Significance of the EEG for the prognosis of therapy in adult epileptic patients

The importance of EEG findings regarding prognosis of therapy and relapses of epilepsies is controversally discussed in the literature. On the basis of 495 patients being in attendance for many years there were some important indications for prognosis, for instance 59 percent of the patients with normal EEG at all times during the cours attained freedom from seizures for at least five years. The best possibilities for differentiation followed from EEG features during medication, especially from degree od disturbances of background activity. Only 13 percent of patients with more than slight disturbances in resting EEG remained seizure free for a long time. Also as a distinctly unfavourable sign proved the combination of generalized and focal epileptiform pattern.     

The impact of left and right intracranial tumors on picture and word recognition memory

This study investigated the effects of left and right intracranial tumors on picture and word recognition memory. We hypothesized that left hemispheric (LH) patients would exhibit greater word recognition memory impairment than right hemispheric (RH) patients, with no significant hemispheric group picture recognition memory differences. The LH patient group obtained a significantly slower mean picture recognition reaction time than the RH group. The LH group had a higher proportion of tumors extending into the temporal lobes, possibly accounting for their greater pictorial processing impairments. Dual coding and enhanced visual imagery may have contributed to the patient groups' similar performance on the remainder of the measures.     

Changes of visual fields in intracranial tumors outside the cerebral hemispheres]

Based on neurosurgical material of 1,746 brain tumours, the changes of the visual field determined by isopteric perimetry are discussed with their significe with regard to tumours of corpus callosum, lateral ventricles, brain stem ganglia, IIIrd ventricle, region of the sella and adjacent areas as well as posterior fossa. The proportion of unilateral blindness with primary opticus atrophy and of skotomas is strinkingly high, so that in cases of loss of vision, not readily explicable by ophthalmology, as well as in unilateral defects of the visual field, intracranial processes must be thought of.     

Quality monitoring for early hearing detection and intervention programs to optimize performance

The purpose of this chapter is to review the principles of quality monitoring for newborn screening programs at both a hospital and a public health level. The focus is on quality assurance in Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI). The chapter addresses the need for a systems approach to quality, beginning with the birth screening, moving to follow-up re-screening and on to confirmatory evaluations and life-long intervention and management for the infants identified with permanent hearing loss. Benchmarks are identified to assist those involved in establishing programs or in improving program performance. As the use of electronic information systems in EHDI becomes widespread, the importance of strict computer-based logic rules to assure patient privacy is addressed.     

Early child care and early child development: Major findings of the NICHD study of early child care

The changing landscape of maternal employment in the USA has led to more and more children at younger and younger ages experiencing routine, non-maternal care. Great debate about the effects of day care beginning very early in life led to the launch of a major study in the USA, following more than 1000 children from birth. Study findings through the start of school are summarized. These highlight the fact that good quality child care and exposure to centre-based care predict somewhat advanced cognitive-linguistic functioning, but that lots of time spent in any kind of care (irrespective of its quality) and greater exposure to centre-based care are related to elevated—but not clinical—levels of externalizing problem behaviour. Clearly, risks and benefits are associated with early child care, at least as routinely experienced in the USA. It is critically important to distinguish distinctive aspects of the child-care experience (i.e., quality, quantity, type) in order to understand its complex effect on child development.     

A novel machine learning approach for early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Liver cancer is quite common type of cancer among individuals worldwide. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the malignancy of liver cancer. It has high impact on individual’s life and investigating it early can decline the number of annual deaths. This study proposes a new machine learning approach to detect HCC using 165 patients. Ten well-known machine learning algorithms are employed. In the preprocessing step, the normalization approach is used. The genetic algorithm coupled with stratified 5-fold cross-validation method is applied twice, first for parameter optimization and then for feature selection. In this work, support vector machine (SVM) (type C-SVC) with new 2level genetic optimizer (genetic training) and feature selection yielded the highest accuracy and F₁-Score of 0.8849 and 0.8762 respectively. Our proposed model can be used to test the performance with huge database and aid the clinicians.     

