Semantic encoding deficits in a case of traumatic amnesia

A 33-year-old patient was studied neuropsychologically 19 years after sustaining severe head trauma. A recent CT scan showed lesions in the left frontal and right temporal regions. Performance on standard memory tests, both verbal and visuospatial, was extremely poor, although other intellectual functioning was relatively spared. The patient showed some interesting deficits in semantic processing. In a depth of processing task there was no advantage for words where semantic encoding had been induced. Neither was there any release from proactive interference after shifts in semantic categories. Deficits were also observed in short-term memory distractor tasks as well as in cueing tasks. These findings suggest that the cognitive deficits commonly observed in Korsakoff's disease can also be present in other amnesic disorders and may in part be related to cortical and especially frontal lobe atrophy.     

Neurodevelopmental influences in the genesis and epigenesis of schizophrenia: An overview

The classical view of schizophrenia as a dementing disorder has recently been challenged by several findings pointing to a prenatal/perinatal origin of at least some of the brain abnormalities seen in these patients. This article reviews evidence from a number of different fields, including postmortem neuropathology, in vivo neuroimaging, developmental neuropsychology, and obstetric epidemiology in assessing the viability of a neurodevelopmental perspective of schizophrenia. Although the case for viewing schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental condition is still circumstantial, and several gaps in this model remain, evidence from these diverse lines of inquiry converge to indicate at least a partial role of disturbances of brain development in the disorder's genesis and epigenesis.     

Phallometric diagnosis with 'nonadmitters'

The phallometric method of assessing erotic value of presented stimuli has two main tasks, one is in the breaking down of complex (potentially) sexual stimuli into components, the other is in diagnosing anomalous erotic preferences in ‘Nonadmitters’, i.e. in persons whose behaviour would imply there is such an anomaly, but who deny its presence. Differentiation between Admitters and Nonadmitters was attained by two verbal Admitter scales. Comparison of the scores on these scales with results of phallometric assessment showed (by mutual validation) that the phallometric method diagnoses Admitters more accurately than Nonadmitters. After that, the validity was tested of a new mode of the phallometric method, designed for diagnosing pedo- or hebephilia in Nonadmitters. In cases of homosexual pedophilia or hebephilia (but not in the heterosexual cases) the new Nonadmitter mode was superior to the Standard procedure.     

Velar movements during speech in a patient with apraxia of speech.

A fiberscopic observation of velar movements during speech was made of a patient diagnosed as having apraxia of speech. Repeated utterances of the same word showed a marked variability in terms of the pattern of velar movements accompanied at times by a phonetic change. In spite of such a variability, the general successional pattern of velar gestures for a given phonetic context approximated the normal pattern. During the production of nasal and nonnasal consonants the velum tended to take “neutral” positions. Anticipatory coarticulation was present, but some deviation from normal patterns was occasionally observed. Based on these observations, possible mechanisms responsible for the syndrome called apraxia of speech were discussed.     

The recovery processes of two English-Japanese bilingual aphasics

The recovery processes of two English-Japanese bilingual aphasics, one with Broca's aphasia and the other with Wernicke's aphasia, were investigated with special emphasis on the effect of language therapy. The degree of impairment initially manifested in English and Japanese was almost equivalent in each case, the pattern of impairment corresponding to the respective types of aphasia. In both cases, systematic, controlled language therapy was conducted. Analysis of the recovery courses revealed that language therapy was one decisive variable in the relative degree of recovery of a bilingual aphasic's two languages. The type of aphasia appeared to exert a crucial influence on the relative recovery rate of different modalities.     

Regional cerebral blood flow response in a patient with remitted global amnesia

A case of remitted global amnesia, believed to have residual left medial temporal lobe damage, is tested by the same recognition memory paradigm used by Wood, Taylor, et al. in the previous paper. On two different testing occasions, once using an intentional and once an incidental memory procedure, the patient's right occipital flows were inversely correlated with memory accuracy and the values were very close to the regression line for 10 normals relating occipital flow to memory accuracy. The left occipital flows did not fit the regression line, however. The results were interpreted as consistent with the notion that occipital flow is inversely related to medial temporal lobe activation. Another surprising feature of this case is the unexpected persistence of amnesia for a period from about 5 to 10 years before her episode to about 2 weeks after the episode, with recovery of memory functioning for the period since that time.     

Regional cerebral blood flow response during rest and memory activation in a patient with global amnesia

A college professor with a classical amnesic syndrome is described. He has a WAIS IQ of 130, but dramatic memory loss for episodes ranging from a few seconds ago all the way back to portions of his childhood. The amnesia was of sudden onset, 2 years prior to the current memory tests and regional cerebral blood flow measurements. The etiology is believed, though not conclusively proven, to be medial thalamic infarction. rCBF measurements were taken on six separate occasions, four resting baseline, one memory activation, using the previous procedure of Wood, Taylor, et al., and one carbon dioxide activation. The resting baseline showed extremely low flows throughout the cortex, with some hyperfrontal response on the first baseline. With CO₂ activation, however, there was brisk, uniform reactivity, with all sites showing increased flow. This suggested that there were no prominent areas of impaired vasomotor control or probable ischemic damage in the cortical surface. During memory activation, there was also a generalized increase in flow, especially in the frontal areas. This was in sharp contrast to the pattern for normals, described by Wood, Taylor, et al., which shows a slight overall decrease in flow from baseline to memory activation. The results are interpreted in light of Talland's proposal that the amnesic syndrome reflects an arousal failure, with premature closure and shutdown of memory processing, especially at retrieval. Here the arousal failure is interpreted as an inadequate restriction or focusing of cortical activation, with resulting pathologically diffuse flow increases.     

Abnormal articulatory dynamics in a patient with apraxia of speech: X-ray microbeam observation

The temporal organization of articulatory movements in a patient diagnosed as having apraxia of speech was explored by means of pellet tracking techniques using an X-ray microbeam system. The results indicated that the temporal organization among different articulators of the patient was sometimes disturbed in his production of a meaningful Japanese word /deenee/. It was also observed that the pattern and velocity of the articulatory movements of the patient in repetitions of monosyllables were different from those of typical dysarthric patients.