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Biomedical subjects

D Debatisse

Publications and source records attributed to D Debatisse.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

Painful hand and moving finger treated by wearing a glove.

The authors report a patient with unilateral painful hand and moving finger in whom tactile stimulation interrupted both the movement and the pain. This effect suggests a gating mechanism at a segmental level. The difference between afferent and efferent pathway levels and the delay of several months between trauma and occurrence of symptoms support a central mechanism, most probably involving sensorimotor reorganization at a segmental level.

Female↗

Continuous assessment of electrical epileptic activity in acute stroke.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the incidence and risk factors of electrical seizures and other electrical epileptic activity using continuous EEG (cEEG) in patients with acute stroke. METHODS: One hundred consecutive patients with acute stroke admitted to our stroke unit underwent cEEG using 10 electrodes. In addition to electrical seizures, repetitive focal sharp waves (RSHWs), repetitive focal spikes (RSPs), and periodic lateralized epileptic discharges (PLEDs) were recorded. RESULTS: In the 100 patients, cEEG was recorded for a mean duration of 17 hours 34 minutes (range 1 hour 12 minutes to 37 hours 10 minutes). Epileptic activity occurred in 17 patients and consisted of RSHWs in seven, RSPs in seven, and PLEDs in three. Electrical seizures occurred in two patients. On univariate Cox regression analysis, predictors for electrical epileptic activity were stroke severity (high score on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale) (hazard ratio [HR] 1.12; p = 0.002), cortical involvement (HR 5.71; p = 0.021), and thrombolysis (HR 3.27; p = 0.040). Age, sex, stroke type, use of EEG-modifying medication, and cardiovascular risk factors were not predictors of electrical epileptic activity. On multivariate analysis, stroke severity was the only independent predictor (HR 1.09; p = 0.016). CONCLUSION: In patients with acute stroke, electrical epileptic activity occurs more frequently than previously suspected.

Adult↗

Electrophysiological characteristics of limbic and motor globus pallidus internus (GPI) neurons in two cases of Lesch-Nyhan syndrome.

OBJECTIVE: Lesch-Nyhan syndrome is a rare and debilitating condition characterized by dystonia and self-mutilating behavior. In order to shed light on the pathophysiology of dystonia, we report the pallidal electrophysiological activity recorded in two patients during deep brain stimulation surgery (DBS). METHODS: Microrecordings were performed on 162 neurons along four tracks aimed at the right and left anterior (limbic) and posterior (motor) globus pallidus internus (GPI). RESULTS: Regardless of the anesthetic agent used (propofol or sevoflurane), both patients showed similar neurons firing rates in the four regions studied, namely the limbic and motor portions of the globus pallidus externus (GPE) or GPI. In both patients, firing rates were similar in the GPE (12.2+/-1.8 Hz, N=38) and GPI (13.2+/-1.0 Hz, N=83) portions of the limbic track, while the motor GPE fired at a higher frequency (23.8+/-2.7 Hz, N=18) than the motor GPI (12.5+/-1.4 Hz, N=23). CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate that light propofol or sevoflurane anesthesia influences pallidal activity in a similar way. Electrophysiological recordings suggest that Lesch-Nyhan syndrome might be characterized by analogous firing frequencies in the limbic GPE and GPI while motor GPE would tend to fire at higher rate than the motor GPI. It is therefore tempting to suggest that the symptoms that are observed in Lesch-Nyhan syndrome might result from motor GPI inhibition. SIGNIFICANCE: This observation may confirm the Albin and Delong's model of the basal nuclei in hypokinetic and hyperkinetic disorders.

Child↗

Multilobar electrocorticography monitoring during intracranial aneurysm surgery.

INTRODUCTION: To detect a neuronal threshold of tolerance to ischemia, the usefulness of multilobar electrocorticography (mEcoG) during intracranial aneurysm surgery was compared to the scalp EEG and correlated with the postoperative neurological status and the radiological findings. METHODS: Twenty-one patients harboring intracranial aneurysms were monitored by simultaneous scalp EEG and lobe-dependent mEcoG during surgical clipping. The patients were divided into group A (6 patients with no temporary clipping) and group B (15 patients with temporary clipping). RESULTS: New focal modifications of the mEcoG signal with high frequency (HF)-beta3 and delta waves were observed in none of the patients in group A and all of the patients in group B. These anomalies were followed by focal burst suppression pattern in eight cases (53%) in group B. These changes were detected in only two cases (9%) on the scalp EEG. New corticographic changes resolved in eight patients (53%) in group B. Among the seven patients in group B who had persistent focal burst pattern after clip removal, six (85%) presented with new neurological deficit or new hypodensity on CT. The Glasgow Outcome Scale was good (IV or V) in 85% of cases. CONCLUSION: mEcoG is more sensitive than scalp EEG. The appearance and persistence of the focal burst suppression pattern shown on mEcoG, was associated with a new neurological deficit or new hypodensity, whereas HF-beta3 or delta waves per se were not associated with new changes. A better comprehension of these EEG anomalies could determine the duration of temporary clipping and consequently influence the surgical strategy.

