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Biomedical subjects

N Dadmehr

Publications and source records attributed to N Dadmehr.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Is there a premorbid personality typical for Parkinson's disease?

For decades clinicians have postulated a characteristic preexisting personality in patients who develop Parkinson's disease (PD). They are described as moralistic, law-abiding, conscientious, and averse to risk-taking. The limited personality surveys tend to be confirmatory, but most of the literature is anecdotal or replete with unprovable psychodynamic postulates. In addition to an apparent stability of marriages and lack of alcoholism, patients with PD are less likely than controls to be smokers. It has been suggested that nicotine and its byproducts are not actually protective against PD, and it could be postulated that higher-than-average intrinsic dopamine may facilitate addiction. Smoking for the patient who is later to develop PD may be particularly unrewarding. In addition, the postulated personality for PD may predispose to hard work, perspiration, and increased exposure to putative trace elements in the water supply.

Affect↗
PubMed1987

Evoked potentials and EEG in multiple sclerosis.

Thirteen patients with clinically definite multiple sclerosis (MS) were studied with electroencephalogram (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), evoked potentials and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis. We attempted to correlate the findings with physical disability as defined by Kurtzke score and presence of dementia or seizures. More severe plaque disease on MRI and increased physical disability correlated significantly with abnormality on brain-stem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) while visual evoked potential (VEP) abnormality correlated only with MRI findings. No such correlation was found with the EEG. The close relationship between BAEP and MRI abnormalities probably reflects frequent involvement of brain-stem corticospinal pathways.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Disturbed sleep and somatic complaints.

We investigated sleep patterns in 20 patients with multiple vague but persistent somatic complaints, not due to any identifiable medical or neurologic disorder, and in whom psychiatric consultations had failed to identify a psychiatric diagnosis. Afternoon naps were recorded in 20 patients and in 10 controls without medical or psychiatric problems. Three-hour postprandial nap recordings were made of submental electromyogram, electrooculogram, and EEG with drowsiness, stages 1-4 NREM, and REM sleep, sleep latency (minutes), sleep efficiency (percent), and number of arousals with return of alpha activity compared in patients and controls by one-tailed t-test. No stage IV or REM sleep occurred in naps. Patients with multiple somatic complaints had less stage III and stage II sleep, and more wakefulness. Arousals were more frequent in the patient group; sleep latency was shorter but sleep efficiency was reduced in patients with multiple somatic complaints compared with controls. The findings suggest that patients with multiple somatic complaints not otherwise explicable by medical or psychiatric problems may have disturbed sleep, improvement of which may ameliorate somatic complaints. Sleep histories should be elicited in such patients, and sleep recordings may be of value in their evaluation; afternoon naps may be a cost-effective way of screening for remediable sleep disturbances in patients with persistent physical complaints of undeterminable cause.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Sleep and waking disturbances in epilepsy.

We compared sleep parameters during three-hour postprandial nap recordings in 10 normal controls and 28 seizure patients. Patients had significantly less sleep, longer sleep latency, more wakefulness, less drowsiness and lighter nonREM sleep, and lower sleep efficiency than controls. Generalized seizure patients had longer sleep latency, more arousals, and more (but very little) stage III sleep. Those with partial seizures had more stage II sleep and greater sleep efficiency. Patients on polypharmacy and phenobarbital therapy slept more, phenytoin patients had very short sleep latency but more wakefulness and less sleep efficiency; those taking clonazepam were also awake more and had lower sleep efficiency, while arousals during sleep were more frequent in patients on valproate and carbamazepine. The findings suggest that disturbed sleep, possibly related to aberrant arousal occasioned by generalized epilepsy or epileptogenic foci, is common in seizure patients, and may be related to interictal behavioral and cognitive symptoms. Polypharmacy may have an additive effect on sleep to prolong and disrupt it, while sedative anti-epileptic drugs may increase sleep and other anti-epileptic medications may have alerting effects or interfere with falling asleep. Generalized and partial seizure patients may have sleep disturbances of a different character, possibly reflecting generally altered cerebral excitability by afferent stimuli in the former situation, and the more localized effects of limbic or cortical hyperactivity in the latter.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Spindle coma in viral encephalitis.

Our patient's EEG evolved from the spindle coma pattern to normality in parallel with his clinical improvement. This clinical and EEG evolution has been described previously, and emphasizes the heterogeneity of the spindle pattern. The initial focal asymmetry implied focal cerebral abnormality, and was one of the clinical findings favoring HSV encephalitis in the absence of radiologic or pathologic support. The ability of partially-damaged cerebral cortex to express spindle activity is well-described with various cerebral lesions, as is the spindle coma pattern after intoxication. We are not aware of a previous report with HSV or other encephalitis, but an infectious etiology could be suspected in two patients of Hansotia et al. and is conceivable in the three comatose patients of Britt in whom no diagnosis could be established. In such cases, the pathophysiology of the spindle coma pattern is likely to involve an aberrant cortical response to normal reticular formation input and thalamic spindle pacemakers.

Adolescent↗