Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C T Lombroso.
Wave form differences were found in visual evoked response between normal and reading disabled children. These differences were maximally seen over the left parietal area but were minimal at the vertex and over the occipital area.
Twenty-two young adults with clinically and electroencephalographically diagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy were selected from an outpatient neurology source; 11 with focal epileptic activity in the right temporal lobe and 11 with left temporal lobe involvement were included. All patients had normal intelligence and comparable educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. Matched nonepileptic controls were also tested. Subjects were given psychological tests assessing differences in cognitive style and affect communication. Greater reliance on the ear ipsilateral to discharge focus in a dichotic listening paradigm was discovered, confirming appropriate lateralization assignment. Left lateralized patients exhibited a more reflective cognitive style than controls; right lateralized patients were more impulsive. Previously confirmed associations between impulsivity and externalized aggressive responses suggest the hypothesis that externalization of aggressive responses may occur more often among right lateralized patients. Left lateralized patients exhibited a more reflective cognitive style than controls; right lateralized patients were more impulsive. Previously confirmed associations between impulsivity and externalized aggressive responses suggest the hypothesis that externalization of aggressive responses may occur more often among right lateralized patients. Left lateralized patients made more atypical assignments of affect labels to emotionally evocative descriptions. Right laterlized patients tended to assign affect labels as controls. A greater potential for disturbance in the verbal communication of affect among left laterlized patients is suggested.
Eighteen cases of primary thalamic tumor occurring in children (ages 2 1/2 to 12 1/2 years) were studied retrospectively. Among the clinical features of this group that contrasted with adults having similar tumors were a shorter duration of symptoms before diagnosis and a higher incidence of motor abnormalities in the early illness. In several cases, symptoms and signs usually associated with cerebellar disorders predominated. Arteriography or gas encephalography or both were diagnostic in all but two cases. The electroencephalogram, abnormal in slightly more than 70% of the cases, suggested a thalamic mass in more than one third. A highly specific EEG feature was the presence of spindles while patients were awake. In 15 cases there was some evidence of ventricular dilation and nine of these later required shunts. In addition to shunting procedures, therapy included x-ray therapy alone or with craniotomy or craniotomy alone.
The electroencephalographic findings of 90 patients with phenylketonuria (PKU) who were observed in one clinic were critically reviewed. Seventy-three percent of patients with classical PKU that was diagnosed and treated early (group 1) were found to have normal EEGs, 23% had mild background abnormalities, and 4% had paroxysmal discharges. Only 31% of the patients in whom PKU was diagnosed after 6 months of age (group 2) had normal EEGs, while 24% had background abnormalities and 45% had paroxysmal discharges. Of the patients with atypical PKU (group 3), 62% had normal EEGs and 38% showed background abnormalities. No major changes in EEG patterns were noted with initiation or termination of the low phenylalanine diet. There was no correlation between the degree of dietary control, EEG findings, and intellectual performance in group 1.
Sixteen patients with Reye's syndrome were seen over a 3-year period and treated with conservative management with an overall mortality of 31%. 6 of the 16 had illness limited to stages II and III. Intensive therapy of suspected cerebral oedema, with careful monitoring of serum osmolarity, was associated with survival in 5 of 10 patients with stage IV disease. The risks of lumbar puncture in the presence of cerebral oedema (stages III-IV) are emphasized. A change in clinical status (usually a reversal to a less severe stage and an improved electroencephalogram) was seen within hours of starting anticerebral oedema therapy. Neurological sequelae (memory deficit, hemiparesis, hemiballismic movements, and delayed motor milestones) that were present in stage IV survivors at discharge were absent 12 months after discharge. Conservative supportive management emphasizing treatment of presumed cerebral oedema in severe cases of Reye's syndrome has a mortality comparable to that occurring in exchange transfusion or peritoneal dialysis. This form of therapy should be included in controlled trials to determine which form of therapy is optimal.
The early statements that the EEG alone could correctly be used for the assessment of gestational age (cf., among others, Dreyfus-Brisac, 1964; Parmelee et al., 1968; and Nolte et al., 1969), even in pathological babies, need some restrictive qualifications. Likewise, the more recent statements that certain neurophysiological parameters, including nerve conduction velocity and basic EEG patterns are independent not only of gestational age and body weight, but also of various abnormal factors in the pre- and perinatal periods, appear also too rigid, at least as regards the EEG and the other parameters used in this study. As a matter of fact, some authors who had adhered rather strictly to these concepts have later on presented evidence suggesting some deviations in bioelectric brain maturation in some cases, as for example, in small-for-date newborns of toxemic mothers (Schulte et al., 1972). When more exact quantification by coding techniques was applied (Parmelee et al., 1968), the conclusion was also reached that extrauterine and intrauterine development of bioelectric brain activity developed according to the conceptional age, regardless of variable extrauterine experience, although it was recognized that other categories of behavioral and neurophysiological activities, for example, Moro reflex, states stability, crying, sucking, scores, etc., are more labile to environmental and pathological factors (Prechtl et al., 1972; Michaelis et al., 1973).
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Interhemispheric asymmetries of different magnitudes were observed in human cortical auditory evoked responses to speech and sound-effect stimuli. The wave with peak asymmetry occurred 100 milliseconds after signal onset. The amount of asymmetry of the amplitude of this wave was related to the meaningfulness to the subject of the auditory stimulus rather than to the mere use of verbal versus nonverbal materials.
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