Speechreading and the Bruce-Young model of face recognition: early findings and recent developments

In the context of face processing, the skill of processing speech from faces (speechreading) occupies a unique cognitive and neuropsychological niche. Neuropsychological dissociations in two cases (Campbell et al., 1986) suggested a very clear pattern: speechreading, but not face recognition, can be impaired by left-hemisphere damage, while face-recognition impairment consequent to right-hemisphere damage leaves speechreading unaffected. However, this story soon proved too simple, while neuroimaging techniques started to reveal further more detailed patterns. These patterns, moreover, were readily accommodated within the Bruce and Young (1986) model. Speechreading requires structural encoding of faces as faces, but further analysis of visible speech is supported by a network comprising several lateral temporal regions and inferior frontal regions. Posterior superior temporal regions play a significant role in speechreading natural speech, including audiovisual binding in hearing people. In deaf people, similar regions and circuits are implicated. While these detailed developments were not predicted by Bruce and Young, nevertheless, their model has stood the test of time, affording a structural framework for exploring speechreading in terms of face processing.     

Existential and psychopathological evaluation of group psychotherapy of neurotic and psychotic patients

General problems in researching group psychotherapy are reviewed, especially for those with similar theoretical and methodological approaches. The sample consisted of 100 subjects, 26 of whom were neurotic and 24 of whom were psychotic. They were treated in small groups, headed by the author (the experimental group). An equal number and the same categories of patient attended control psychiatric sessions (the control group). All subjects were tested twice. With three instruments: the semantic differential (with twelve existential categories, five general therapy, and three ego psychology categories), the Kotchen test, and MMPI (midiform). A discriminative analysis of tests and the repeated test data, statistically significant, revealed experiential changes in existential categories, such as "Freedom," "Sex," and "Love" amongst psychotics; and in the case of both psychotic and neurotic patients, treated in groups and compared with the controls, such categories as "Understanding among people." With the help of MMPI, a statistically significant reduction of hysteria in neurotic subjects was established, as well as the preventive effects of group psychotherapy regarding the emergence of psychopathy in psychotic patients. Correlation calculations indicated a greater discrimination in the perception of changes using existential categories in the experiencing of psychotic and depressive patients. Finally, the results obtained are discussed from the viewpoints of clinical experience, results obtained in similar research studies, and unanswered questions resulting from such research.     

Neuropsychological executive functioning in children at elevated risk for alcoholism: findings in early adolescence

One component of individual risk for alcoholism may involve cognitive vulnerabilities prodromal to alcoholism onset. This prospective study of 198 boys followed between 3 and 14 years of age evaluated neurocognitive functioning across three groups who varied in familial risk for future alcoholism. Measures of intelligence, reward-response, and a battery of neuropsychological executive and cognitive inhibitory measures were used. Executive functioning weaknesses were greater in families with alcoholism but no antisocial comorbidity. IQ and reward-response weaknesses were associated with familial antisocial alcoholism. Executive function effects were clearest for response inhibition, response speed, and symbol-digit modalities. Results suggest that executive deficits are not part of the highest risk, antisocial pathway to alcoholism but that some executive function weaknesses may contribute to a secondary risk pathway.     

Positive emotions in early life and longevity: findings from the nun study

Handwritten autobiographies from 180 Catholic nuns, composed when participants were a mean age of 22 years, were scored for emotional content and related to survival during ages 75 to 95. A strong inverse association was found between positive emotional content in these writings and risk of mortality in late life (p < .001). As the quartile ranking of positive emotion in early life increased, there was a stepwise decrease in risk of mortality resulting in a 2.5-fold difference between the lowest and highest quartiles. Positive emotional content in early-life autobiographies was strongly associated with longevity 6 decades later. Underlying mechanisms of balanced emotional states are discussed.     

