Clinical application of Chinese Nanjing persistent vegetative state scale / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

BACKGROUND@#It is a challenge to characterize the consciousness level of patients with severe disturbance of consciousness and predict their prognosis effectively for Chinese doctors. We aimed to investigate the psychometric property and the diagnostic practicality of severe disturbance of consciousness by Chinese Nanjing persistent vegetative state scale (CNPVSS) which was first set up in 1996 and modified in 2001 and 2011.@*METHODS@#The concurrent validity, inter-rater consistency and diagnostic accuracy of CNPVSS and Chinese version of coma recovery scale-revised (CRS-R) were investigated by assessment of 380 patients with severe disorders of consciousness.@*RESULTS@#Total scores of the CNPVSS were correlated significantly with that of the CRS-R, indicating acceptable concurrent validity. Sub-scale analysis showed moderate to high inter-rater reliability and test-retest reliability. CNPVSS was superior to CRS-R on the diagnosis sensitivity. The CNPVSS was able to distinguish 65 patients in emergence from minimal consciousness state who were misclassified as in minimal consciousness state (MCS) by the CRS-R, and it could also distinguish two patients in MCS who were misclassified as in vegetative state by the CRS-R.@*CONCLUSION@#The CNPVSS is an appropriate measurement and is sensitive to distinguish the MCS patients from the VS patients.

Evaluation of the consciousness scales in the diagnosis of the severely impaired consciousness / 中华急诊医学杂志

Objective To evaluate the commonly used consciousness scales according to longitudinal study on small-sample patients with minimally conscious state. Method Eleven patients with minimally consciousness, who were scanned using fMRI, were selected and scored by the commonly used consciousness scales in Wujing Hangzbeu Hospital. The 11 patients were classified into 2 groups according to the scores of CRS-R scale couple with the results of the fMRI study. The One-Way ANOVA method was used to analyze the inter-group difference of the commonly used consciousness scales and their subscales. Results Despite the communicative subscale of the CRS-R scales, other iterms lack of statistic significance in classification of the conscious state. Among the commonly used consciousness scales, the Wessex Head Injury Matrix (WHIM) scale presented the highest diagnostic value in consciousness state, whereas the Chinese Vegetative State Scale (CVSS) presented the lowest diagnostic value. Conclusions It indicated that the total scores of the consciousness scales and the scores of subscales of them presented poor diagnostic value in general, and big discrepancy of diagnostic value existed between the iterms of the scales by using objective tools.

Functional MRI of human brain in musicians and non-musicians / 浙江大学学报·医学版

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To explore the differences in brain activation between musicians and non-musicians by use of functional MRI.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Twelve right-handed musicians and twelve right-handed non-musicians were recruited in the study. During a listening task, they were scanned on the Sigma 1.5T scanner (GE) while they were passively listening to several segments of music of "the Butterfly Love" and the white noise with same physical energy.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>Both musicians and non-musicians demonstrated bilateral transverse gyrus weak activated while listening to the white noise. But when listening to music, they showed bilateral temporal areas strongly activated including superior temporal gyrus, transverse gyrus and some middle temporal areas. Moreover, musicians showed relative left dominance (10/12), whereas non-musicians demonstrated right dominance(11/12). Furthermore,besides bilateral temporal areas, more and stronger activated areas were found in musicians such as cuneus, precuneus,medial frontal and left middle occipital gyrus.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>There are different neuro-patterns between musicians and non-musicians.</p>

Lateralized distribution of motor areas involved in voluntary movement / 浙江大学学报·医学版

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the brain functional laterality in motor areas during motor execution systematically.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed combined with right hand sequential finger movement task to investigate brain activation pattern and laterality in 8 right-handed subjects. 3dDeconvolve program of AFNI was used to estimate the hemodynamic response function and to generate activation maps. Then the laterality index (LI) was calculated and tested statistically.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>All motor areas including the areas which were previously considered to be engage in movement preparation only were activated in movement execution. In the activation map, it appeared left lateralization in cerebra and right lateralization in cerebella. After further statistical test, it was found that in primary motor area (M1), supplementary motor area (SMA) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC), there were left lateralization. While in premotor cortex (PMC), cingulate gyrus and basal ganglia (BG), the lateralization tendency was not obvious. The activation in cerebella is characterized with right lateralization.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Though there are tiny differences among subjects, most of the motor areas appear lateralized activation. Past studies only observed laterality in several motor areas. It may be due to the difficulty of the task or the experimental design.</p>