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Biomedical subjects

Z Mehta

Publications and source records attributed to Z Mehta.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Selective loss of imagery in a case of visual agnosia.

Experiments were designed to examine the imagery abilities of an agnosic patient, M.S., who has consistently shown more severe deficits in recognizing visually, and in retrieving knowledge of living as compared with non-living items. Judgements of visual similarity were required for named objects and for object-pictures, as well as for the factual properties of these stimuli. The same disproportionate difficulty in processing living ('natural') objects was found in these tasks as well as in forced-choice recognition. In contrast, no deficit was found on analogous tasks concerned with word-shape similarities. These findings have a bearing on concepts of semantic memory.

Adult

A role for the left hemisphere in spatial processing.

This study extended our recently reported evidence of a left hemisphere (LH) contribution to spatial processing on standard visuospatial tasks. The present investigation compared performance on these standard tasks with that on 'purer' experimental tasks. Two tasks of line orientation, two of shape rotation and a shape matching task were administered to 50 men with stable unilateral post-Rolandic missile injuries and 32 control subjects. A LH deficit was found on the standard task of line orientation but not the 'purer' task, suggesting that the LH plays a role in eliminating extraneous information, presented only in the standard test. As for shape rotation, the LH group was impaired on both tasks. On the shape matching task, both experimental groups were significantly slower than control subjects. It is proposed the LH makes an important contribution to mental rotation and the understanding of Euclidean geometrical shapes.

Aged

Category-specificity and modality-specificity in semantic memory.

Studies of agnosia have revealed two apparently orthogonal dimensions along which knowledge may break down. In some cases, knowledge of specific categories (such as living things) seems lost, regardless of the modality being tested. In other cases, knowledge in specific modalities (such as vision) seems lost, regardless of the category of stimuli being tested. These different sets of phenomena suggest different organizations for knowledge in the brain, the first by category and the second by modality. Unfortunately, possible confoundings between category, modality, and difficulty level in the previous studies prevent us from drawing strong conclusions from these data. The present study was aimed at assessing the nature of the breakdown in the semantic memory of a prosopagnosic patient, by orthogonally varying category and modality, while assessing difficulty level. The findings do not implicate a simple categorical or modality-dependent organization of his knowledge, but rather an organization in which both category and modality play a role.

Adult

Brown-Séquard syndrome associated with posttraumatic cervical epidural hematoma: case report and review of the literature.

Post-traumatic cervical epidural hematoma is an uncommon entity. A case is presented in which such a lesion developed after chiropractic manipulation of the neck. The patient presented with a Brown-Séquard syndrome, which has only rarely been reported in association with cervical epidural hematoma. The correct diagnosis was obtained by computed tomographic scanning. Surgical evacuation of the hematoma was followed by full recovery.

Accidents, Traffic

A left hemisphere contribution to visuospatial processing.

Men with chronic, focal, unilateral missile injures of the brain--twenty-five with left hemisphere lesions (LH group) and twenty with right hemisphere lesions (RH groups)--and twenty-two control subjects were given two visuoperceptual and two visuospatial tests. The LH group was significantly impaired in relation to the control group on both the spatial tasks. A different pattern of dissociable perceptual and spatial deficits was found in the experimental groups: better preserved perceptual than spatial performance was observed more frequently in the LH group whereas the converse--relatively better spatial than perceptual performance--was more evident in the RH group. Double dissociations in performance on the two spatial tasks were found predominantly in the LH group. These findings suggest an important left hemisphere contribution to visuospatial processing and the possibility of a more focal representation of spatial abilities in the left hemisphere than in the right.

Aged