Behavioural Neurology 

About: Behavioural Neurology is an academic journal published by Hindawi Publishing Corporation. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Cognition & Medicine. It has an ISSN identifier of 0953-4180. It is also open access. Over the lifetime, 1248 publications have been published receiving 35752 citations.

Thought and language

Abstract: From aphasics' self records, common experience, changes in signification of sentences according to a verbal or non-verbal context, animals and non speaking children performances, it seems possible to get some evidence that thought is distinct from language even though there is a permanent interaction between both in normal adult human beings. Some considerations on formalisation of language suggests that the more formalised it is, the less information it contains. If it is true, it is not reasonable to hope that a formalised language like that used by computers may be a model for thought. Finally, the lack of status of thought, as far as it is a subjective experience and the impossibility of giving it a definition as far as it exceeds language, make it clear that in spite of progress in scientific psychology, thought, per se, is not an object for science.

Stereotaxic Display of Brain Lesions

Abstract: Traditionally lesion location has been reported using standard templates, text based descriptions or representative raw slices from the patient's CT or MRI scan. Each of these methods has drawbacks for the display of neuroanatomical data. One solution is to display MRI scans in the same stereotaxic space popular with researchers working in functional neuroimaging. Presenting brains in this format is useful as the slices correspond to the standard anatomical atlases used by neuroimagers. In addition, lesion position and volume are directly comparable across patients. This article describes freely available software for presenting stereotaxically aligned patient scans. This article focuses on MRI scans, but many of these tools are also applicable to other modalities (e.g. CT, PET and SPECT). We suggest that this technique of presenting lesions in terms of images normalized to standard stereotaxic space should become the standard for neuropsychological studies.

Semantic dementia: A form of circumscribed cerebral atrophy

Abstract: Presents case reports of a 67-yr-old man and 2 women (aged 60 and 66 yrs) with primary cerebral atrophy in whom progressive breakdown in language and visual perception are attributed to loss of semantic information. This form of dementia is distinct from that of Alzheimer's disease and is assumed to represent a form of circumscribed cerebral atrophy with emphasis of pathology in temporal rather than frontal regions of the brain.

Speech impairment in a large sample of patients with Parkinson's disease

Abstract: This study classifiedspeech impairment in 200 patients with Parkinson’ s disease (PD) into five levels of overall severity and described the corresponding type (voice, articulation, fluenc y) and extent (rated on a five-point scale) of impairment for each level. From two-minute conversational speech samples, parameters of voice, fluency and articulation were assessed by two trained-raters. Voice was found to be the leading deficit, most frequently affected and impaired to a greater extent than other features in the initial stages. Articulatory and fluenc y deficits manifested later, articulatory impairment matching voice impairment in frequency and extent at the ‘Severe’ stage. At the finalstage of ‘Profound’ impairment, articulation was the most frequently impaired feature at the lowest level of performance. This study illustrates the prominence of voice and articulatory speech motor control deficits,and draws parallels with deficitsof motor set and motor set instability in skeletal controls of gait and handwriting.

The validity of the hospital anxiety and depression scale and the geriatric depression scale in Parkinson's disease.

Abstract: We assessed the concurrent validity of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) against the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (Ham-D) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Forty-six non-demented PD patients were assessed by a neurologist on the Ham-D. Patients also completed four mood rating scales: the HADS, the GDS, the VAS and the Face Scale. For the HADS and the GDS, Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curves were obtained and the positive and negative predictive values (PPV, NPV) were calculated for different cut-off scores. Maximum discrimination between depressed and non-depressed PD patients was reached at a cut-off score of 10/11 for both the HADS and the GDS. At the same cut-off score of 10/11 for both the HADS and the GDS, the high sensitivity and NPV make these scales appropriate screening instruments for depression in PD. A high specificity and PPV, which is necessary for a diagnostic test, was reached at a cut-off score of 12/13 for the GDS and at a cut-off score of 11/12 for the HADS. The results indicate the validity of using the HADS and the GDS to screen for depressive symptoms and to diagnose depressive illness in PD.