Biomedical subjects

M Aloia

Publications and source records attributed to M Aloia.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2000

Effects of neuroleptic medications on speech disorganization in schizophrenia: biasing associative networks towards meaning.

BACKGROUND: While some cognitive accounts of disorganized speech, or thought disorder, in schizophrenia have emphasized failures in working memory/discourse planning or selective attention, we have suggested that thought disorder resides in the semantic system. In this study we assessed the effect of neuroleptic medication on thought disorder and semantic processing. METHODS: Seventeen patients with schizophrenia were assessed while receiving neuroleptic medications and in crossover fashion, placebo. A number of measures were obtained: clinically rated thought disorder (using the Thought, Language and Communication Scale); working memory letter number span); lexical integrity (naming and receptive vocabulary); and, semantic priming of intracategorical word pairs. RESULTS: Semantic priming measures improved with neuroleptic medication, as did clinically rated thought disorder. No other measure changed significantly. Priming selectively covaried with changes in thought disorder. CONCLUSION: Changes in spreading semantic activation, measured in a semantic priming paradigm and presumably brought about by neuroleptics' influence on dopaminergic neuromodulatory systems, might reflect changes in the biases of pre-existing associative networks that favour or increase the accessibility of representations related by shared features. This study also has implications for the architecture of normal language in that a dissociation between the lexical and semantic levels was observed, due to the selective compromise of tasks demanding semantic processing.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Behavioral treatment of insomnia: a clinical case series study.

There is substantial experimental evidence that behavioral treatment of insomnia produces significant clinical improvement and that treatment gains tend to be maintained over time. Less clear is whether behavioral treatment is effective as it is plied in clinical settings. In this clinical case series study, we evaluated 47 patients with primary insomnia. It was found that patients were, on average, 43% improved. This average corresponded to a 65% reduction in sleep latency, a 46% decrease in number of awakenings per night, a 48% reduction in wake time after sleep onset, and a 13% increase in total sleep time. These results suggest that behavioral treatment for insomnia is as effective in clinical settings as it is as under clinical trial conditions.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Frontal Lobe Dysfunction in Traumatic Brain Injury.

The frontal lobes are responsible for many higher cognitive abilities, including executive, inhibitory, and motivational functions. The frontal lobes are particularly prone to damage in closed head injury because of direct contusion, as well as disruption of connections on which frontal systems depend for functioning. Three primary behavioral syndromes are described, associated with damage to dorsolateral, orbital, and mesial frontal subsystems. Two approaches to rehabilitation of frontal dysfunction are reviewed.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1993

Verbal analogical reasoning in children with language-learning disabilities.

This study was designed to explore the influences of both cognitive and linguistic abilities on verbal analogy completion. School-age children classified as language-learning disabled were administered five types of verbal analogies: synonyms, antonyms, linear order, category membership, and functional relationship. The performance of the children with language-learning disabilities was compared with one group of normally developing children matched for mental age and another group matched for language age. Results indicated that the group matched for mental age performed better than the other two groups on all types of analogies. Although they had significantly higher mental ages, the children with language-learning disabilities did no better than the language-matched group on any analogy type except antonyms.

Adolescent↗