Adult↗

Recording click-evoked myogenic potentials (CEMPs) with a setup for brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs).

AIM OF THE STUDY: Click-evoked myogenic potentials (CEMPs) originate in the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle through a reflex loop involving the sacculus and the vestibular nerve. In this study we suggest that they can be picked up from the mastoid reference used for auditory evoked potential (AEP) recording by using standard filters for brainstem AEPs (BAEPs). They consist of a P13-N20 complex. METHODS: Fifty normal subjects were investigated. Recordings were performed with the same setting as that used for conventional BAEPs but without artifact rejection and using a wide time window (100 ms). Unilateral auditory stimulations were used. All acquisitions were performed in both sitting and supine positions. In nine subjects CEMPs and BAEPs were simultaneously recorded at both earlobe and both SCM muscles. RESULTS: In all subjects, a CEMP P13-N20 component could be evidenced in sitting, but not in supine position at both the ipsilateral earlobe and the ipsilateral SCM muscle. Its latency was 0.7 ms lower at the earlobe. It obeyed the same relationship to stimulus intensity at both earlobe and SCM muscle. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrate the possibility to get simultaneous information on the brainstem auditory pathways and on a reflex probably mediated through the sacculus and the vestibular nerve. Further studies on patients with selective vestibular nerve impairment should be conducted to confirm the clinical utility of this approach.

Adult↗

Event-related potentials (ERPs) in ecstasy (MDMA) users during a visual oddball task.

Ecstasy is the common name for a drug mainly containing a substance identified as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). It has become popular with participants in "raves", because it enhances energy, endurance and sexual arousal, together with the widespread belief that MDMA is a safe drug [Byard, R.W., Gilbert, J., James, R., Lokan, R.J., 1998. Amphetamine derivative fatalities in South Australia. Is "ecstasy" the culprit? Am. J. Forensic Med. Pathol. 19, 261-265]. However, it is suggested that this drug causes a neurotoxicity to the serotonergic system that could lead to permanent physical and cognitive problems. In order to investigate this issue, and during an ERP recording with 32 channels, we used a visual oddball design, in which subjects (14 MDMA abusers and 14 paired normal controls) saw frequent stimuli (neutral faces) while they had to detect as quickly as possible rare stimuli with happy or fearful expression. At a behavioral level, MDMA users imply longer latencies than normal controls to detect rare stimuli. At the neurophysiological level, ERP data suggest as main result that the N200 component, which is involved in attention orienting associated to the detection of stimulus novelty (e.g. [Campanella, S., Gaspard, C., Debatisse, D., Bruyer, R., Crommelinck, M., Guerit, J.M., 2002. Discrimination of emotional facial expression in a visual oddball task: an ERP study. Biol. Psychol. 59, 171-186]), shows shorter latencies for fearful rare stimuli (as compared to happy ones), but only for normal controls. This absence of delay was interpreted as an attentional deficit due to MDMA consumption.

Adult↗

Human gender differences in an emotional visual oddball task: an event-related potentials study.

Pictures from the Ekman and Friesen series were used in an event-related potentials study to define the timing of occurrence of gender differences in the processing of positive (happy) and negative (fear) facial expressions. Ten male and 10 female volunteers were confronted with a visual oddball design, in which they had to detect, as quickly as possible, deviant happy or fearful faces amongst a train of standard stimuli (neutral faces). Behavioral results suggest that men and women detected fearful faces more quickly than happy ones. The main result is that the N2b component, functionally considered as an attentional orienting mechanism, was delayed in men for happy stimuli as compared with fearful ones. Gender differences observed in the processing of emotional stimuli could then originate at the attentional level of the information processing system.

Adult↗

The electrophysiological correlates sustaining the retrieval of face-name associations: an ERP study.

An ERP study on 9 healthy participants was carried out to temporally constrain the neural network proposed by Campanella et al. (2001) in a PET study investigating the cerebral areas involved in the retrieval of face-name associations. Three learning sessions served to familiarize the participants with 24 face-name associations grouped in 12 male/female couples. During EEG recording, participants were confronted with four experimental conditions, requiring the retrieval of previously learned couples on the basis of the presentation of name-name (NN), face-face (FF), name-face (NF), or face-name (FN) pairs of stimuli. The main analysis of this experiment consisted in the subtraction of the nonmixed conditions (NN and FF) from the mixed conditions (NF and FN). It revealed two main ERP components: a negative wave peaking at left parieto-occipital sites around 285 ms and its positive counterpart recorded at left centro-frontal electrodes around 300 ms. Moreover, a dipole modeling using three dipoles whose localization corresponded to the three cerebral areas observed in the PET study (left inferior frontal gyrus, left medial frontal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobe) explained more than 90% of the variance of the results. The complementarity between anatomical and neurophysiological techniques allowed us to discuss the temporal course of these cerebral activities and to propose an interactive and original anatomo-temporal model of the retrieval of face-name associations.

