Search results for " tests"
showing 10 items of 3284 documents
Neuronal and Behavioral Correlates of Health Anxiety: Results of an Illness-Related Emotional Stroop Task
2011
<b><i>Background:</i></b> Health anxiety (HA) is defined as the objectively unfounded fear or conviction of suffering from a severe illness. Predominant attention allocation to illness-related information is regarded as a central process in the development and maintenance of HA, yet little is known about the neuronal correlates of this attentional bias. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> An emotional Stroop task with body symptom, illness, and neutral words was employed to elicit emotional interference in healthy participants with high (HA+, n = 12) and low (HA–, n = 12) HA during functional magnetic resonance imaging. <b><i>Results:</i>…
Endemic hepatitis C virus infection in a Sicilian town: Further evidence for iatrogenic transmission
2002
The prevalence of and risk factors for HCV and HBV infections in the general population and the predictive value of ALT screening in identifying anti-HCV positive subjects have been evaluated in a small Sicilian town. A random 1:4 sampling from the census of the general population was performed. Anti-HCV, HCV-RNA, HCV genotype, HBsAg, and anti-HBc were tested. The linkage between HCV infection and potential risk factors was evaluated by multiple logistic regression analysis. Among 721 subjects studied, 75 (10.4%) were anti-HCV positive. The HCV infection rate increased from 0.4% in subjects 10-29 years of age to 34% in those > 60 years of age. Among the 75 anti-HCV positive subjects, 66.7% …
Famous face recognition and naming test: a normative study.
2003
Tests of famous face recognition and naming, and tasks assessing semantic knowledge about famous people after presentation either of their faces or their names are often used in the neuropsychological examination of aphasic, amnesic and demented patients. A total of 187 normal subjects took part in this study. The aim was to collect normative data for a newly devised test including five subtests: famous face naming, fame judgement after face presentation and after name presentation, semantic knowledge about famous people after face presentation and after name presentation. Norms were calculated taking into account demographic variables such as age, sex and education and adjusted scores were…
Influence of social cognition as a mediator between cognitive reserve and psychosocial functioning in patients with first episode psychosis
2019
This work was supported by the Carlos III Institute of Health and European Fund for Regional Development (PI08/1213, PI11/01977, PI14/01900, PI08/01026, PI11/02831, PI14/01621, PI08/1161, PI16/00359, PI16/01164, PI18/00805), the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research (BIOEF), the Secretaria d´Universitats I Recerca del Departament d´Economia I Coneixement (2017 SGR 1365), and R&D activities in Biomedicine, Madrid Regional Government and Structural Funds of the European Union (S2017/BMD-3740 (AGES-CM 2-CM)).
Neuropsychological, clinical and cognitive insight predictors of outcome in a first episode psychosis study.
2012
The outcome of first episode psychosis (FEP) is highly variable and difficult to predict. We studied prospectively the impact of poor insight and neuropsychological deficits on outcomes in a longitudinal cohort of 127 FEP patients. Participants were assessed on 5 domains of cognitive function and 2 domains of insight (clinical and cognitive). At 12. months, patients were assessed again for symptom severity and psychosocial function. Regression analyses revealed that cognitive insight (a measure of self-reflectiveness and self-certainty) was the best baseline predictor of overall psychopathology at 12. months whereas executive function performance at admission to the study indicated later se…
Echogenicity of the substantia nigra in relatives of patients with sporadic Parkinson’s disease
2003
Increased echogenicity of the substantia nigra (SN) on ultrasound is a typical sonographic finding in Parkinson's disease (PD). Sonographic signal intensity of the SN is related to tissue iron content with higher iron level being associated with increased echogenicity. Recent findings indicate that hyperechogenicity of the SN represents an important susceptibility factor for nigrostriatal degeneration. In this study we determined the prevalence of a characteristic ultrasound sign of Parkinson's disease in first-degree relatives of PD patients. Fourteen patients with sporadic PD and 58 of their relatives underwent neurological, neuropsychological, and ultrasound examination. In addition, fou…
Reliability in perimetric multichannel contrast sensitivity measurements
2014
Background: In this study, the reliability of perimetric contrast sensitivity measurements favouring the achromatic, the red-green and the blue-yellow post-receptorial mechanisms was analysed. Methods: A new technique, multichannel ATD perimetry, provides spatial and temporal stimuli favouring the detection by an achromatic mechanism (A), from a magno or parvocellular origin or by a red-green (RG) chromatic mechanism, with a parvocellular origin or a blue-yellow (BY) mechanism, with a koniocellular origin. The repeatability and reproducibility of contrast sensitivity measurements with these stimuli were studied in a group of 40 healthy subjects. The analysis was carried out on 21 testing po…
The impact of different aetiologies on the cognitive performance of frontal patients
2014
Neuropsychological group study methodology is considered one of the primary methods to further understanding of the organisation of frontal ‘executive’ functions. Typically, patients with frontal lesions caused by stroke or tumours have been grouped together to obtain sufficient power. However, it has been debated whether it is methodologically appropriate to group together patients with neurological lesions of different aetiologies. Despite this debate, very few studies have directly compared the performance of patients with different neurological aetiologies on neuropsychological measures. The few that did included patients with both anterior and posterior lesions. We present the first co…
Automatic fuzzy classification of the washout curves from magnetic resonance first-pass perfusion imaging after myocardial infarction.
2005
International audience; Abstract: Objectives: We sought to investigate the diagnostic ability of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) perfusion in acute reper-fused myocardial infarction. The study used fuzzy logic to automatically classify signal intensity-time curves from myocardial segments into 3 categories: normal, hypointense, and Hyperintense. Materials and Methods: Thirty-eight patients with myocardial infarction underwent short-axis cine-MRI and contrast-enhanced MRI to provide data on wall thickening and the transmural extent of infarction. Of these, 17 had a second cardiac MRI to ascertain the functional recovery in each segment. Results: The fuzzy logic based classification …
Chronic hepatitis C: the viral load per liver cell before treatment as a new marker to predict long-term response to IFN-α therapy
1998
Abstract Background/Aims: So far, there are no reliable parameters that can predict the long-term sustained response to treatment with interferon-α in patients with chronic hepatitis C. In this study, we have developed a semi-quantitative method to determine the viral load per liver cell and have correlated this factor with the outcome of hepatitis C patients treated with interferon-α. Methods: Hepatitis C virus RNA levels were measured in serum, peripheral blood mononuclear cells and liver cells of randomly chosen hepatitis C patients before treatment with interferon-α ( n =37). The number of cells present in the liver biopsies was determined by a polymerase chain reaction-based quantitati…