Staged bilateral pallidotomy for treatment of Parkinson disease.

Object: Several investigators have described the motor benefits derived from performing unilateral stereotactic pallidotomy for the treatment of Parkinson disease (PD), but little is known about the efficacy and complication rates of bilateral procedures. The goal of this study was to assess both these factors in 12 patients.

Methods: Eleven patients with medically intractable PD underwent staged bilateral pallidotomy and one patient underwent a simultaneous bilateral procedure.

Motor, cognitive, and behavioral performance following unilateral ventroposterior pallidotomy for Parkinson disease.

Objective: To evaluate the effects of ventroposterior pallidotomy on motor disability and on behavior and cognition in patients with medically intractable idiopathic Parkinson disease.

Design: Detailed motor testing both while receiving and discontinuing levodopa medication, posturography, and neurocognitive and behavioral assessments were performed before and 3 to 6 months after unilateral ventroposterior pallidotomy.

Setting: University-based movement disorder program.

The output of the hippocampus is inhibited during social behavior in the male rat.

During sexual behavior in the male rat, peptidergic cells in the medial amygdaloid nucleus become active and release a vasopressin-like peptide. The present experiments were designed to examine hippocampal changes as a result of this peptide's action during sexual behaviors. Chronic field-potential recordings from the hippocampus of male rats were acquired in a wide variety of social and nonsocial circumstances.

Neuropsychological dysfunction in parents of schizophrenics.

Neuropsychological measures designed to examine aspects of attention, learning efficiency, and memory were investigated in 14 schizophrenic probands, their 28 parents, and 18 normal individuals. Probands performed at levels significantly below normals on measures of attention and of learning efficiency and performed below their parents on a subset of the same measures. Eight families had one parent with a personal or ancestral pedigree history consistent with schizophrenia; the other parent's personal and ancestral history was negative for schizophrenia.

Interaction between long-term potentiation and the action of a peptide transmitter.

The interaction between long-term potentiation (LTP) and the action of a peptide transmitter was examined with evoked field potential recording in the CA1 region of the hippocampus in anesthetized male rats. The peptide transmitter transiently reversed and opposed the effects of LTP, and LTP reversed the action of the peptide transmitter. Because the peptide transmitter is released and has action particularly during sexual behaviors, the results are interpreted to mean that any memory trace encoded by potentiating mechanisms in the rat hippocampus is probably not accessible in the 20-30-min period of time surrounding reproductive activity in male rats.