Biomedical subjects

W W Beatty

Publications and source records attributed to W W Beatty.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

PubMed1993

Personality characteristics of men who physically abuse women.

OBJECTIVE: Studies have suggested that personality disorders may be common among men who habitually commit domestic violence. The study reported here attempted to characterize personality traits and psychological and cognitive characteristics of men who batter women in order to distinguish them from nonbattering men. METHODS: A group of 21 batterers were compared with a group of nonbatterers using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and its personality disorder scales (MMPIPDS) and the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire. Comparability of the two groups was assessed on several demographic variables and on scores on the Revised Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test, three cognitive measures, and three measures of affective disturbance. RESULTS: Batterers scored higher on only the borderline and antisocial MMPIPDS and on the acting-out hostility and self-criticism scales of the hostility questionnaire. Problem-solving skills for both of the groups were considerably poorer than published norms. No significant differences were found between the groups in age, race, education, socioeconomic status, alcohol abuse, performance on cognitive measures, depression scale scores, or overall scores on the MMPI. As children, batterers were more likely to have experienced physical or emotional abuse. CONCLUSIONS: Men who commit domestic violence may be found among a larger pool of men with poor problem-solving skills, but in addition they appear to have borderline-antisocial personality traits, certain types of hostility, and histories of abuse as children that may predispose them to become violent with their female companions.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Problem-solving deficits in alcoholics: evidence from the California Card Sorting Test.

In an attempt to clarify the nature of the problem-solving deficits exhibited by chronic alcoholics, the California Card Sorting Test (CCST) and other measures of abstraction and problem solving were administered to 23 alcoholics and 16 nonalcoholic controls, equated for age, education and vocabulary. On the CCST, the alcoholics exhibited three types of deficits which appeared to be relatively independent. First, the alcoholics generated and identified fewer correct concepts than controls, although they executed concepts normally when cued by the examiner. Second, the alcoholics made more perseverative sorting responses and perseverative verbal explanations for their sorting behavior than did controls. Third, alcoholics provided less complete verbal explanations of the concepts that they correctly generated or identified. The differential importance of these factors on various measures of problem solving may help to explain the varied patterns of inefficient problem solving exhibited by alcoholics.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Cognitive and emotional disturbances in multiple sclerosis.

The nature, prevalence, and course of cognitive and emotional disturbances in multiple sclerosis (MS) are described in this article. Mild to moderate cognitive impairment is common in MS and may be more incapacitating than physical symptoms for some patients. Although existing neurologic and neuroimaging procedures can detect some cognitively impaired patients, they lack sensitivity. Development of a brief neuropsychological screening battery, suitable for routine clinical use, is an important objective that may be achieved in the near future.

Cognition Disorders↗

PubMed1991

Metamemory in multiple sclerosis.

MS patients and age- and education-matched normal controls were administered several laboratory tests of metamemory and a questionnaire designed to measure subjects' capability to appraise their ability to remember events that might occur in everyday life. On laboratory tasks involving newly acquired information, MS patients with poor recognition memory abilities or poor performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) exhibited impairments on one test of metamemory; patients with deficits in both recognition and on the WCST showed more extensive impairments in metamemory. In contrast to their performance on tests involving newly acquired information, all groups of MS patients predicted their ability to recognize answers to general information questions that they could not recall as accurately as controls, and, like controls, they also searched their memories longer for answers to items that they believed they would recognize. In general, the results support the hypothesis that both trace-access and inferential mechanisms, which are thought to involve the prefrontal cortex, contribute to metamemory, but the nature of the memory task importantly influences the accuracy of metamemory, as well. Results from the questionnaire indicated that many MS patients with demonstrable memory deficits do not acknowledge their memory difficulties. Hence, patient self-reports about memory are likely to be unreliable sources of information for clinical purposes.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

The efficacy of azathioprine in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

We randomized 59 patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis to receive azathioprine (AZA) 3.0 mg/kg daily or placebo in a double-masked therapeutic trial. Analysis of data for predetermined primary outcome measures demonstrated a significant difference favoring AZA for observed mean exacerbation rate after 2 years of therapy and time to deterioration in both Ambulation Index and Kurtzke Expanded Disability Status Scale score. This study confirms a modest therapeutic benefit for azathioprine previously reported by other investigators.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1990

Screening for cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis. An evaluation of the Mini-Mental State Examination.

The usefulness of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) as a screening test for identifying cognitive impairment in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has been questioned because many patients who score above the suggested cutoff score of 24 exhibit severe focal or global cognitive deficits. We reevaluated the usefulness of the MMSE by studying 85 patients with clinically definite MS who also received an extensive battery of neuropsychological tests. Although scores on the MMSE were negatively correlated with the number of neuropsychological tests on which patients with MS displayed impairment, the MMSE was not sufficiently sensitive to identify precisely defined dementia in these patients. The MMSE was nonetheless a useful predictor of focal cognitive impairment, particularly in relapsing-remitting patients with relatively minor physical disabilities. Additional analyses suggested strategies for minor modifications of the MMSE that may improve its sensitivity and specificity for identifying dementia while preserving its major advantages as a screening examination: brevity and ease of administration and scoring.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Clinical and demographic predictors of cognitive performance in multiple sclerosis. Do diagnostic type, disease duration, and disability matter?

