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C Hollnagel

Publications and source records attributed to C Hollnagel.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Associative learning impairments in patients with frontal lobe damage.

The performance of 18 frontal lobe lesion (FL) and 10 frontal lobe dementia (FLD) patients on an associative memory test was compared with the performance of their matched normal controls. The FL group was severely impaired on cued and free recall and was moderately impaired on a recognition condition. Left FL patients performed the poorest on the cued and free recall conditions. The FLD patients were moderately impaired on the free recall condition only but there was a subgroup of FLD patients with additional left temporal atrophy who appeared severely impaired on both cued and free recall. These findings indicate that both left frontal and temporal lobe damage can impair associative learning and that this impairment is more strikingly seen with free rather than cued recall.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Selective visual attention in patients with frontal lobe lesions or Parkinson's disease.

Visual selective attention and response competition were tested in patients with frontal lobe lesions or with Parkinson's disease, and matched normal controls. The target stimuli were presented with flanking distractors that were either compatible, incompatible, or neutral to the target stimulus. The distance between the target and distractors was systematically varied. A control condition without distractors was also included. Subjects' response times to target stimuli and accuracy were measured. Both patient groups responded significantly slower and less accurately than their respective matched normal controls across all interference conditions and spatial distances. However, they did not show significantly greater interference or facilitation effects. Thus, the data suggest that the cognitive processes underlying selective attention are, in general, spared in patients with frontal lobe lesions or basal ganglia dysfunction.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

The effects of frontal lobe damage on everyday problem solving.

The prefrontal cortex plays an especially important role in human social-cognitive behavior. It has been difficult to quantify deficits in this domain in patients with frontal lobe lesions using standardized psychological instruments. We administered the Everyday Problem Solving Inventory (EPSI), which is composed of a range of scenarios depicting everyday social problems and their possible solutions, to a group of patients with frontal lobe lesions who were required to rate each of 4 possible solutions to each problem for their effectiveness. Our sample consisted of 27 normal controls (NCs), 33 patients with focal frontal lobe lesions (FLL), and 3 patients with frontal lobe dementia (FLD). The performance of the FLL patients on the EPSI instrument was also compared with their performance on traditional neuropsychological tests. The results indicated that the FLD patients' EPSI rank ordering of social problem solutions was uncorrelated with the performance of NCs and about half of the FLL patients EPSI rank orderings of solutions also varied substantially from those of the NCs. These same FLL patients also had the lowest scores, compared to FLL patients whose judgements on the EPSI were similar to that of the NCs, on a set of neuropsychological tasks sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction. There was no obvious relationship between locus of lesion within the frontal lobes and performance on the EPSI. These results suggest that some patients with prefrontal lobe lesions may have impaired social judgement that can be directly revealed through the use of a conventional psychological inventory such as the EPSI.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Use and safety of a new repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulator.

In order to test a new repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulator, the Dantec MagPro, we administered transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) at 1 Hz and 125% of motor threshold for an average of 204 s (until the coil temperature reached 40 degrees C) and 20 Hz stimulation at 100% of motor threshold for 2 s every minute for 10 min, on different days to 10 healthy volunteers. We stimulated 6 scalp positions (primary motor area (M1) and sites 5 cm anterior and posterior on each hemisphere) with an 8-shaped coil. We tested immediate and delayed memory, verbal fluency, prolactin levels and EEG at the beginning of the study and after stimulation on each day. No abnormalities were found. Motor evoked potentials evoked with 1 Hz stimulation diminished progressively in amplitude, and 1 Hz stimulation of M1 caused inhibition lasting at least 1 min in 3 of 4 subjects who were tested with 0.1 Hz stimulation before and after the 1 Hz stimulation period. This did not occur with 20 Hz stimulation. Finger tapping frequency was tested at the beginning of the study and after TMS at each scalp site. Finger tapping rate data from 6 additional subjects who were stimulated in an identical fashion with a different stimulator were also analyzed. There was an increase in tapping rate after TMS which was independent of scalp site. This was most pronounced with 1 Hz stimulation at 125% of threshold and reached statistical significance in the hand contralateral to the stimulation. The results of this study indicate that rTMS with the MagPro stimulator is safe at specific combinations of intensity, frequency and train duration.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Bohr shift by lactic acid and the supply of O2 to skeletal muscle.

Conditions simulating changes during physical exercise were induced in erythrocytes to determine the resulting Bohr effect. Lactic acid was added to red cell suspensions and whole blood with initial 25 and 60% SO2, at 42 Torr PCO2, and temperatures of 20 and 37 degrees C. Changes in pH, PO2 and SO2 were measured. CO2 liberation from buffering lactic acid in the extracellular fluid and its diffusion into erythrocytes resulted in an exaggerated Bohr shift, if the gas could not escape from the liquid phase (closed system, 'muscle' conditions). PO2 at constant SO2 increased by up to 11.7%.mmol-1.L lactic acid. After reequilibration to initial PCO2 values (open system, 'lung' conditions) the Bohr shift decreased (remaining PO2 increase 0.7-1.4%.mmol-1.L) mainly caused by the reduced acidification. In addition, the Bohr coefficients (BC) under closed conditions were larger (-0.36 to -0.50) than after reequilibration (-0.20 to -0.38). This difference is attributed to a larger CO2 BC than fixed acid BC. These effects might be enhanced in vivo by temperature differences between muscle and lung, lowered nonbicarbonate buffering of blood and counter-current blood flow in muscle.

Adult↗