Biomedical subjects

B R Lasker

Publications and source records attributed to B R Lasker.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1988

Remote memory in a patient with circumscribed amnesia.

It has been suggested that extensive and severe remote memory loss is not a component of a circumscribed amnesic syndrome but may be attributable to problem solving and retrieval deficiencies associated with the frontal lobe damage which is present in some amnesic patients. In order to assess this notion, retrograde amnesia was studied in a patient, W.H., who had no apparent cortical damage revealed by radiological examination, and who evidenced no major cognitive deficiency other than amnesia. Regardless of whether remote memory was measured by recall or recognition procedures, patient W.H. exhibited impaired memory for information from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, but was unimpaired in retrieving information from the 1940s and 1950s. These results demonstrate that retrograde amnesia can occur in patients who have a circumscribed memory deficit.

Amnesia↗

PubMed1987

Cervical epidural abscess.

We present 3 new cases of cervical epidural abscess (CEA), a rare condition, along with a review of 12 other case reports. The average patient age was 45 years; just over half were male. The abscesses usually involved the mid to lower cervical region and extended an average of three to four segments. Neck stiffness was present in all patients; root pain and paresthesias were present less often. Weakness of one to four extremities developed in all but one patient. Sensory levels were frequently present, sometimes below the site of the lesion. All but two patients were febrile. All but two had elevated CSF protein, and all but two had a pleocytosis; myelography always revealed a complete or partial block. Staphylococcus aureus was the causative organism in 8 of 11 patients. CEA should be considered in a patient with neck stiffness, paresthesias, and/or radicular pain so that CT or myelography followed by surgical decompression and/or antimicrobial drugs can be initiated before prolonged weakness develops. One of our patients developed a syrinx causing a new neurologic deficit 3 years after treatment. Delayed syringomyelia, a rare complication of extramedullary lesions, lends support to vascular occlusion as the major mechanism of damage in epidural abscess.

Abscess↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Olfactory thresholds are associated with degree of dementia in Alzheimer's disease.

Recent neuroanatomical studies have noted that regions of the olfactory pathways contain high levels of neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease; and that the olfactory epithelium, the most peripheral level of the system, exhibits anatomical and biochemical changes in Alzheimer's disease. The present experiments investigated thresholds for olfactory and taste stimuli in patients with Probable Alzheimer's disease. Olfactory thresholds of Alzheimer's patients were significantly elevated relative to controls and were significantly correlated with scores on dementia scales. Taste thresholds of Alzheimer's patients were within normal limits and unrelated to scores on dementia scales. These results suggest that increased olfactory thresholds in patients with Alzheimer's disease reflect the effects of the disease process and, thus, may aid in the diagnosis and in the understanding of Alzheimer's disease.

Aged↗