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Cognitive correlates of narrative impairment in moderate traumatic brain injury
No full textTraumaticbraininjuries(TBIs)areoftenassociatedwithcommunicativedeficits. Theincoherentand
impoverishedlanguageobservedinnon-aphasicindividualswithsevereTBIhasbeenlinkedtoa
problem intheglobalorganizationofinformationatthetextlevel.Thepresentstudyaimedtoanalyze
the featuresofnarrativediscourseimpairmentinagroupofadultswithmoderateTBI(modTBI).10non-
aphasic speakerswithmodTBIand20neurologicallyintactparticipantswererecruitedforthe
experiment.Theircognitive,linguisticandnarrativeskillswerethoroughlyassessed.Thepersonswith
modTBI exhibitednormalphonological,lexicalandgrammaticalskills.However,theirnarrativeswere
characterizedbylowerlevelsofLexicalInformativenessandmoreerrorsofbothLocalandGlobal
Coherence that,attimes,madetheirnarrativesvagueandambiguous.Significant correlationswere
found betweenthesenarrativedifficulties andtheproductionofbothperseverativeandnon-
perseverativeerrorsontheWCST.Thesedisturbancesconfirm previous findings whichsuggestadeficit
at theinterfacebetweencognitiveandlinguisticprocessingratherthanaspecific linguisticdisturbance
in thesepatients
Subtle Cerebral Damage after Shunting vs Non Shunting during Carotid Endarterectomy
No full textObjectiveTo compare the extent of subtle cerebral damage (SCD) in patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy with or without shunt placement.DesignProspective, randomised study.Patients and methodsWe assessed a consecutive series of 96 patients undergoing endarterectomy for severe unilateral left carotid stenosis who had been randomly assigned to receive a shunt (48) or not (48). Eligibility criteria included age up to 80 years and Mini-Mental State Examination score >24 points. Patients underwent neuropsychological testing before surgery. Serum concentrations of S100 protein, neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) were measured intraoperatively before and after carotid clamping. Finally, each patient underwent neuropsychological testing 3 weeks after surgery.ResultsPatients with and without shunt had similar serum concentrations of S100 protein, NSE and IL-6 as well as similar neuropsychological test scores, all p>0.05.ConclusionsThere was no difference in subtle cerebral damage between patients randomized to receive a shunt or not
Patterns of impairment of narrative language in mild traumatic brain injury
No full textMild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) represents a condition whose
cognitive and behavioral sequelae are often underestimated, even when it exerts a profound impact on the patients’ every-day life.The present study aimed to analyze the features of narrative
discourse impairment in a group of adults with mTBI. 10 mTBI non-aphasic speakers (GCS > 13) and 13 neurologically intact
participants were recruited for the experiment. Their cognitive,
linguistic and narrative skills were thoroughly assessed. The group
of mTBIs exhibited normal phonological, lexical and grammatical skills. However, their narratives were characterized by the presence of frequent interruptions of ongoing utterances, derailments
and extraneous utterances that at times made their discourse vague and ambiguous. They produced more errors of global coherence [F (1; 21) 1⁄4 24.242; p 1⁄4 .000; hp 2 1⁄4 0. 536] and fewer
Lexical Information Units [F (1; 21) 1⁄4 7.068; p 1⁄4 .015; hp 2 1⁄4 .252].
The errors of global coherence correlated negatively with non perseverative
errors on the WCST (r1⁄4.755; p < .012). The macrolinguistic problems made their narrative samples less informative
than those produced by the group of control participants. These disturbances may reflect a deficit at the interface between cognitive and linguistic processing rather than a specific linguistic disturbance. These findings suggest that also persons with mild
forms of TBI may experience linguistic disturbances that may hamper the quality of their every-day life
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Object-centred neglect for non-verbal visual stimuli.
No full textIn a first experiment, 11 neglect patients repeatedly bisected the elongated caricature of a basset hound with head on the right and tail on the left side with respect to the viewer. On the last (critical) trial, in which the figure was left-right reversed, the bisection error towards the ipsilesional side reversed its direction in three patients and significantly decreased in one patient. In a second experiment, 13 different neglect patients had to bisect the elongated caricature of the basset hound with head on the left and tail on the right side. On the last trial, the bisection error reversed its direction in three patients and significantly decreased in three patients.These results suggest that object-centred neglect (OCN) may affect newly established knowledge about the canonical orientation of a non-verbal visual stimulus
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