The International journal of neuroscience
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Different types of writing disorders associated with brain pathology have been described. Limited mention the writing disturbances associated with prefrontal pathology, however, is found. Clinical observations of patients not only with focal prefrontal pathology but also with other conditions affecting the frontal system (e.g., traumatic head injury, dementia) confirm the assumption that these patients present an overt decrease in the ability to express ideas in writing. ⋯ The term dysexecutive agraphia is proposed to refer to this writing disorder. Three illustrative cases are presented. It is finally suggested that questions regarding the ability to write should be included in dementia questionnaires and executive functioning testing.
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Controlled Clinical Trial
Retrospenial cortical deactivation during painful stimulation of fibromyalgic patients.
To study fibromyalgic pain this article contrasts positron emission tomographic measures of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) during externally induced acute pain and rest in eight fibromyalgia syndrome patients. An expected pattern of frontal and parietal cortical activation during acute pain as compared to rest was observed. However, reduced rCBF was additionally found in the retrosplenial cortex during acute pain as compared to rest. This may reflect that externally induced pain inhibits fibromyalgic pain and syndrome-related evaluative processes located in the retrosplenial cortex, and that fibromyalgic pain results from exaggerated attention to sub-noxious pain signaling, that is, secondary hyperalgesia.
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The relationship between bilateral facial symmetry and beauty remains to be clarified. Here, straight head-on photographs of "beautiful" faces from the collections of professional modeling agencies were selected. ⋯ No difference between the left-left and right-right composites was revealed but significant differences were obtained between "same" and the left-left or right-right. These results show that subjects detected asymmetry in beauty and suggest that very beautiful faces can be functionally asymmetrical.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Efficacy of Qi-therapy (external Qigong) for elderly people with chronic pain.
To test the efficacy of Qi-therapy (external Qigong) in improving symptoms of pain and mood states in elderly peoples with chronic pain. Forty-three elderly people with chronic pain were randomly assigned either to an intervention or a general care group. ⋯ Compared with baseline values, pain and psychological benefits remained significantly improved after two weeks of follow-up. These findings suggest that Qi-therapy may help the elderly cope with pain and associated mood disturbances.
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The effects of lidocaine on the action potential of crushed sciatic nerves were investigated. The sciatic nerves of the rats were removed 5, 15, 25, and 38 days after the crushing and the compound action potentials were recorded with sucrose gap technique. The nerves were treated with 1 mM lidocaine and the conduction blocks of nonfrequency dependent block (NFDB) and frequency depended block (FDB) at 10, 40, and 100 Hz were determined. ⋯ The high NFDB ratios approached normal levels with the improvement of regeneration, but FDB ratios continued to stay at high levels. The results showed that the ratios of FDB and NFDB were increased on the crushed nerve. It was concluded that, in the regeneration conditions of crushed rat sciatic nerves, the sensitivity to local anesthetic increases more than in intact nerves.