Patients with chronic progressive multiple sclerosis often perform more poorly on cognitive tasks than do patients with the relapsing-remitting form of this disease. Whether these differences reflect an independent influence of disease type on cognitive performance is uncertain. We used multiple regression techniques to determine how well performance on a number of tasks done poorly by groups of patients with multiple sclerosis could be predicted by disease type and its confounds: age, disease duration, and disability status as well as other demographic variables. Disease types were assigned longitudinally, based on serial neurological examinations at 6-month intervals over a minimum of 2 years. None of the demographic or clinical variables predicted cognitive performance with more than minimal accuracy. These findings fail to provide support for the assertion that disease type is an important independent determinant of cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Performance of children with ADHD on tests sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction.

The performances of 20 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were compared with those of 20 matched normal controls on a battery of neuropsychological tests. The ADHD children exhibited impaired function in reading comprehension, verbal learning and memory, and on the Information, Arithmetic, Digit Span, Block Design, and Coding subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, but they performed nearly normally on measures of verbal and design fluency and on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The hypothesis that disturbances in frontal lobe function related to impulse control may be responsible for the cognitive impairments observed in ADHD was not supported. Inability to control and direct attention appears to be more central to the pathophysiology of this disorder.

Attention↗

PubMed1989

Cognitive disturbances in patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis.

The performance of 42 patients with relapsing remitting (RR) multiple sclerosis was compared with that of 24 age-, education-, and gender-matched control subjects on a battery of neuropsychological tests known from previous studies to be sensitive to the impairments of patients with chronic progressive (CP) multiple sclerosis. Like CP patients, RR patients exhibited deficits on tests of information-processing speed, verbal fluency, and problem solving, and on recall measures of anterograde and remote memory. Although a few patients were mildly dysnomic, the RR patients were not generally impaired on visual confrontation naming and they did not exhibit perseverative responding on verbal fluency measures. The pattern of neuropsychological deficits exhibited by RR patients closely approximates the profile observed in other subcortical dementias and does not contain the features of cortical dementia evident in some CP patients. The impairment of RR patients on cognitive tests were less severe than those observed in CP patients in our previous studies. Differences in the age of patients in the CP and RR groups did not account for group differences in the severity of cognitive impairments, but differences in disease duration or severity of disability, as well as disease course, could explain why CP patients exhibit more serious cognitive disturbances than RR patients.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Frontal lobe dysfunction and memory impairment in patients with chronic progressive multiple sclerosis.

Deficits in semantic encoding have been described in patients with frontal lobe disease who also show memory impairments. As a group, patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) exhibit memory impairment, fail to make effective use of semantic encoding to aid memory, and perform poorly on verbal fluency and concept formation tests which are sensitive to frontal lobe damage. In the present study the semantic encoding capacity of MS patients was measured using a modification of Wicken's release from proactive interference (PI) paradigm. Individual patients varied considerably in the severity of their impairments on verbal fluency, verbal recognition memory and on Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, but even patients who evidenced both memory impairment and signs of frontal lobe dysfunction showed normal release from PI after a categorical shift. Memory disturbances in MS are unlikely to result from an incapacity for semantic encoding, which seems preserved in MS, but may arise instead from deficits in processing information rapidly.

Adult↗

PubMed1988

Anterograde and retrograde amnesia in patients with chronic progressive multiple sclerosis.

The performance of 38 patients with chronic progressive multiple sclerosis was compared with that of 26 age- and education-matched controls on a battery of tests of information-processing speed, verbal fluency, naming, egocentric perception, and anterograde and remote memory. Although there were marked differences in the extent and severity of cognitive disturbance among individual patients, as a group they were impaired compared with controls on all measures. Deficits were most striking on the Symbol-Digit Modalities Test and the verbal fluency measures, tests that require rapid information processing. More than 75% of the patients scored below the tenth percentile for controls on the Symbol-Digit Modalities Test, while 61% scored below the tenth percentile on verbal fluency. Memory disturbances were also common. More than 45% of the patients scored below the tenth percentile. The proportion of impaired patients was quite similar for anterograde and remote memory tests and for recall and recognition procedures. The pattern of memory disturbance and slowed information processing resembled deficits generally observed in subcortical dementias, such as Huntington's disease, but in addition, the patients with multiple sclerosis showed naming difficulties that are usually associated with cortical dementias, such as Alzheimer's disease.

Adult↗

PubMed1988

The Fargo Map Test: a standardized method for assessing remote memory for visuospatial information.

At present, there is no standardized method for assessing remote memory (RM) for visuospatial information in humans. The Fargo Map Test (FMT) uses knowledge of the locations of geographical features in regions of the country in which subjects currently live and formerly resided to provide a measure of this aspect of RM. Two different formats of the FMT have been developed, which differ in their demands for fine motor skill, ease of scoring, and in the amount and nature of geographical knowledge that can be measured. Preliminary findings suggest that both formats are equally sensitive to the influences of gender and age in normal subjects. Furthermore, knowledge of the geography of regions of prior residence appears to be stable over a period of at least 15 years.