Adult↗

Discrimination of emotional facial expressions in a visual oddball task: an ERP study.

Several ERP studies have shown an orienting complex, the N2/P3a, associated to the detection of stimulus novelty. Its role consists in preparing the organism to process and react to biologically prepotent stimuli. Whether this N2/P3a: (1) could be obtained with complex visual stimuli, such as with emotional facial expressions; and (2) could take part in a complex discrimination process has yet to be determined. To investigate this issue, event-related potentials were recorded in response to repetitions of a particular facial expression (e.g. sadness) and in response to two different deviant (rare) stimuli, one depicting the same emotion as the frequent stimulus, while the other depicted a different facial expression (e.g. fear). As expected, deviant stimuli evoked an N2/P3a complex of larger amplitude than frequent stimuli. But more interestingly, when the deviant stimulus depicted the same emotion as the frequent stimulus the N2/P3a was delayed compared to the response elicited by the different-emotion deviant. The N2/P3a was thus implicated in the detection of physical facial changes, with a higher sensitivity to changes related to a new different emotional content, perhaps leading to faster adaptive reactions.

Adult↗

Localizing signs in positional vertigo due to lateral canal cupulolithiasis.

BACKGROUND: Different types of benign positional vertigo (BPV) have been recognized. The variant with permanent apogeotropic direction-changing lateral nystagmus in the supine position is particularly difficult to distinguish from central etiologies. OBJECTIVE: To identify clinical features of this variant of BPV, helping to establish its peripheral etiology. METHODS: In five patients without any evidence of neurologic disease and with this variant of positional vertigo, the behavior of nystagmus as a function of head position in space was studied. RESULTS: In the supine position, a null point for lateral nystagmus was identified, beyond which the nystagmus changed direction. This null point was evident when the head was turned 10 to 20 degrees to the side. In this position, the ipsilateral cupula of the lateral semicircular canal is aligned with the gravity vector. In two of the five patients, a null point was identified in pitch, beyond which the nystagmus reversed direction. This null point corresponds to the head position where the lateral canals are in an earth horizontal plane. CONCLUSION: From the behavior of lateral nystagmus in different head positions, the lateral canal system of the inner ear is shown to be gravity-sensitive and the side on which the cupula is affected can be determined.

Adult↗

Spatio-temporal localization of the face inversion effect: an event-related potentials study.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) from 58 electrodes at standard EEG sites were recorded while 14 subjects performed a delayed-matching task on normal and inverted faces. A large and single difference between normal and inverted face processing was observed at occipito-temporal sites about 160 ms following stimulus onset, mainly in the right hemisphere (RH). Although the topographies indicate that similar areas are involved at this latency in processing the two types of stimuli, the electrophysiological activity, which corresponds to the previously described N170, was larger and delayed for inverted as compared to normal face processing. These results complement and specify, at a neural level, previous behavioral and divided visual field studies which have suggested that the loss of configural face information by inversion may slow down and increase the difficulty of face processing, particularly in the RH.

Adult↗

[A comparison between group-average and individual evoked potential analysis].

PURPOSE: Event-related potentials (ERPs) studies in human subjects have shown inter-individual response variations, probably linked to anatomical and functional brain disparities. The present study was conducted to compare the results obtained by a standard grand-average method and a single subject analysis of VEPs to faces. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Fifty-eight channel ERPs (analysis time: 1,024 ms) were recorded in 13 normal volunteers during gender or familiarity judgements on unknown and known faces, as well as on a control task using meaningless patterns. Data were then submitted to individual and group averages. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Three activities were identified by both procedures: a P1/N1 complex, a vertex positive potential (P2 or VPP) associated with a temporal negativity, and a N2 negativity. These peaks displayed a marked inter-individual topographical variability. Regarding the outcome of statistical analyses, a certain number of differences were found: on P1, in which individual analyses revealed a strong effect of experimental conditions, while the grand-average method did not; on VPP, in which grand-average analyses suggested an interaction between experimental conditions, face familiarity and cerebral lateralization, while individual analyses did not; and on N2, in which grand-average data showed a clear lateralization effect, while individual analyses did not. A P3 component (Pz, 250 ms) was also defined in grand-average data, but could not be clearly described in individual data. Statistical analyses on this P3 component were thus only performed on group data and revealed a right lateralization and an interaction between face familiarity and experimental conditions. These findings confirmed the existence of a marked topographical variability of ERPs to face and, therefore, question the validity of grand-average studies. Moreover, these results suggest a better efficiency of individual analyses for studying short and middle-latency peaks, while grand-averages appear to be better suited for studying late components.

