Neurology Academic Advisory Committee: a strategy for faculty retention and advancement.

Major effort and expense are devoted to faculty recruitment. Subsequent direction, support, and guidance of faculty members for retention and academic advancement are often inconsistent and ineffective. Individual mentorship is widely endorsed as an important element in advancement but often does not occur or is uneven in its pragmatic benefit.

A survey of stress among amyotrophic lateral sclerosis care providers.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a uniformly fatal disease. In the US, care is concentrated in specialized clinics. ALS health care providers likely experience stress, but levels and associated factors and methods to manage them are not known.

Clinical and diagnostic features of delayed hypoxic leukoencephalopathy.

Delayed hypoxic leukoencephalopathy is an underrecognized syndrome of delayed demyelination, which is important to consider when delayed onset of neuropsychiatric symptoms follows a hypoxic event. The authors describe clinical and diagnostic features of three such cases, review the pathophysiology of delayed hypoxic leukoencephalopathy, and discuss features which may help distinguish it from toxic leukoencephalopathy.

Age differences in MMPI scale scores from 1,189 psychiatric patients.

Investigated age-related differences in MMPI scale scores from 1,189 individuals (ages 20 to 64 years) who were applying for psychiatric treatment. All major scales except L, K, D, and SI showed statistically significant age group differences. In general, older patients had higher scores on HS and HY, while younger patients had higher scores on F, PD, PA, PT, SC, MA.

Cognitive correlates of diffuse cerebral atrophy determined by computed tomography.

The relationship between severity of diffuse cerebral atrophy determined by computed tomography (CT) and severity of cognitive impairment was examined in 55 men, 50 to 77 years old. Partial correlations, controlling for the effects of age and education, indicated that increased cerebral atrophy was associated with decline in orientation, recent memory, and general level of intellectual functioning. Correlations between degree of atrophy and decline in immediate and remote memory were not significant.

Line bisection and unilateral visual neglect in patients with neurologic impairment.

Unilateral visual neglect is a common symptom or sign in patients with lesions of the nondominant hemisphere. Several techniques have been used to demonstrate visual neglect. One such technique--asking a patient to bisect a horizontal line and expecting an estimate of center away from the side neglected--has been used for over 70 years but has not been statistically evaluated.

Life span changes in the averaged evoked responses of Down's syndrome and nonretarded persons.

Visual, auditory, and somatosensory evoked responses were recorded from six age groups of Down's syndrome persons and age and sex-matched nonretarded individuals ranging in age from 5 to 62 years and assigned to groups on the basis of observable signs of development and aging. Results indicated that, regardless of stimulus modality, the amplitude of late wave components was dramatically larger for Down's syndrome than for the nonretarded subjects. Where obvious amplitude reduction occurred with maturation and aging among nonretarded subjects, amplitude changes were generally absent among Down's syndrome subjects.

Neuropsychological correlates of chronic alcoholism and aging.

Independent investigations of alcoholism and aging have demonstrated significant parallels between the two phenomena suggesting the possibility of "premature aging" as a result of alcoholism. To test this hypothesis a cross-sectional design was utilized with three groups of 20 male subjects: young normal (mean age 31 years), young alcoholics (mean age 33 years), and elderly normal (mean age 71 years). Eleven objective measures, selected from a battery of sensory and perceptual motor tests routinely used to evaluate cerebral dysfunction in hospitalized patients, were compared for the three groups.

WAIS performance in young normal, young alcoholic, and elderly normal groups: an evaluation of organicity and mental aging indices.

Investigated the effects of alcoholism and advanced age on Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) performance and tested the validity of indices of "organicity" and "mental aging" derived from WAIS scores. The WAIS was administered to three groups of 20 males each: young normal (mean age 31 years), young alcoholic (mean age 33 years), and elderly normal (mean age 71 years. In terms of scaled scores, the young normal group was generally superior to the other groups on Verbal and Performance subtests, and the alcoholic and elderly groups resembled each other more on the Verbal than the Performance subtests.

Alexia without agraphia and the inferior splenium.

A patient who had alexia without agraphia, right homonymous hemianopia, and intact color-naming was studied anatomically. Pathologic involvement of the splenium and related forceps was restricted to the inferior third, supporting published suggestions that inferior elements of this commissure and left peristriate cortex may be essential to the decoding to the written word, while color-naming may be functionally aligned to more dorsal elements.

Pure word deafness. (Auditory verbal agnosia).

The selective inability to comprehend the spoken word, in the absence of aphasia or defective or defective hearing, is defined as pure word deafness (auditory verbal agnosia). Reported cases of this rare disorder have suggested the site of involvement to be strategically placed, interrupting fibers from left and right primary auditory receptive areas which project to Wernicke's are in the dominant hemisphere. Our patient is a 44-year-old male who suffered from an uncertain illness complicated by fever, jaundice and generalized seizures seven years previously.