Adult↗

PubMed1988

Remote memory in a patient with circumscribed amnesia.

It has been suggested that extensive and severe remote memory loss is not a component of a circumscribed amnesic syndrome but may be attributable to problem solving and retrieval deficiencies associated with the frontal lobe damage which is present in some amnesic patients. In order to assess this notion, retrograde amnesia was studied in a patient, W.H., who had no apparent cortical damage revealed by radiological examination, and who evidenced no major cognitive deficiency other than amnesia. Regardless of whether remote memory was measured by recall or recognition procedures, patient W.H. exhibited impaired memory for information from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, but was unimpaired in retrieving information from the 1940s and 1950s. These results demonstrate that retrograde amnesia can occur in patients who have a circumscribed memory deficit.

Amnesia↗

PubMed1988

Preserved topographical memory following right temporal lobectomy.

In an attempt to study remote memory for visuospatial information, geographical knowledge was examined in patient J.N., who had received a radical right temporal lobectomy to remove a large glioblastoma. In postoperative tests J.N. displayed severe deficits in anterograde memory for visuospatial and verbal material, visuoperceptual functions, constructions, attention, and response initiation. Despite her global cognitive deficiencies she performed normally on the WAIS Information Scale and the Fargo Map Test, a measure of geographical knowledge. In contrast, patients known to have severe amnesia exhibited impairments on tests of geographical knowledge that required precise localization of features such as cities. Assuming that J.N.'s performance is typical of patients with extensive damage to the right temporal lobe, the findings suggest that the integrity of the right temporal lobe is not essential for the retrieval of premorbidly established visuospatial memories.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

Procedural learning in a patient with amnesia due to hypoxia.

It has been claimed that procedural learning on a broad range of perceptuomotor and cognitive tasks is normal in amnesic patients whose severe deficits in acquiring declarative knowledge can be well documented. To evaluate the generality of this proposition we studied procedural learning on three different tasks in an amnesic patient who displayed no signs of intellectual deterioration including problem-solving difficulty. The patient showed normal improvement in learning to read transformed script and normal within-session improvement on a mirror-reading task. However, his retention of the mirror-reading skill from one day to the next was impaired, and he learned the Tower of Hanoi puzzle more slowly than normal. This patient's performance demonstrates that even amnesics without problem-solving difficulties do not perform normally on all tasks that are said to measure procedural learning. In the absence of a clear operational definition of procedural learning the usefulness of the concept remains heuristic.

Amnesia↗

PubMed1987

Remote memory in a patient with amnesia due to hypoxia.

It has been suggested that amnesic patients suffer a selective loss of episodic memory while semantic memory remains well preserved. To assess the validity of this idea we studied remote memory in an amnesic patient, (M.R.L.), using several different measures that differ in the extent to which they engage episodic or semantic memory. On two different versions of the Albert et al. (1979) remote memory battery M.R.L. displayed severe retrograde amnesia (RA) extending backwards in time for about 15 years with excellent preservation of older memories. With standard recall instructions his overall performance on the Crovitz test of autobiographical memory was impaired and all of M.R.L.'s specific, temporally dated memories were given from the first half of his life. When asked to reconstruct his past residential history in detail, M.R.L. provide specific and generally accurate information for residences occupied from his boyhood until 1970, but thereafter his memory became quite unreliable. On a test of knowledge of terms commonly employed in the surveying profession, in which he worked for the past 20 years, M.R.L.'s performance was also impaired. The consistent pattern of RA displayed by this patient on all of the tests of remote memory indicates that both episodic and semantic memory are impaired in amnesia.

Amnesia↗

PubMed1986

Blindness and play fighting in juvenile rats.

Play behavior of blinded and sighted juvenile rats was measured using the brief paired-encounter procedure. Dyads of sighted-sighted, blind-blind, or sighted-blind rats were observed in a large or small chamber on alternate days for ages 28 through 43 days. Blinded rats played as frequently as sighted rats regardless of pair composition or chamber size. Vision is not essential for initiating or maintaining play fighting.

Aggression↗

PubMed1986

Cholinergic agonists suppress play fighting in juvenile rats.

Previous research has suggested that acetylcholine might activate play fighting in juvenile rats through its actions on central muscarinic receptors. To test this hypothesis we evaluated the effects on play fighting by the muscarinic agonists pilocarpine and arecoline given alone or in combination with the muscarinic antagonists scopolamine or methylscopolamine. Scopolamine, but not methylscopolamine which penetrates the brain poorly, suppressed play as indexed by frequency of pinning. Pilocarpine and arecoline also suppressed pinning at higher doses. Concurrent treatment with various agonist-antagonist dose combinations produced additive rather than counteractive effects. These data do not support the supposition that central muscarinic circuits are involved in the activation of play fighting.

Aggression↗