an increase in REA during left-sided stimulations; and a marked reduction in REA after left-sided lesions. It is concluded that the present data support the notion put forward by Ojemann (e.g., 1975) of a lateralized activating gating mechanism in the left VL nucleus that gates access for language information to the appropriate cortical areas. The gating mechanism seems to be activated by stimulation, and deactivated after lesions. Dichotic listening may thus be a heuristic instrument in assessment of language functions in Parkinson patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

The effects of head and eye turns on the right ear advantage in dichotic listening.

The aim of the present experiment was to investigate the effects of head and eye turns on the ear advantage in dichotic listening (DL) to CV-syllables. Since head and eye turns also mean focusing attention to either the left or right side in space, a second aim was to evaluate recent arguments that ear advantages seen in DL are caused by the perceived position in space of the sound source. Forty right-handed females had 36 trials of CV-syllables under four different instructions. One group (n = 20) was instructed to turn their head (but not their eyes) to the right, the left, or straight ahead during stimulus presentations. The fourth condition was a standard (no instruction) condition. A second group (n = 20) had the same instructions but were told to turn their eyes instead of their heads. Conditions were pseudo-counterbalanced across subjects. Consistent with other studies, results showed a right ear advantage (REA) in both groups during all conditions. However, the REA was largest for the standard condition. Also, more subjects showed a REA during the standard condition, and especially compared to the turn-right condition. It is concluded that dichotic performance is not caused by selective attention to either side in space, and that lateral turns of the head and the eyes contralateral to the left hemisphere have an inhibitory (if anything) effect on the REA.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Dichotic listening, forced attention, and brain asymmetry in righthanded and lefthanded children.

Righthanded and lefthanded 7-year-old children (both boys and girls) were compared for dichotic listening performance under free report and forced attention conditions. Previous findings from our laboratory have shown that, while adults reverse the right ear advantage (REA) during the forced-left condition, children do not. Since the finding in children was unexpected, the first aim of the present study was to replicate our previous results. A second aim was to include lefthanded children with the hypothesis that they should more easily revert to a LEA, because of less homogeneous lateralization. The results essentially replicated our previous findings, during all three recall conditions. No sex differences were observed, and both handedness groups showed the same overall response pattern.

Attention↗