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Biomedical subjects

M Kinsbourne

Publications and source records attributed to M Kinsbourne.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

The effects of parental immunoreactivity on pregnancy, birth, and cognitive development: maternal immune attack on the fetus?

The effects of parental immunoreactivity were tested in two ways on questionnaire data collected from 468 children and their families. (1) It was found that the presence of learning difficulties in boys was associated with pregnancy and birth complications, as well as with maternal immunoreactivity. Paternal immunoreactivity did not appear to be related to any of the variables in question. (2) The antecedent brother effect, that children, particularly males, with older brothers have higher rates of the same set of variables, was not found. Maternal immunoreactivity emerges as a risk factor for pregnancy, birth, and cognitive development, but not exclusively by the proposed mechanism of maternal immune attack on the fetus.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

A neurobehavioral syndrome after failure to thrive on chloride-deficient formula.

Eleven of 13 children, who demonstrated a failure-to-thrive pattern in infancy attributable to chloride-deficient Neo-Mull-Soy formula, had distinctive cognitive impairments four to nine years later. These included: a language disorder primarily involving articulation, word finding and naming; visual-motor and fine motor difficulties; and attention deficit disorder, often featuring repetitive behaviours, withdrawal and perseveration ('overfocus'). In contrast, global intellectual abilities were within the normal range in all 11 children. This residual neurobehavioral syndrome is too rare in the developmentally disabled population to reflect a chance association. It has not been associated either with protein-calorie malnutrition or chloride-deficiency diseases.

Body Height↗
PubMed1991

Neuropsychological deficits in adults with dyslexia.

Adults with severe dyslexia were compared with age-, sex-, IQ- and SES-matched controls on a neuropsychological and neuromotor test battery, and a contrast group who had recovered from dyslexia was also included. The severely dyslexic group was substantially impaired on tests of verbal fluency and learning, as well as on non-verbal temporal order judgements. These test scores were strong predictors of the degree of reading impairment, as was the rate of repetitive movement of the right hand and foot. The results suggest that adult dyslexia is not 'isolated', but is one expression of a widespread left-hemisphere dysfunction.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Asymmetrical transfer of braille acquisition between hands.

Two experiments are presented which demonstrate asymmetrical transfer for tactual recognition of individual braille letters in sighted subjects, a task usually associated with right hemisphere specialization. Right-handers were studied in Experiment 1, left- and right-handers in Experiment 2. Poor transfer of training from the right hand to the left hand was observed for right-handed subjects in both experiments. The same was true for one group of left-handers (who wrote with the "inverted" position). For another group (who wrote with the "noninverted" position), no disadvantage was associated with opposite-hand training for either hand. The role of hemispheric specialization of function in determining the direction of greater transfer is discussed, and it is argued that handwriting posture may be an index of the degree of functional "connectedness" of the two hemispheres in left-handers.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Workshop on neurologic complications of pertussis and pertussis vaccination.

A multidisciplinary workshop held from September 29 to October 1, 1989, at Airlie House, Warrenton, Virginia, considered the neurologic complications of whooping cough and pertussis vaccine. Pertussis mortality in the U.S. in 2-3/1000 cases. Seizures occur in 1.9% of cases, and encephalopathy in 0.3%. Reviewing all data, it appears likely that a combination of one or more bacterial toxins, asphyxia, CO2 retention and loss of cerebral vascular autoregulation is responsible for neurologic symptoms. The timing of the encephalopathy suggests that it results from increased lysis of bacteria, and release of endotoxin. The encephalopathy is not confined to the paroxysmal phase. In evaluating side-reactions to the vaccine, the following must be kept in mind: 1. Vaccines are not standardized between manufacturers. 2. For a given manufacturer, vaccines are not standard from one batch to the next. 3. Unless the vaccine is properly prepared and refrigerated, its potency and reactivity varies with shelf life. In fact, the whole question of vaccine detoxification has never been systematically investigated. Listed in order of increasing severity, observed adverse reactions include irritability, persistent, unusually high pitched crying, somnolence, seizures, a shock-like "hypotensive, hyporesponsive" state, and an encephalopathy. Since the neurologic picture is not specific for pertussis vaccination, its temporal relationship to the vaccination is the critical variable for determining causation. Although the majority of seizures following pertussis vaccination are associated with fever, it was the consensus of the neurologists attending the workshop, that these do not represent febrile convulsions, but are non-benign convulsions. The incidence of post-vaccine encephalopathy is difficult to ascertain.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis Vaccine↗
PubMed1990

Subvocal activity and auditory hallucinations: clues for behavioral treatments?