Correlation between clinical and paraclinical findings in brain tumors in comparison with the operation site

On the basis of clinical material consisting of 147 brain tumors, the authors carry out a comparative investigation involving the site of the ensuing operation to ascertain the accuracy of the clinical and paraclinical diagnoses. Computed tomographic findings were deliberately excluded with the intention of focusing on the accuracy attainable by traditional means. Clinical findings, X-ray examination of the skull, ophthalmological findings, electroencephalographic and echoencephalographic data, nuclear diagnosis, and angiographic findings were all taken into account.     

Performance-based measures in autism: implications for diagnosis, early detection, and identification of cognitive profiles

Provides a critical review of performance-based assessment measures in autism. Currently, performance-based measures of autism are being explored in two domains: structured play sessions and cognitive-neuropsychological assessments. Structured play sessions are designed to elicit the behavioral symptoms associated with autism to provide a consistent and valid means of early detection and diagnosis of autism across different evaluators and settings. These structured play sessions provide a supplement to diagnostic instruments based on parental report. Cognitive-neuropsychological tasks have been used to identify possible underlying cognitive impairments in autism including executive function, theory of mind, selective attention, and abstraction. Currently, cognitive tasks are useful in treatment planning but are inappropriate for diagnostic purposes. Important goals for the future will be to integrate parent-report diagnostic interviews and structured play observations and to identify a profile of cognitive impairments that are specific to pervasive developmental disorders that can be incorporated into diagnostic protocols.     

Mouthing and grasping in neonates: Evidence for the early detection of what hard or soft substances afford for action

Newborns and 2- and 3-month-old infants were presented for 3 min with a rigid or an elastic object either introduced into their mouths for mouthing or into their right hands for grasping. Each object was connected to an air pressure transducer allowing polygraphic recording of the positive pressure variations applied by the infant to the object. Results indicate that, from birth, infants haptically discriminate between the rigidity and elasticity of objects by generating different rates and patterns of responses. Furthermore, the differential haptic responding by the infant does not manifest itself in an analogous manner for the oral or the manual modality of response but is reversed relative to the two objects' properties. During the first 3 months, a developmental trend is observed wherein the infant's oral response rates and patterns begin to align themselves with her/his manual responding to either one of the two objects. Relative to a similar output of positive pressures generated orally or manually, these observations show that from birth the infant's response is both object-dependent (hard vs. soft substance) and modality-dependent (oral vs. manual condition). These results are interpreted as suggesting that early mouthing and grasping are not merely controlled by reflexive (automatic) mechanisms but rather are guided by what objects afford for functional actions.     

The intergenerational transmission of social exclusion and its detection in early childhood education

In this paper we analyse the relationship between the self-confidence manifested by 3-6 year old in the internal working model (evaluated by interview) and their adaptation to nursery environment observed by their teacher, along with the relationship between these variables and the social-economic disadvantage encountered by the families of the children. The study was carried out with 128 children (64 from families in deprived circumstances and 64 in the contrast group). The results show that children from families with serious problems of exclusion exhibit adaptation deficiencies in all of the assessed factors: competence and empathy, passiveness/isolation and antisocial behavior; in the interview, they also show less frequency of the secure model, and higher frequency in the destructured and avoidant models than in the contrast group. These differences can be interpreted as the origin of the exclusion and destructurisation that characterises the families in question.     

Clinical and psychopathological research on attachment: the contribution of the psychic envelopes model

This paper proposes to put into perspective the attachment model (Bowlby) and that of psychic envelopes (Anzieu) so as to grasp the contribution of attachment theory to the field of psychopathology. Having laid the foundations of the epistemological debate between these two models, relying on a discussion of the stakes inherent in the psychoaffective development approach, the author refers to current forms of psychopathology, which draw massively on the borderline and narcissistic concepts, in order to discuss the sense and benefits of the “skin–ego” model as an alternative and complement to attachment theory. Beyond altering reference models in psychopathology, this debate and related inputs lead to consider therapeutic applications through a combination of the notion of “caregiving group” – a group version of the attachment figure – and the notion of therapeutic offer as a necessary alternative to the ideology of demand.