Monthly Archives: November 2010
Early-onset bipolar disorder: how about visual-spatial skills and executive functions?
Early-onset bipolar disorder is an impairing condition that is strongly associated with genetic inheritance. Neurocognitive deficits are core traits of this disorder which seem to be present in both young and adult forms. Deficits in verbal memory and attention are persistent within euthymic phases in bipolar adults, adolescents, and children. In younger samples, including type I or II and not otherwise specified patients, executive functions are not widely impaired and the existence of visual-spatial deficits remains unclear. The main aim of this study was to compare the neurocognitive performance in young stabilized type I or II bipolar patients and healthy controls. Fifteen medicated adolescents with bipolar disorder and 15 healthy adolescents, matched in age and gender, were compared on visual-spatial skills (reasoning, memory, visual–motor accuracy) and executive functioning (attention and working memory, set-shifting, inhibition) using t-tests and MANCOVA. Correcting for verbal competence, MANCOVA showed that patients performed significantly worse than controls in letters and numbers sequencing (P = 0.003), copy (P < 0.001) and immediate recall (P = 0.007) of the Rey Complex Figure Test, interference of the Stroop Color-Word Test (P = 0.007) and non-perseverative errors on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (P = 0.038). Impaired cognitive performance was found in young bipolar patients in working memory, visual-motor skills, and inhibitory control.
from the European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
Stage Transition and Laryngeal Closure in Poststroke Patients with Dysphagia
Timely hyolaryngeal excursion and laryngeal closure are essential for safe transfer of the bolus during the pharyngeal swallow. The temporal measures stage transition duration (STD) and laryngeal closure duration (LCD) represent these physiological events. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether small changes in bolus consistency and volume affect these temporal measures in poststroke patients who aspirate, poststroke patients who do not aspirate, and nonneurologically impaired control subjects. STD and LCD were obtained by frame-by-frame analysis of the videofluoroscopic examinations of 5 and 10 ml thin and nectar thick liquids. Using a three-way analysis of variance, STD was significantly different between the control group and the two poststroke groups; however there was no difference between the two stroke groups. There was no difference among the three groups on LCD. Bolus consistency and bolus volume had no effect. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
from Dysphagia
UT Dallas Researcher Honored for Work in Poland
Recent Neurolinguistic Studies Focus on Concentration Camp Survivors
New guidance on producing information for people with learning disabilities
The government has launched new guidance to improve the standard of information for people with learning disabilities. The guidance focuses on creating Easy Read, which uses simple words and pictures to communicate complex messages
The Effectiveness of a Program to Accelerate Vocabulary Development in Kindergarten
REL Southeast conducted a randomized control trial in the Mississippi Delta to test the impact of a kindergarten vocabulary instruction program on students’ expressive vocabulary. The study titled, The Effectiveness of a Program to Accelerate Vocabulary Development in Kindergarten (K-PAVE), found a significant positive impact for student’s vocabulary development and academic knowledge, as well as for the classroom instruction outcome of vocabulary and comprehension support.
from the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences
Banking on Predictability, the Mind Increases Efficiency
Along with graduate student Christian Stilp and assistant professor Timothy Rogers, Kluender co-authored a study published in the Nov. 22 early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing listeners can become effectively deaf to sounds that do not conform to their brains’ expectations
from ScienceDaily.com
Air Flows in Mechanical Device Reveal Secrets of Speech Pathology
At the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting in Long Beach, CA, the researchers are reporting their discovery of how asymmetrical airflow impacts normal and diseased vocal fold motion — observations that may lead to new devices to help those who cannot take for granted their ability to vocalize.
from ScienceDaily.com
Task-dependent differences in corticobulbar excitability of the submental motor projections:implications for neural control of swallowing
It has been suggested that the primary motor cortex plays a substantial role in the neural circuitry that controls swallowing. Although its role in the voluntary oral phase of swallowing is undisputed, its precise role in motor control of the more reflexive, pharyngeal phase of swallowing is unclear. The contribution of the primary motor cortex to the pharyngeal phase of swallowing was examined using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to evoke motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in the anterior hyomandibular muscle group during either volitional submental muscle contraction or contraction during the pharyngeal phase of both volitionally, and reflexively, initiated swallowing. For each subject, in all three conditions, TMS was triggered when submental surface EMG (sEMG) reached 75% of the mean maximal submental sEMG amplitude measured during 10 volitional swallows. MEPs recorded during volitional submental muscle contraction were elicited in 22 of the 35 healthy subjects examined (63%). Only 16 of these 22 subjects (45.7%) also displayed MEPs recorded during volitional swallowing, but their MEP amplitudes were larger when triggered by submental muscle contraction than when triggered by volitional swallowing. Additionally, only 7 subjects (of 19 tested) showed MEPs triggered by submental muscle contraction during a reflexively triggered pharyngeal swallow. These differences indicate differing levels of net M1 excitability during execution of the investigated tasks, possibly brought about by task-dependent changes in the balance of excitatory and inhibitory neural activity.