Several investigators have suggested that schizophrenic patients may show an increase in subvocal speech (as measured by electromyographic [EMG] activity) during auditory hallucinations (AH), and that the subvocal activity might be antecedent to the hallucinatory experience. The possible relationship between AH and subvocal activity guided the present approach to studying behavioral interventions for AH. Duration of AH and EMG activity were recorded from 20 frequently hallucinating schizophrenic patients under baseline and experimental conditions. Three conditions were designed to interfere with activity of the speech musculature and two were imposed as controls. The data concerning the temporal relationship between EMG activity and self-report of hallucinations were inconclusive. However, one of the experimental conditions (humming a single note softly) reduced the self-report of hallucinations by 59 percent. This condition also increased EMG amplitude over baseline levels. Possible explanations for the effect of humming on hallucinations are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Effects of methylphenidate (Ritalin) on selective attention in hyperactive children.

This study investigated the effect of methylphenidate (Ritalin) on the selective attention of hyperactive children designated as favorable or adverse responders to stimulant medication. Using a type II incidental learning paradigm, it was found that children in the drug condition recalled more central and less incidental stimuli than those children in the placebo condition. While no differential effects on recall were found for responder type, methylphenidate did affect the spontaneous overt labeling of central stimuli by the favorable responder group. Results were interpreted in terms of the role of methylphenidate in narrowing the focus of attention. Implications for the classification of hyperactive children as favorable and adverse responders were also discussed.

Attention↗
PubMed1978

Differences in reaction times and average evoked potentials as a function of direct and indirect neural pathways.

Average evoked potentials and manula response latencies were collected during a simple detection task in which brief visual stimuli were presented to the left and right visual fields. Latencies generated by the ipsilateral stimulus-hand combinations were shorter than contralateral combinations only under certain conditions, impugning the hypothesis that the reaction time difference reflects interhemispheric transfer time. Certain evoked potential components recorded contralateral to the stimulus occurred earlier than their ipsilateral counterparts, but whether this difference can be interpreted as representing interhemispheric transfer time is also questioned.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Reaction times and evoked potentials as indicators of hemispheric differences for laterally presented name and physical matches.

Letter pairs, which could be name matches, physical matches, or mismatches, were presented at fixation or 2.5 degrees left or right of fixation. During different experimental sessions, the locations and the types of matches were fixed (and therefore known in advance by the subject) or were randomized. Right visual field superiority in reaction time occurred for name matches only when location was randomized, and then the extent of the superiority depended on whether the types of match called for were predictable. Evoked potentials to the letter pairs during this task revealed hemispheric and neural pathway differences that were independent of expectancy condition. Right hemisphere responses were larger than left. For some components, amplitudes were smaller and latencies were shorter for direct than for indirect projection of stimuli to each cerebral hemisphere. Indirect-direct differences in P300 amplitude varied for each cerebral hemisphere according to whether a physical or name match occurred. The P130 and N170 components manifested hemispheric differences that depended on whether the two letters of a pair were in the same or different cases.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Time-response analysis of the effect of stimulant medication on the learning ability of children referred for hyperactivity.

This report introduces a method for obtaining behavioral time-response information for a short-acting psychotropic drug (methylphenidate [Ritalin]) that is widely used to treat behaviorally hyperactive children. We used a laboratory learning task to document that between one and two hours after the administration of a single dose of methylphenidate, the drug exerts its maximum effect on performance in a learning task in the laboratory. This effect on cognitive performance dissipates within the same day. This rapid and transient effect of methylphenidate makes it possible to classify patients in a single day into those who respond favorably and those who respond adversely to the drug in terms of its effect on cognitive behavior.

Association Learning↗
PubMed1977

Hyperactive children's underuse of learning time: correction by stimulant treatment.

This study investigates the effects of methylphenidate (Ritalin) on hyperactive children's performance on a paired-associate learning task under 3 presentation rates (4, 8, and 12 sec per item). The total-time hypothesis states that a fixed amount of time is necessary to learn a fixed amount of material, regardless of the number of trials into which that time is divided. In a double-blind crossover design, the total-time hypothesis was supported by performance in a drug state, but not by performance in a placebo state, where slower presentation rates were not utilized effectively. These results are discussed in terms of inattention in the placebo state and improved attention and use of learning time in the drug state. The methodology presented is suggested as a means of assessing attentional deficits as well as providing a diagnostic procedure for objectively evaluating the appropriateness of stimulant treatment for children referred for symptoms of hyperactivity.

Adolescent↗