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Biomedical subjects

M Wogan

Publications and source records attributed to M Wogan.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1981

Lateralized differences associated with semantically varied auditory material.

EEGs were recorded from 13 subjects while they listened to four tape-recorded passages differing in semantic content. The distribution of alpha band power over the two hemispheres, measured at T3/T4, was found to show significant task-dependent shifts. More reality-oriented passages tended to be processed with greater left-hemisphere involvement, while "pleasurable" material showed significant right-hemisphere involvement. Since the differences in laterality were not related to grammatical measures of linguistic complexity, the apparent shifts were attributed to semantic differences between the tasks. Explanation of the results is made in terms of a theory of the metacontrol of cerebral processing.

Dominance, Cerebral↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Management of pain through cerebral activation. An experimental analogue of alexithymia.

The present experiment was designed to explore the relationship between pain, language and cerebral functioning in normal subjects, as an analogue to alexithymia. Left hemisphere cerebral activation, as measured by an EEG-alpha ratio score, was found to be associated with a reported increase in painful sensation during painful stimulation. Right hemisphere activation was found to be associated with a decrease in reported pain. The results were interpreted in terms of the mobilization of fantasy processes, following experimental instructions, which seem to be mediated by right hemisphere activation. Uninstructed subjects, lacking a stable visualization, utilize a left-hemisphere, verbal mode to cope with the pain. It is suggested that left-hemisphere mobilization, and a lack of right-hemisphere processing of painful stimulation may be in part responsible for the alexithymic patients' psychosomatic symptoms.

Brain↗