A temporal sampling framework for developmental dyslexia
Neural coding by brain oscillations is a major focus in neuroscience, with important implications for dyslexia research. Here, I argue that an oscillatory ‘temporal sampling’ framework enables diverse data from developmental dyslexia to be drawn into an integrated theoretical framework. The core deficit in dyslexia is phonological. Temporal sampling of speech by neuroelectric oscillations that encode incoming information at different frequencies could explain the perceptual and phonological difficulties with syllables, rhymes and phonemes found in individuals with dyslexia. A conceptual framework based on oscillations that entrain to sensory input also has implications for other sensory theories of dyslexia, offering opportunities for integrating a diverse and confusing experimental literature.
Implants and ethnocide: learning from the cochlear implant controversy
This paper uses the fictional case of the ‘Babel fish’ to explore and illustrate the issues involved in the controversy about the use of cochlear implants in prelinguistically deaf children. Analysis of this controversy suggests that the development of genetic tests for deafness poses a serious threat to the continued flourishing of Deaf culture. I argue that the relationships between Deaf and hearing cultures that are revealed and constructed in debates about genetic testing are themselves deserving of ethical evaluation. Making good policy about genetic testing for deafness will require addressing questions in political philosophy and anthropology about the value of culture and also thinking hard about what sorts of experiences and achievements make a human life worthwhile.
from Disability & Society
The Validity and Reliability of the BHI Quick Hearing Check
Utilizing both objective and subjective information across four databases involving nearly 11,000 subjects, the BHI Quick Hearing Check is shown to have high validity and reliability. This tool can be used for effectively providing consumers with more information about their hearing loss and moving those with hearing loss closer to seeking a hearing solution.
from The Hearing Review
The phenotypic and genetic biofilm formation characteristics of coagulase-negative staphylococci isolates in children with otitis media
Conclusions
CNS strains revealed genotypic and phenotypic features responsible for the ability to form the biofilm in vivo. The presence of ica genes and phenotypic ability to form a biofilm by CNS strains emphasizes the pathogenic character of these strains in some cases of otitis media with effusion.
from the International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology
The psychological mechanism of the slippery slope argument
Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) have a bad philosophical reputation. They seem, however, to be widely used and frequently accepted in many legal, political, and ethical contexts. Hahn and Oaksford (2007) argued that distinguishing strong and weak SSAs may have a rational basis in Bayesian decision theory. In this paper three experiments investigated the mechanism of the slippery slope showing that they may have an objective basis in category boundary re-appraisal. When the beginning and the end of a slippery slope are more similar, the probability that they are perceived to belong in the same category is higher and the SSA is stronger. Experiment 1 established a robust effect of probability on SSA evaluation. Experiments 2 and 2A showed that when similar items are classified in the same category this leads to stronger SSAs. In Experiment 3, in a correlational analysis, it was shown that participants’ confidence in their categorisation judgements predicted the perceived strength of an SSA and that this relationship was moderated by similarity between the ends of the slippery slope. We conclude that an important aspect of many SSAs may have an objective basis in well-established and rational cognitive theories.
from the Journal of Memory and Language
Age affects chunk-based, but not rule-based learning in artificial grammar acquisition
Explicit learning is well known to decline with age, but divergent results have been reported for implicit learning. Here, we assessed the effect of aging on implicit vs. explicit learning within the same task. Fifty-five young (mean 32 years) and 55 elderly (mean 64 years) individuals were exposed to letter strings generated by an artificial grammar. Subsequently, participants classified novel strings as grammatical or nongrammatical. Acquisition of superficial (“chunk-based”) and structural (“rule-based”) features of the grammar were analyzed separately. We found that overall classification accuracy was diminished in the elderly, driven by decreased performance on items that required chunk-based knowledge. Performance on items requiring rule-based knowledge was comparable between groups. Results indicate that rule-based and chunk-based learning are differentially affected by age: while rule-based learning, reflecting implicit learning, is preserved, chunk-based learning, which contains at least some explicit learning aspects, declines with age. Our findings may explain divergent results on implicit learning tasks in previous studies on aging. They may also help to better understand compensatory mechanisms during the aging process.
Efficacy of postural techniques assessed by videofluoroscopy for myasthenia gravis with dysphagia as the presenting symptom: a case report
Conclusion
Videofluoroscopy is a valuable technique for evaluating myasthenia gravis dysphagia because swallowing interventions can be precisely individualized in accordance with the results obtained.
from the Journal of Medical Case Reports
