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R Espert

Publications and source records attributed to R Espert.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2003

Salivary testosterone is related to both handedness and degree of linguistic lateralization in normal women.

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that individual differences in testosterone (T) are associated with different patterns of linguistic lateralization and hand preference. Twenty left-handed (LH) and 19 right-handed (RH) women filled in a handedness questionnaire and performed a consonant-vowel dichotic listening test (DL-CV). Salivary T was measured by radioimmunoassay (RIA). LH women showed significantly lower mean salivary T than RH women. T levels were negatively correlated with the absolute value of the DL laterality index. Subjects with right ear advantage (REA) were classified into strongly and weakly lateralized following Wexler et al. method (Brain Lang. 13 (1981) 13). When taking into account hand preference, a pattern emerged in that RH-strongly lateralized and LH-weakly lateralized women showed similar T levels. The lowest level appeared for LH-strongly lateralized women and the highest for RH-weakly lateralized women, being significantly different from each other. The results are discussed in terms of several theories that have proposed a link between testosterone and cerebral lateralization.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Test-retest performance for the consonant-vowel dichotic listening test with and without attentional manipulations.

The present work aimed to replicate Hugdahl and Hammar's (1997) study on the reliability of dichotic listening under divided or focused attention conditions. With the same consonant-vowel syllable dichotic listening procedure, 16 subjects were tested twice, 2 weeks apart. The design included a condition without attentional instructions (nonforced) and two conditions with the instruction to attend either to the right- or the left-ear input. The results showed a significant correlation coefficient of.82 for the standard nonforced condition, indicating temporal stability for the ear advantages. There were also high correlation coefficients for the focused attention conditions (.77 and.76), although the subjects performed the attentional instructions more accurately in session two.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Dichotic listening: elimination of the right ear advantage under a dual task procedure.

The aim of this article is to investigate the attentional effect on the dichotic listening (DL) performance when doing a simultaneous right hemisphere task. A group of 30 right-handed male participants had a standard DL test followed by a dual task procedure that consisted of a manipulospatial discrimination through the left hand and performed while doing the DL test. Participants showed the typical right ear advantage (REA), which lost its significance when they were confronted with the dual task, presumably due to the manipulospatial performance. The elimination of the REA was mainly due to facilitation of the left ear responses. Results are discussed in terms of Kinsbourne's model and other paradigms of attentional effects on dichotic listening performance.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1997

[Neuropsychological deterioration in Huntington's disease].

INTRODUCTION: Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative illness, autosomal dominantly inherited, that produces characteristic involuntary muscle movements (chorea) with cognitive abnormalities and personality. DEVELOPMENT: Neuropathological studies report premature cell death principally affecting the basal ganglia. The disease most commonly begins in the fourth or fifth decade of life, although in some cases, abnormalities have been documented in early childhood and as late as 50 years of age. Early cognitive deterioration in HD is not uniform, and patients with recently diagnosed HD may evidence selective deficits in learning and visuospatial/visuomotor ability, along with a relatively consistent pattern of impairment on subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). Neuroimaging reports of basal ganglia function have described striatal abnormality in HD and related with neuropsychological impairment. CONCLUSIONS: This paper provides the clinical-phenomenologic definition of the neuropsychological impairment and its associated features related with its neuropathological significance and to review the subject in the light of present day reports.

Aged↗
PubMed1996

[Schizophrenia: a psychobiological view].

