Biomedical subjects

M J Hoptman

Publications and source records attributed to M J Hoptman.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Brain activation pattern during a verbal fluency test in healthy male and female volunteers: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Sex differences in executive speech tasks, favoring women, have been noted in behavioral studies and functional imaging studies. In the present study ten female and ten male volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging in a conventional block design. All subjects were selected on the basis of high performance on the verbal fluency task. Regions of activation were detected after performance of a covert lexical verbal fluency task inside the scanner. Men and women who did not differ significantly in verbal fluency task performance showed a very similar pattern of brain activation. Our data argue against genuine between-sex differences in cerebral activation patterns during lexical verbal fluency activities when confounding factors like performance differences are excluded.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Sex differences in brain activation pattern during a visuospatial cognitive task: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in healthy volunteers.

Sex differences in mental rotation tasks, favoring men, have been noted in behavioral studies and functional imaging studies. In the present study ten female and ten male volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging in a conventional block design. Regions of activation were detected after performance of a mental rotation task inside the scanner. In contrast to previous studies, confounding factors such as performance differences between genders or high error rates were excluded. Men showed significantly stronger parietal activation, while women showed significantly greater right frontal activation. Our results point to gender specific differences in the neuropsychological processes involved in mental rotation tasks.

Brain↗

PubMed1999

Clinical prediction of assaultive behavior among male psychiatric patients at a maximum-security forensic facility.

OBJECTIVE: Patient characteristics associated with the clinical prediction of assaultive behavior in a forensic psychiatric hospital were compared with characteristics associated with actual assaultive behavior. METHODS: Treating psychiatrists at a New York forensic psychiatric hospital were asked to predict which of a sample of 183 recently admitted male patients were likely to show assaultive behavior during a three-month period. The predictions were compared with incident reports of actual assaultive behavior. Several patient characteristics, including race, legal status, age, education, criminal history, psychiatric symptoms rated independently by raters other than the treating psychiatrists, and ward behavior, were examined for their association with predicted and actual assaultive behavior. RESULTS: Clinicians' rate of correct prediction of assaultive behavior was 71 percent, with a diagnostic sensitivity of 54 percent and a diagnostic specificity of 79 percent. Characteristics associated with the prediction of assaultive behavior were race, transfer from a civil facility because of violence or dangerousness, age, education, arrests for violent offenses, childhood physical abuse, hostility, temper (or nurses' assessment of the patient's irritability), and inability to follow ward routine. Characteristics associated with actual assaultive behavior were transfer from a civil hospital, dual diagnosis of schizophrenia and substance abuse or dependence, childhood physical abuse, age, thought disorder, and temper. CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians were significantly more accurate than chance in prospectively predicting which male forensic patients would show assaultive behavior. However, some of the factors associated with clinical prediction, such as race, ability to follow ward routine, and arrest history, were not associated with actual assaultive behavior. In addition, clinicians failed to use dual diagnosis of schizophrenia and substance use disorder as a predictor.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Baseline EEG asymmetries and performance on neuropsychological tasks.

Thirty-two participants were tested for both resting electroencephalography (EEG) and neuropsychological function. Eight one-minute trials of resting EEG were recorded from 14 channels referenced to linked ears, which was rederived to an average reference. Neuropsychological tasks included Verbal Fluency, the Tower of London, and Corsi's Recurring Blocks. Asymmetries in EEG alpha activity were correlated with performance on these tasks. Similar patterns were obtained for delta and theta bands. Factor analyses of resting EEG asymmetries over particular regions suggested that asymmetries over anterior scalp regions may be partly independent from those over posterior scalp regions. These results support the notions that resting EEG asymmetries are specified by multiple mechanisms along the rostral/caudal plane, and that these asymmetries predict task performance in a manner consistent with lesion and neuroimaging studies.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

Age-related changes in brain: I. Magnetic resonance imaging measures of temporal lobe volumes in normal subjects.

The volume of temporal lobe structures was examined in twenty-seven older (mean age of 69.2 +/- 8.3 years) and ten younger subjects (mean age of 26.1 +/- 4.1 years) using quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods. Multiple regression analysis, using gender, overall atrophy, and head size as covariates, showed unique contributions of age to variance in both medial and lateral temporal lobe volumes. Temporal lobe subregions that showed the strongest unique age-related reductions were the hippocampus, fusiform gyrus, and parahippocampus. These results suggest age-related reductions in temporal lobe subvolumes.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

How and why do the two cerebral hemispheres interact?

Research on the anatomical bases of interhemispheric interaction, including individual differences in corpus callosum (CC) anatomy, is reviewed. These anatomical findings form the basis for the discussion of two major themes. The first considers interhemispheric transfer time (IHTT) and related issues. These include varieties of IHTT and possible directional asymmetries of IHTT. Evidence suggests that pathological variations in IHTT may have cognitive consequences. The second involves conditions under which interhemispheric interaction is necessary and beneficial. The data suggest that when both hemispheres have some competence at a difficult task, there is a benefit to interhemispheric interaction. The role of the CC in the dynamic distribution of attention may be particularly relevant to this advantage. Throughout the article reference is made to individual differences and developmental changes associated with interhemispheric interaction.

Animals↗

PubMed1988

Perceptual asymmetries in left- and right-handers for cartoon and real faces.

We examined 40 left-handers and 40 right-handers on two free-vision tests of face processing. A chimeric face composed of a smiling half-face joined to either a neutral half-face (real faces) or a sad half-face (cartoon faces) and its mirror image were presented on each trial. Subjects judged which chimeric face looked happier, the one with the smile to the left or the one with the smile to the right. Right-handers, but not left-handers, had a highly significant leftward attentional bias, since chimeras with the smile to the left were judged happier than those with the smile to the right. The cartoon- and real-face tasks did not differ in the mean perceptual asymmetries they elicited. However, correlations between attentional-asymmetry scores for the two tasks, although high for both left- and right-handers, were significantly smaller than task reliabilities. Thus, the cartoon- and real-face tasks overlap to a major extent in the lateralized processes they measure, but to a lesser extent, they also index different lateralized processes.

Adult↗