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Biomedical subjects

M A Wyke

Publications and source records attributed to M A Wyke.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

The Maudsley Mentation test: a method for extended monitoring of mental status after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

A new scale for the repeated, rapid assessment of mental function in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage is described. Its reproducibility is evaluated and early experience with its use in the intended clinical setting is reported. The test (Maudsley Mentation Test) proved to be more sensitive to fluctuations in cerebral functioning than existing measures of conscious level, and the results were reproducible among observers with different backgrounds (surgeons, nurses, and psychologists). The results suggest a relationship between performance on mentation testing and quality of outcome. The Maudsley Mentation Test is thought to offer a suitable measure with which to monitor patients during the acute phase of their illness to supplement clinical assessment and provide evidence of deterioration at an early stage. It is also potentially useful as an end point in acute protection and treatment studies.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Memory function--effects of different antihypertensive drugs.

Improvement in the efficacy of newer antihypertensive agents has resulted in consideration of the side effects of drug therapy. Impairment of memory function resulting from antihypertensive therapy has been clinically suspected. This observation has been supported by a study in which the effects of methyldopa and propranolol on memory function were reported. Recently, memory function has been assessed in a group of patients treated with either a beta-blocker (atenolol) or an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (enalapril) in a randomised, observer-blind study in moderate essential hypertension. The patients were assessed, on placebo and after 16 weeks of treatment on active therapy, by use of a series of 4 memory function tests related to everyday life. In the hypertension study group, 13 received atenolol and 12 received enalapril. Similar reduction of diastolic pressure occurred in both groups, but systolic pressure was significantly reduced in the enalapril group (p less than 0.05). In the atenolol group memory performance scores were consistently lower than in the placebo phase in 9 of 28 estimates of memory function. In the enalapril group there were no significant changes. The study indicated that atenolol might produce mild memory impairment, whereas enalapril was devoid of any measurable effect on memory function.

Antihypertensive Agents↗
PubMed1988

Laterality differences for speed but not for control in sequential finger tapping.

Multiple or sequential finger tapping is preferential to the dominant right hand with respect to speed. However, in more complex movement, variables other than speed become important. The present investigation uses a sequential finger-tapping task which permits assessment of between-hands differences with respect to rate and control of movement, with and without vision. 36 right-handed normal adults rapidly tapped their fingers in sequential order on a block (2.54 cm. sq.), trying not to move the block. Analyses of variance (mode x hand) performed for taps and shift of the block show the right hand to be faster than the left hand with and without vision, adding further to the notion that the left hemisphere predominates in increases in rapid movement and in sequencing aspects of motor activity. However, while both hands were steadier with vision than without, there were no between-hand differences with regard to control, suggesting equivalency of cerebral function for factors of manual sequencing other than speed.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Hearing words and seeing colours: an experimental investigation of a case of synaesthesia.

A case of 'chromatic-lexical' (colour-word) synaesthesia is described, and its genuineness confirmed using the criterion of stable cross-modality imagery across time. The synaesthesia could not be accounted for by a memory hypothesis, nor was it associated with any psychiatric condition. Further analysis did not identify any semantic relationship between real words and colours, but the colours of nonwords were determined by the colours of the individual letters. Numbers also had their own stable colours. The experience of synaesthesia was triggered by other auditory stimuli, but most strongly by words. Cortical electrophysiological recording failed to reveal any abnormalities. An unusual organisation of modalities in the brain is postulated to account for the phenomenon.

Aged↗
PubMed1986

Differential effects of atenolol and enalapril on memory during treatment for essential hypertension.

A randomized single-blind study was designed to compare the performance on memory tests requiring recall of information relevant to everyday life of two groups of hypertensive patients. One group of 13 patients were taking a beta-adrenoceptor blocker (atenolol) and the other group of 12 patients received the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (enalapril). The results suggested that when compared with placebo the group of patients treated with enalapril showed no changes in memory function, whilst there was a mild, but consistent deficit in the group taking atenolol.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Phaeochromocytoma as a cause of reversible dementia.

The case of a 57 year old man with cognitive impairment, hypertension and insulin dependent diabetes mellitus caused by phaeochromocytoma is reported. One year after removal of the tumour there was a significant improvement with the full scale IQ increasing by 15 points, normotension and minimal glucose intolerance. Possible mechanisms accounting for reversible cognitive impairment in such a situation are discussed. No previous reports of this association have been discovered.

Adrenal Gland Neoplasms↗
PubMed1985

Temporal orientation in the pre-senium and old age.

Temporal orientation in 235 normal elderly subjects was examined and compared with previous results from a young adult population. Orientation for time in the elderly remains reasonably intact; the major exception to this was inaccurate recall of the date, which was most pronounced among women in the older group studied (71 +).

Aged↗
PubMed1984

Drawing disability in patients with senile dementia.

A series of drawing tasks was administered to 15 patients with senile dementia who were assessed for intellectual functioning and severity of dementia. Their performance was compared with that of 15 elderly control subjects. The demented patients' spontaneous drawings were found to be impoverished in comparison with those of the controls. Copies of the same objects included more details, but these tended to be wrongly positioned in space. The performance of the patients with dementia was unlike that reported for patients with focal brain lesions. Significant relations were found between drawing performance and intellectual functioning and severity of dementia. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Aged↗
PubMed1984

Memory function of children with spina bifida and shunted hydrocephalus.