Adult↗

Task modulation of brain activity related to familiar and unfamiliar face processing: an ERP study.

In order to investigate stimulus-related and task-related electrophysiological activity relevant for face processing, event-related potentials (ERPs) from 58 electrodes at standard EEG sites were recorded while subjects performed a simple visual discrimination (control) task, in addition to various face processing tasks: recognition of previously learned faces and gender decision on familiar and unfamiliar faces. Three electrophysiological components or dipolar complex were recorded in all subjects: an occipital early component (P1, around 110 ms); a vertex positive potential (VPP; around 158 ms) which appeared to be specific to faces; and a negative central component, N2 (around 230 ms). Parametric analysis and source localization were applied to these components by means of a single-subject analysis methodology. No effect of familiarity was observed on any of these early component. While the VPP appears to be independent of the kind of processing performed, face task modulations of the early P1 and the N2 were observed, with a higher amplitude for the recognition than for the gender discrimination task. An attentional modulation of early visual areas is proposed for the first effect (P1 modulation), while the N2 seems to be related to general visual memory processing. This study strongly suggests that the VPP reflects an early visual stage of face processing in the fusiform gyrus that is strictly stimulus-related and independent of familiarity. It also shows that source localization algorithms may give reliable solutions on single subject averages for early visual components despite high inter-subject variability of the surface characteristics of ERPs.

Adult↗

ERPs obtained with the auditory oddball paradigm in coma and altered states of consciousness: clinical relationships, prognostic value, and origin of components.

OBJECTIVE: To study the event related potentials (ERPs) in coma and altered states of consciousness, their relationship with the clinical status and coma outcome. METHODS: ERPs were recorded with a passive auditory oddball paradigm in 103 patients. Their probability of occurrence and the peak latencies and amplitudes were studied as a function of the Glasgow Coma Score (GCS). Their relationship with outcome was studied in a subset of 83 patients examined within the first 4 days, and expressed in terms of sensitivity, specificity, and negative or positive prognostic values. RESULTS: When present, the ERPs to rare stimuli consisted of a fronto-central negativity (N(endog), mean latency: 330 ms) and a fronto-central positivity (P(endog), mean latency: 431 ms) following the exogenous N100-P200 complex. Both their probability of occurrence and their latencies and amplitudes were related with the GCS in anoxic and traumatic comas. The N(endog) and P(endog) had high sensitivity with a negative predictive value of 70% and 100%, respectively, but a low specificity, with a positive predictive value of 44% and 41%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: ERPs can be recorded in some comatose patients and are likely to reflect implicit orienting processes rather than preserved consciousness. Their presence implies a good prognosis but no conclusion can be drawn from their absence.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

[Diagnostic and prognostic contribution of somatosensory evoked potentials by truncular and dermatomal stimulation in lumbosacral radiculopathy. Apropos of 120 cases surgically-treated].

Lower-limb somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) of nerve-trunk (peroneal nerve, posterior tibial nerve) and dermatomal (L5 and S1) stimulation were recorded in 120 patients suffering from lumbosacral disk disease. Recordings were performed before surgery and on Days 4 and 50 after surgery. Electromyography was also performed before surgery. Dermatomal SEPs were shown to be sensitive (70%) and specific in both terms of their lateralizing value and their ability to identify the L5 or S1 level. Moreover, combining SEPs and EMG significantly increased the sensitivity of the electrophysiological testing when compared with each method alone. There was no relationship between SEPs performed before surgery and surgical outcome. Inversely, we demonstrated the prognostic value of SEPs performed on Day 4, SEP normalization at Day 4 was associated with a good outcome at Day 50 in 91.8% of examined cases, while the persistence of pathological SEPs at Day 4 was associated with poor outcome at Day 50 in 56% of the cases.

Adult↗

[Role of ORL in the treatment of sleep apnea syndromes].

Over the past few years, the criteria defining the sleep apnea syndrome have been well delineated. This syndrome is a common affliction whose pathophysiology is usually indicative of an obstacle in the upper respiratory tract. The authors describe seven mostly serious cases, with cardiovascular and hemodynamic repercussions, that benefited from ORL surgery (uvulo-palato-pharyngoplasty and/or tonsillotomy). In each case, the consequences of this simple surgery were excellent, resulting in a sharp attenuation of the symptoms or their disappearance. In conclusion, the authors insist on the preponderant role that can be played by the ear, nose and throat specialist, both in the selection of these patients and in their treatment.

Adult↗