Biomedical subjects

Paul Broks

Publications and source records attributed to Paul Broks.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Investigation of social and emotion information processing in temporal lobe epilepsy with ictal fear.

This study examined whether patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and ictal fear (IF) show emotion recognition deficits similar to those associated with amygdala damage. Three groups of patients (13 with TLE and IF, 14 with TLE and nonfear auras (non-IF), and 10 with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE)) completed tests of visual and face processing, face emotion recognition and social judgment, together with measures of psychological adjustment (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; SCL-90-R) and Quality of Life (QOLIE-31). All three epilepsy groups had fear recognition deficits, with relatively greater impairments in the IF group. Fear recognition deficits were associated with impaired social judgment of trustworthiness, duration of epilepsy, and a measure of quality of life. Social cognition impairments previously associated with amygdala dysfunction are also a feature of the neuropsychology of TLE, and extend the hypothesis in that they may additionally play a role in IGE.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

A combined clinical, neuropsychological, and neuroanatomical study of adults with high functioning autism.

INTRODUCTION: Three hypotheses concerning associations between neuroanatomical abnormalities, neuropsychological impairments, and the behavioural manifestations of autism were investigated. The primary hypothesis was that the social interaction impairments diagnostic of autism are associated with deficits of socioemotional perception and abnormalities of the amygdala. One subsidiary hypothesis was that the learning and language impairments that occur in less able individuals with autism are associated with impaired memory, and with abnormalities of hippocampal regions. A second subsidiary hypothesis was that the repetitive behaviour diagnostic of autism is associated with executive deficits and with abnormalities of the prefrontal cortex. Associations between the neuroanatomical regions investigated were also examined. METHODS: Ten adult males with high functioning autism (HFA) were compared with 10 healthy controls matched for age, sex, verbal and nonverbal ability. Hypothesis-driven structural MRI and neuropsychological tests were used to collect neuroanatomical and neuropsychological data on all subjects. A version of the Wing Autism Diagnostic Interview Checklist was used to collect clinical data on the HFA subjects. RESULTS: Strong convergent evidence in support of the amygdala hypothesis was obtained, and preliminary support for the hippocampal/parahippocampal hypothesis. No clear evidence was obtained in support of the prefrontal hypothesis. Patterns of associations amongst volume measures within and between medial temporal and prefrontal regions suggest stronger within-region and weaker between-region associations in the HFA group compared with controls. CONCLUSIONS: These findings are discussed in terms of a model of autism in which selective abnormalities of the amygdala and hippocampus (in all cases) and of the parahippocampal gyrus (in lower functioning cases) are implicated, and in which a disruption of coordinated limbic and prefrontal activity may be critical.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2002

Searching for threat.

In a series of experiments, a visual search task was used to test the idea that biologically relevant threatening stimuli might be recognized very quickly or capture visuo-spatial attention. In Experiment 1, there was evidence for both faster detection and faster search rates for threatening animals than for plants. However, examination of the basis of this effect in Experiment 2 showed that it was not due to threat per se, as detection and search rate advantages were found for pleasant rather than threatening animals compared to plants. In Experiment 3, participants searched for the plants and pleasant and threatening animals used in Experiments 1 and 2, among a fixed heterogeneous selection of non-target items. There was no search rate or detection advantage for threatening animals compared to pleasant animals or plants. The same targets and non-targets as those used in Experiment 3 were also used in Experiment 4. In Experiment 4, participants searched for targets that were presented either close to or distant from an initial fixation point. There was no evidence for a "threat" detection advantage either close to or distant from the cross. Finally, an experiment was conducted in which target categories (fruit, flowers, and animals) were not pre-specified prior to each trial block. There were no differences in reaction times to detect pleasant animals, threatening animals, or fruit. We conclude that the visual search paradigm does not readily reveal any biases that might exist for threatening stimuli in the general population.

Female↗