Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to X Perrot.
Diagnosis of an intracerebral mass requires a good collaboration between clinicians and pathologists. Different techniques may be necessary. The interest of cytological preparations and immunohistochemistry is reported. The main characteristic features of cerebral tumors are described and the differential diagnosis with reactive and inflammatory masses simulating neoplasia is discussed.
The auditory sensory end organ is under the control of the central nervous system via efferent projections. Contralateral suppression of otoacoustic emissions (acoustic signatures of the cochlear biomechanical activity) provides a non-invasive approach to assess olivocochlear efferent activity in humans. Using this approach, the present study compared professional musicians with musically-inexperienced subjects. The results revealed stronger bilateral cochlear suppression, suggesting larger efferent influences in both ears, in musicians. Furthermore, in indicating no difference in left/right asymmetry of efferent-mediated suppression between the two groups, the present findings suggest that the observed differences in olivocochlear activity reflect bilaterally-enhanced activity of the cortical auditory structures in musicians rather than differences in cerebral hemispheric asymmetry between the two groups.
Neuropsychological studies have demonstrated that language perception is lateralized at the hemispheric level. There is also much evidence for a peripheral lateralization of the auditory system in humans. Spontaneous otoacoustic emissions are more frequent in the right than in the left ear. The medial olivo-cochlear system is also more functional in the right than in the left ear in normal subjects. The study of specific samples shows that this asymmetry is found in professional musicians which have more functional efferent system in both ears. A link is hypothesized between peripheral and central laterality because of a dysfunctional peripheral asymmetry in pathological cases which show hemispheric lateralization disorders. Consequences of those pathological data will be discussed.
The present study aimed to confirm and extend the finding, suggested by the results of a previous study, of different auditory neural efferent functioning in musicians compared with non-musicians. The activity of the medial olivocochlear bundle (MOCB), an auditory efferent subsystem, was measured through the contralaterally induced attenuation of the amplitude of evoked otoacoustic emissions (EOAEs) in two groups, one of musicians and one of non-musicians, paired for age and sex. The results indicated a statistically significant difference between the two groups, with the musicians showing greater amplitude reduction upon contralateral noise stimulation than non-musicians (U-test, U = 204, p < 0.025, n = 32). These results indicate greater MOCB activity in musicians than in non-musicians. The possible origins and implications of this finding are discussed.
Recent physiological data in animals suggest a role of the medial olivocochlear system (MOCS) in auditory intensity discrimination in noise. In this study, the existence of statistical relationships between intensity difference limens (IDLs) and MOCS functioning was tested in humans. IDLs were measured in conditions of quiet and of ipsilateral, contralateral, and dichotic noise. MOCS functioning was assessed through the contralateral evoked otoacoustic emission (EOAE) amplitude attenuation effect. A first finding was that IDLs measured in the presence of ipsilateral noise were reduced when contralateral noise was added. Furthermore, the observed shift in IDL appeared to be significantly correlated to the contralateral EOAE amplitude attenuation effect. These results support the hypothesis that MOCS functioning plays a role in intensity discrimination in dichotic noise in humans.