Biomedical subjects

Angela L H Buffington

Publications and source records attributed to Angela L H Buffington.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

New brain networks are active after right MCA stroke when moving the ipsilesional arm.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether, like the paretic arm, movement of the ipsilesional arm after middle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke is associated with widespread neural activation changes in areas anatomically and functionally connected to the lesion. METHODS: In this fMRI experiment, seven patients with right MCA stroke and seven healthy control subjects performed a series of movements with their (nonparetic) right hand. Subjects either mimicked a visual display (visually guided) or generated the same motor task after a visual start signal (self-monitored). A multivariate linear discriminant analysis was used to determine the combinations of brain regions of interest (ROIs) that demonstrated maximum differences in activation between healthy and stroke subjects. The analysis was repeated within subject groups to differentiate self-monitored and visually guided movement. RESULTS: There was a significantly different network of neural regions recruited for movement with the nonparetic, ipsilesional arm in patients with stroke vs healthy control subjects. The anterior cingulate cortex was significantly more active when patients execute self-monitored movement than visually guided movement, suggesting changes in attentional processing required for the two tasks. The lesioned hemisphere was significantly more active in patients with stroke using the nonparetic arm than in control subjects during visually guided movement. CONCLUSIONS: These results support a model of widespread bihemispheric reorganization in the motor system after a focal right hemisphere lesion. Attentional demands of self-monitored movement may be much greater than visually guided movement in patients, possibly impacting rehabilitation protocols for these patients.

Aged↗

PubMed2005

Acute and persistent pain modulation of attention-related anterior cingulate fMRI activations.

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has been implicated in both sustained attention (SA) and pain perception. Nonetheless, only a small body of literature has examined the relationship between SA and pain perception. This study utilized fMRI to examine activation patterns that emerged in the ACC in healthy participants and participants with chronic pain (due to osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee) while completing a sustained attention task with and without exposure to an acute painful stimulus. Independent component analysis (ICA) was used to determine groups of voxels within the ACC that covaried with performance on the SA task completed with and without exposure to a painful stimulus. In all participants, two distinct spatial patterns within the ACC were isolated that reflected (1) disrupted ACC activity when a painful stimulus was applied, or (2) emergent ACC activity when a painful stimulus was applied. In the healthy group, there were broadly distributed clusters of voxels within the ACC that were modulated by painful stimulation. But in the chronic pain group, a discrete focal region of the ACC was modulated by pain. These results demonstrate that ACC activity is modulated differently during tasks of SA and pain, and that acute pain in healthy participants and participants with chronic pain result in significantly different ACC activation patterns.

Aged↗

PubMed2005

The use of word-reading to estimate "premorbid" ability in cognitive domains other than intelligence.

Diagnostic neuropsychological assessment requires the clinician to estimate a patient's premorbid abilities. Word reading tests, such as the National Adult Reading Test-Revised (NART-R), provide reasonably accurate estimates of premorbid IQ, but their capacity to benchmark other premorbid cognitive abilities remains unclear. In this extension of an earlier report, we administered the NART-R, an abbreviated Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-R or WAIS-III), and 26 other cognitive measures to 322 reasonably healthy adults. While NART-R performance correlated robustly (rs > or = .72) with concurrent Verbal and Full Scale IQ, its correlation with all other cognitive measures was significantly lower. Thus, while it is appealing to use word reading as a proxy for premorbid functioning in other cognitive domains, the NART-R has limited utility for this because it does not predict current performance on other cognitive tests as well as it predicts IQ in healthy adults.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Recent advances and future directions in the biopsychosocial assessment and treatment of arthritis.

This article provides an overview of the emerging literature on biopsychosocial assessment and treatment for two of the most common forms of arthritis: osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. The article is divided into 3 parts. In the 1st part, the basic elements of the biopsychosocial approach to assessing and treating persons having arthritis is described. In the 2nd part, the authors evaluate studies of biopsychosocial approaches to the assessment of arthritis pain and disability. Six research areas are reviewed: learned helplessness, depression, stress, pain coping, self-efficacy, and the social context of arthritis. The 3rd part of the article reviews studies that testing the efficacy of biopsychosocial treatment approaches for persons having osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2002

Behavioral medicine: 2002 and beyond.

This article highlights future directions for research and practice in behavioral medicine. Topics addressed include social and environmental issues, the role of technology, translational research, improving and developing interventions, and professional training and retraining.

Behavioral Medicine↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Changing face of pain: evolution of pain research in psychosomatic medicine.

OBJECTIVE: This article provides an overview of how psychosomatic research on pain has evolved over the past 60 years as exemplified by studies published in Psychosomatic Medicine. METHODS: Each issue of Psychosomatic Medicine from 1939 to 1999 was reviewed to identify papers that dealt with pain, painful medical conditions, or pain management. A total of 150 papers were identified and grouped into seven categories: 1) case studies; 2) studies of personality traits and other individual differences; 3) psychophysiological studies of pain; 4) studies using pain induction techniques; 5) studies examining the relation of relation of race, ethnicity, and culture to pain; 6) studies of pain unique to women; and 7) studies examining treatments for pain. RESULTS: A substantial number of studies on pain and painful conditions were published in the Journal in the 1940s and 1950s, and that number has almost doubled in the most recent full decade of the Journal. Within the pain area, however, the topics of interest to psychosomatic researchers have been, and continue to be, quite diverse. Although publications on certain methods or topics (eg, psychodynamic case studies, physiological correlates of pain) have decreased over time, publications on other topics (eg, personality traits and individual differences) have remained relatively constant, and publications on still other topics (eg, studies using pain induction techniques; studies of race, ethnicity, and culture; women's pain; and treatment studies) have flourished recently. CONCLUSIONS: Considered overall, the results of our review suggest that the face of pain research published in PM has changed considerably in the past 60 years. Given the ongoing commitment of psychosomatic researchers to this area, we expect this evolution to continue in the years to come.

Female↗