Schizophrenia is a serious psychiatric illness which is responsible for a substantial proportion of mental illness worldwide. Symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, thought disorders (related with deficits of attention, memory and executive functions) and negative symptoms like poverty of thought and emotion, and social withdrawal. For most of this century the causes of schizophrenia have been largely unknown. However, the application of new techniques in genetics, structural and functional neuroimaging, psychopharmacology, epidemiology and neurochemical are beginning to disclose the aetiology of the disorder. Recent neurochemical data show that dysfunction of central dopamine systems may mediate symptoms in schizophrenia. Traditional antipsychotics are antagonists of dopamine D2-receptors, but some of the new atypical antipsychotics appear to have different action and drugs that interact with newly discovered dopamine and neuropeptides receptor subtypes of dopamine and neuropeptides are under investigation. In this sense, we review recent findings about interactions between opioid and dopaminergic systems with a special attention directed to cortical-striate-thalamic loops that could give new data about the aetiology and treatment of this serious mental illness. Finally, cognitive and attentional deficits in animal models of schizophrenia are reviewed.

Antipsychotic Agents↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Dementias: current situation and future perspectives].

In this paper, the first one in a series of three complementary papers on dementias, we introduce the concept and evaluate the methods for diagnostic and the data provided by modern epidemiology. The current clinic criteria for the diagnosis of dementias are based on international instructions such as those included in the DSM-III-R (1987), and the ICD-10 (1992), and the criteria developed by the NINCDS-ADRDA or the CERAD. Such a disparity makes even more difficult the transcultural reliability of epidemiological information. The differentiation with pseudodementias, being the depressive one the most frequent of them (75%), the inclusion of the denominated dementia-AIDS complex, or those dementias related with the alcoholic illness have special relevance. In Europe the more solid studies proceed from the EURODEM group, and their results are consistent with the North American and Asiatic ones, pointing all of them out an exponential growing of dementia with age, which is very similar in the different continents. The risk factors for the Alzheimer's disease and other dementias are discussed and contrasted with the contributions of the different reliable documental sources existing.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Dementias: present situation and future perspectives (II). Biological markers].

In the previous paper, the first one in our trilogy about dementias, we introduce the concept and evaluate the diagnostic methods and the data provided by epidemiological investigation. In this paper we review the different biological diagnostic markers, based, in the first place, on the studies of neuroimage (computerized axial tomography, magnetic resonance, functional neuroimage techniques) and those properly neurophysiological; in the second place, the anatomopathological and physiopathological markers are examined; and, in the third place, those based on the modern genetic investigations. In the absence of an 'univocal biological marker', the current investigation about markers is on the way to the study of abnormal proteins discovered in the brain, of the modifications detected in the cellular metabolism, of the manifestations of the immunologic mechanisms and of the involved inflammatory processes, and is on the way to the advances and proximate perspectives of molecular genetics and animal models. Meanwhile, the diagnostic for the main dementia, due to Alzheimer's disease, is basically a clinic, exclusive and residual one, mainly in its initial stadium.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Dementias: present situation and future perspectives (III). Neurological, therapeutic, psychosocial aspects and patient care].

The lack of univocal diagnostic biological markers which are easily reproducible, highly specific and sensitive has propitiated the apparition of a conjunct of neuropsychological instruments for the detection and evaluation of dementias. The main markers are reviewed in this paper, the third of three papers dedicated to dementias by the authors. Also in the absence of a unic effective treatment for the Alzheimer's disease (AD), the potential pharmacological approaches pass through the design of methodologically correct trials which have to combine several drugs with palliative therapies in order to attempt to stop or delay the disturbance course. All that, in addition to the quick progresses obtained in genetics, in the neuronal transplants, in the administration of neurotrophical factors, in monogangliosides, in the intervention on the production of the beta-amyloid protein or in the excitatory amino acid toxicity prevention make it possible to conceive realistic hopes on the discovery of a future effective therapy for the AD. On the other hand, a helpful surrounding for the patient suffering from dementia should adequately contemplate his security, stability, stimulation, freedom of movement and, also, the necessary environmental treatment. Creating units and residences specialized in dementias, home assistance aids, day centres, self-help groups, patients' family associations, the effective presence of social services which evaluate, give advice and guide behaviorally, and the creation of group aid programs for caretakers are necessary elements to improve the life quality of dementia patients and their families.

Alzheimer Disease↗