A group of 10 children with spina bifida and shunted hydrocephalus, aged between 7 1/2 and nine years, was tested for memory of two types of verbal material and two types of pictorial material. Their performance was compared with a group of children with matched IQ and with a group of average IQ, all matched for age and sex. The parameters investigated were learning ability; immediate and delayed recall, and also long-term recall/recognition; and reacquisition of material learned after a period of 24 hours. The hydrocephalic children and the matched IQ group were significantly poorer than the average IQ group on all tasks except for 'Memory for a Short Story' Comparisons between the hydrocephalic and matched IQ groups showed that the former group was significantly poorer only in a 'Memory for Words' test. It is suggested that this discrepancy in the performance of hydrocephalic children in learning unrelated, as opposed to connected, meaningful verbal material may reflect a deficit in their ability to use appropriate semantic strategies at the level of encoding.

Cerebrospinal Fluid Shunts↗
PubMed1984

Alterations in cognitive performance and affect-arousal state during fluctuations in motor function in Parkinson's disease.

Sixteen patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease were selected who were all showing severe fluctuations in motor function ("on-off" phenomenon). Measures of cognitive function and of subjective affect/arousal state were taken on two occasions, once when "on" and once when "off". Twenty-five matched normal controls were also assessed on the same measures. Results revealed, on the average, a drop in cognitive function plus an adverse swing in affect/arousal state, in the patient group in the "off" condition, compared to the levels when "on". Analysis of the data suggested that the main factor associated with cognitive function when "off" was not the severity of disability but the level of affect/arousal. The fluctuations in cognitive function found tended to be mild relative to the severe changes in motor ability, and were present in only a proportion of patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

The performance of professional musicians on the seashore measures of musical talent: an unexpected finding.

During an investigation designed to explore the effects of brain lesions on musical ability in professional musicians, the Seashore Scale was used to discover whether focal damage was associated with specific impairment of any of the basic elements of musical talent. In order to obtain adequate control of the experimental group it was necessary to study a comparable group of professional musicians. For this purpose the Seashore test battery was given to 21 orchestral players. The scores obtained by these professionals were better than an estimate of the population values in only three of the six tests, pitch discrimination, rhythm and tonal memory; they were significantly poorer in the test of timbre. This unexpected finding sheds doubt on Seashore's assumptions about the requirements for high musical talent. It also raises questions on the use of the Seashore battery in certain areas of psychological research.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Congenital mirror movements.

In this report are described seven patients assessed clinically and neuropsychologically in whom mirror movements affecting predominantly the hands occurred as a congenital disorder. These mirror movements, representing a specific type of abnormal synkinesia, may arise as a hereditary condition, in the presence of a recognisable underlying neurological abnormality, and sporadically, and the seven patients provide more or less satisfactory examples of each of these three groups. Despite the apparent uniformity of the disorder, the heterogeneity and variability may be marked, examples in some of our patients including the pronounced increase in tone that developed with arm movement, and the capacity for modulation of the associated movement by alteration of neck position and bio-feedback. Various possible mechanisms are considered; these include impaired cerebral inhibition of unwanted movements, and functioning of abnormal motor pathways. Emphasis has been placed on the putative role of the direct, crossed corticomotoneurone pathways and on the unilateral and bilateral cerebral events that precede movement.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Vision and kinesthesis in spatial short-term memory.

This investigation examined the effects of different localizing cues on the precision with which subjects can recall the position of a target in space. The availability of the cues--vision, kinesthesis, or both--was varied during both learning and recall. Subjects (age range 26 to 58 yr.) placed the stimulus or watched it being placed. The stimulus was removed, and subjects replaced or indicated its replacement location. Results show a striking similarity of performance for all subjects and significant performance differences relative to the different cues. The results provide information about intramodal and intermodal visual and kinesthetic transfer effects and about the effects of unimodal and multimodal input in such transfer. Results confirm a dominance of vision over kinesthesis, i.e., "kinesthetic memory" does not provide as accurate localizing information as does "visual memory."

Adult↗
PubMed1977

The effect of auditory signals on the control of the rapidity of arm movements.

An experimental study of the effect of auditory signals on the rapidity of arm movements was undertaken in 32 right-handed subjects. The task (a printed tapping test) was performed with the presence of metronome clicks intended to act as pacemakers of the subject's tapping movements. The effect of preferred hand, direction of movement (i.e. left-right and right-left) and mode of acoustic presentation (monoaural or binaural) was investigated. Results indicate that the presence of acoustic signals increases (without a concomitant decrease in accuracy) the rapidity of movements, but there is not differential increase whether the signals are delivered to the right or left ear or binaurally. Repetitive movements of the right arm are faster than those of the left; and the direction in which the movements are made influences the rapidity of performance for both arms, left-right movements being faster than those made in the right-left direction. Some theoretical intrepretations of the findings are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

Pattern of intellectual impairment in Huntington's chorea.

Cognitive function was evaluated in 11 patients with Huntington's chorea, using eight subtests of the WAIS, and their performance was compared with that previously reported for a normal aged population. The pattern of impairment was similar in the two groups. Tests of immediate memory were given to nine of these patients, and to 10 healthy but aged subjects. In both groups, there was a significant correlation between the performance of individuals in these tests and their IQ, suggesting that the choreic patients had no selective impairment of immediate memory. The clinical and psychological records of the 11 patients revealed no evidence of focal deficits, and the majority of patients were fully orientated and retained insight to their condition. These observations are discussed in relation to the pattern of intellectual impairment seen in other presenile dementias.

Adult↗