The Neuroradiological Findings of Children with Developmental Language Disorder

PURPOSE: To investigate the general characteristics of glucose metabolism distribution and the functional deficit in the brain of children with developmental language delay (DLD), we compared functional neuroradiological studies such as positron emission tomography (PET) of a patient group of DLD children and a control group of attention- deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Seventeen DLD children and 10 ADHD children under 10 years of age were recruited and divided into separate groups consisting of children less than 5 years of age or between 5 and 10 years of age. The PET findings of 4 DLD children and 6 control children whose ages ranged from 5 to 10 years were compared by Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) analysis. RESULTS: All of the DLD children revealed grossly normal findings in brain MRIs, however, 87.5% of them showed grossly abnormal findings in their PET studies. Abnormal findings were most frequent in the thalamus. The patient group showed significantly decreased glucose metabolism in both frontal, temporal and right parietal areas (p < 0.005) and significantly increased metabolism in both occipital areas (p < 0.05) as compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: This study reveals that DLD children may show abnormal findings on functional neuroradiological studies, even though structural neuroradiological studies such as a brain MRI do not show any abnormal findings. Frequent abnormal findings on functional neuroradiological studies of DLD children, especially in the subcortical area, suggests that further research with quantitative assessments of functional neuroradiological studies recruiting more DLD children and age-matched normal controls could be helpful for understanding the pathophysiology of DLD and other disorders confined to the developmental disorder spectrum.

Evaluación comportamental, motora y sensitiva en lesiones esterotáxicas bilaterales seriadas del núcleo caudado

Mediante el uso de la metodología etológica que implica observación y registro sistemático del comportamiento, se hace un estudio de los efectos comportamentales, motores y sensitivos de lesiones electrolíticas bilaterales seriadas, reales y ficticias del Núcleo Caudado. Los animales con lesión real presentan déficit sesorio-motor de consideración el cual sufre un proceso de acomodación inicial con posterior estabilización de la función, fenómeno que se enmarca dentro del concepto de "plasticidad cerebral". Se presentan básicamente asimetrías postulares y alteraciones del tono muscular compatibles con alteraciones de los circuitos reverberantes de los Ganglios Basales. Otro aspecto que resulta interesante es la evidencia de una posible especialización de función entre Caudado derecho e izquierdo al igual que especificidad de funciones para las diversas zonas del Estriado (medial y lateral). Se manifiesta mayor severidad en el deterioro de función motora cuando los animales son sometidos a estímulos sensoriales específicos, por tanto se discute la importancia de las entradas sensoriales en la activación de los Ganglios Basales, para que coordinadamente se manifiesten en la función motora