Thalamic Atrophy in Huntington's Disease Co-varies with Cognitive Performance: A Morphometric MRI Analysis

The pattern of motor, behavioral and cognitive symptoms in Huntington's disease (HD) implicates dysfunction of basal-ganglia-thalamo-cortical circuits. This study explored if cognitive performance in HD is correlated with localized cerebral changes. Psychomotor functions were investigated by verbal fluency, Stroop color word and Digit Symbol tests in 44 HD patients and 22 controls. Three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were analyzed with regard to regional gray matter changes by use of the observer-independent whole-brain-based approach of voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Using statistical parametric mapping, the MRI data of the HD patients were analyzed in an ANCOVA including the individual results of the neuropsychological tests. Besides striatal areas, symmetrical regional atrophy of the thalamus was found to co-vary significantly with cognitive performance (P < 0.001, corrected for multiple comparisons). In particular, thalamic subnuclei projecting to prefrontal areas (dorsomedial subnucleus) and connected to the striatum (centromedian/parafascicular and ventrolateral nuclear complex) displayed volume loss, in agreement with neuropathological studies. These results suggest that thalamic degeneration contributes in an important way to the impairment of executive function in early HD. Patients who are impaired in executive tests display structural double lesions of the basal-ganglia-thalamo-cortical circuitry both at the striatal and at the thalamic leve

Interview with Alice Glaser

The interview discusses the style and tradition of square dancing music, the rewards and difficulties of teaching music, and trick fiddling with Alice Glaser, a fiddler from Knox County.https://digital.kenyon.edu/kcm_interviews/1001/thumbnail.jp

A single-subject study examining the effects of a behavioral intervention for verbal recurrent perserveration

BACKGROUND: Approximately 1 million people in the United States suffer from aphasia and \u3e 50% of those people may demonstrate recurrent perseverations. No consensus has been forthcoming on whether (1) a therapy that directly confronts clients with imminent pre-articulatory automatisms (the perseverations) or (2) a more typical neuropsychological therapy that eschews any direct confrontation with automatic behaviors works best. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the treatment efficacy of a non-confrontational picture naming intervention on naming ability in individuals with aphasia and recurrent perseverations. METHODS: This is a prospective single-subject ABAB multiple baseline design replicated across 3 right-handed individuals with moderate fluent aphasia subsequent to left hemisphere ischemic strokes to answer the study¡¯s experimental questions. Participants ranged from 61 to 77 years of age and ranged from 7.5 to 13.0 months post stroke. Further, the participants demonstrated total and/or blended perseverations errors on ¡Ý10% of a confrontational picture naming task that consisted of 60 items derived from the categories of the Naming in Categories subtest of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination Third Edition (Goodglass, Kaplan, & Barresi, 2001). Multiple measurements of accuracy and efficiency were taken during the naming intervention, after the intervention, and during other speech tasks including single word repetition, reading, and picture description. Consistent with single-subject design, we used visual inspection to determine whether or not improvement in picture naming associated with the non-confrontational intervention had occurred. We also opted to analyze the data using paired t-test, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Generalized Least Squares (GLS) with type 1 error rate set at ¦Á = 0.05. RESULTS: All three subjects increased performance on picture naming accuracy and decreased their number of recurrent perseverative responses with intervention. Only one subject elicited anticipatory errors in this study, and he demonstrated an increase in anticipatory proportion when presented with facilitating cues compared to pre-intervention performance. Preliminary results suggested communication improvements after the intervention extended beyond the speech process undergoing treatment. Significant individual variation in improvement was seen in response to therapy. CONCLUSION: The results of this study provided preliminary evidence regarding the efficacy of a non-confrontational picture naming intervention as a strategy to improve speech accuracy and efficiency. In addition, preliminary evidence suggests that the immediate improvements are feasible with relatively short duration and frequency of intervention

Interview with Ann Laudeman

Ann Laudeman talks about living in the Kokosing area and the environmental center.https://digital.kenyon.edu/lak_interviews/1034/thumbnail.jp

Interview with Page Price, Director of Knox County Regional Planning Office

Page Price talks about her job as Director of Knox County Regional Planning Officehttps://digital.kenyon.edu/lak_interviews/1036/thumbnail.jp

Interview with Tom Smith

The interview discusses other local musicians and the personal musical history of Tom Smith, a Knox County musician.https://digital.kenyon.edu/kcm_interviews/1005/thumbnail.jp

Interview with Meg Litteral

The interview discusses fiddling vs classical violin and the jam band culture with musician Meg Litteralhttps://digital.kenyon.edu/kcm_interviews/1003/thumbnail.jp

Interview with Inese Sharp

Inese Sharp talks about her job at the Brown Family Environmental Centerhttps://digital.kenyon.edu/lak_interviews/1033/thumbnail.jp

Interview with George Booker

The interview addresses the impact music has had on the life of George Booker, a musician from Knox County. They discuss how he got started and the impact of the church on his music.https://digital.kenyon.edu/kcm_interviews/1000/thumbnail.jp

Interview with Sarah Goslee Reed

The interview addresses song writing and traditional vs non-traditional music with Sarah Goslee Reed, a musician and folk song writerhttps://digital.kenyon.edu/kcm_interviews/1004/thumbnail.jp