ABSTRACT
AIM: To study the phenomena of visual-hemispatial neglect in healthy people and patients with brain diseases of different genesis. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Eighty-eight patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, 68 patients with exogenous organic brain diseases and 240 healthy adults of different age were included in the study. The digit cancellation test modified by the authors was used. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The validity of the modified digit cancellation test was approved and its age standards were obtained. In healthy right-handed people, there was the bias of attention focus to the left, the decrease of asymmetry intensity of visual-spatial inattention during physiological aging and the presence of some clinical peculiarities of neglect in schizophrenia spectrum disorders and lateralized organic damages of the brain. This variant of the test can be recommended for practical use as the sensitive psychometric tool.
Subject(s)
Perceptual Disorders , Schizophrenia , Attention , Brain , Extremities , Functional Laterality , Humans , Neuropsychological TestsABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: A complex neuropsychological and neuroimaging study of deep brain structures in depression with cognitive impairment. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We studied 73 patients with endogenous depression and 86 patients with depressive syndrome in temporal epilepsy. MRI and neuropsychological methods were used to study brain structures. Results and Ñonclusion. Neurocognitive impairment was more severe in patients with depressive syndrome in the structure of temporal epilepsy. The differences between the patients with endogenous and organic (temporal epilepsy) affective disturbances were determined by the more marked memory and spatial-constructive impairments in patients with organic disorders. Deficit of executive functions, planning functions and cognitive organization were more typical for the patients with endogenous affective disorders. The MRI study revealed the decrease in the left hippocampus due to sclerotic processes in patients with temporal epilepsy and the increase in the right amygdale in patients with endogenous depressive disorders. The results demonstrate the significant similarity between characteristics of the cognitive profile in patients with endo- and exogenous depressions.
ABSTRACT
A hundred and twenty-six outpatients (41 males and 75 females) with type 1 diabetes mellitus were examined to study the affective and personal determinants of their attitude towards the disease at the Saint Petersburg City Diabetes Center within the framework of cooperation of the V. M. Bekhterev Psychoneurological Research Institute and the Academician I. P. Pavlov Saint Petersburg State Medical University. The examinees' mean age was 31.8±10.1 years. The mean duration of the disease was 17.1±8.3 years. Most patients were found to have symptoms of late diabetic complications. The patients' attitude towards the disease and their affective and personal characteristics were examined, by using a test for the psychological diagnosis of the types of an attitude towards the disease, scales for the rapid psychological diagnosis of neurotization, and the questionnaire "Copying ways". Analysis of the results led to the following conclusions: the probability of hypemosognostic reactions in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus is relatively independent of the objectively assessed severity of the disease; the affective and personality characteristics associated with hypemeurotization considerably increase the risk of the hypemosognostic type of the internal picture of the disease, which is largely mediated by a tendency for avoidance behavior and by the lack of stress-coping behavioral skills, mainly problem solution-planning and self-regulation skills. Psychological correction aimed at enhancing the emotional stability of a personality and developing stress-coping skills seems to improve the adaptation of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus to their disease.
