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Biomedical subjects

M Garcia-Toro

Publications and source records attributed to M Garcia-Toro.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Modest adjunctive benefit with transcranial magnetic stimulation in medication-resistant depression.

BACKGROUND: Controverted results have been obtained using high frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation (HF-rTMS) as an antidepressant treatment. METHODS: Forty patients suffering from drug-resistant major depression received ten sessions of HF-rTMS at 90% of the motor threshold on the left prefrontal cortex or sham stimulation, added to their pharmacological treatment, in a randomized double-blind design. In a second open phase, patients still fulfilling criteria of inclusion received ten additional sessions of HF-rTMS at 90 or 110%. RESULTS: Real, but not sham HF-rTMS, was associated with a significant decrease in the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, but only twelve patients decreased more than 50%. CONCLUSIONS: Left prefrontal HF-rTMS was effectively associated with antidepressant treatment, although the size effect was small. LIMITATIONS: Shortage of the sample and control difficulties of the placebo effect. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Questionable in more than half of the patients studied.

Antidepressive Agents↗
PubMed2001

Functional cerebral asymmetry in affective disorders: new facts contributed by transcranial magnetic stimulation.

A growing body of experimental data usually finds a slightly lower activation in the left hemisphere than in the right in depressive syndromes, whereas the opposite occurs in mania. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) seems to have a distinctive lateralized effect with manic or depressed patients. These clinical findings provide new elements for discussion of the significance of unbalanced hemispherical activation as a biological substrate in affective disorders. Based on these data and on the theories of chaos and complexity, a hypothesis for the physiopathology of affective disorders and the functional mechanism of TMS is proposed. This hypothesis is in agreement with valence theory.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed2001

Psychopathology and the binding problem.

Normal cerebral activity is based on the rapid and flexible alternation of an enormous quantity of spatial-temporal patterns of neuronal firing. There is still much to learn about the mechanism that keeps neurons on functionally closed assemblies firing in synchronization. The explanation of this mechanism is the so called 'binding problem', one of the cornerstones of the generation of perceptions, cognitions, emotions and behaviours by the brain, and therefore of great interest to psychiatry. We explore the possibility that a 'binding dysfunction' could be a relevant aspect of the pathophysiology of mental disorders, and apply it to schizophrenia, in an attempt to integrate some neurobiological findings in this disorder, including a few preliminary data obtained with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Brain↗
PubMed2000

Prosody impairment in depression measured through acoustic analysis.

This work attempts to explore the association between depression and prosody impairment through acoustic techniques of voice analysis. For this purpose, we selected 10 quantitative vocal parameters, obtained instrumentally, and related to the variability and psychomotor control of phonation, which we have considered as prosody indicators. The sample consisted of 23 patients with diagnosis DSM-III-R of major depression and a control group of 20 healthy volunteers. We obtained results in 7 of the 10 acoustic parameters that suggest reduced prosody in depressed subjects. In a second voice test, carried out 2 months after baseline situation, and while patients were under antidepressant treatment, it was not possible to demonstrate that all these prosody indicators change to normality in those 13 subjects who clinically improved.

Adolescent↗