Approximately 25-40% of patients with idiopathic PD experience hallucinations. Genetic variability within
different candidate genes has been implicated in the clinical severity of sporadic PD in many populations. Materials and Methods: We investigated 3 polymorphisms located in the 5′ flanking region of the HOMER1 gene within a sample of 131 sporadic PD patients from southern Italy, using a 3-SNP genotype and haplotype combination (rs4704559, rs10942891, rs4704560). Results: Our study implicates the effects of allele A of the rs4704559 marker in susceptibility to psychotic symptoms in PD (chi(2) = 8.092, 1 d.f., p = 0.004). Conclusion: Even though Go6983 concentration our results are preliminary, this HOMER1 gene variant may represent a biomarker for side effect evaluation in PD patients. Copyright (C) 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel”
“Two
areas of current intense interest in the neuroimaging literature are that of the visual word form area (VWFA) and of the fusiform face area (FFA) and their roles in word and face perception, respectively. These two areas are of particular relevance to laterality research because visual word identification and face identification have long been shown to be especially lateralized to the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere, respectively. This review therefore seeks to evaluate their significance for the broader understanding of lateralization Fedratinib of object recognition. A multi-level model of lateralized object recognition is proposed based on a combination of behavioral and neuroimaging findings. Rather than seek to characterize hemispheric asymmetries according to a single
principle (e.g., serial-parallel), it is suggested that current observations can be understood in terms of three asymmetric levels of processing, using the framework of the Janus model of hemispheric function. It is suggested that the left hemisphere represents features using an abstract-category code whereas the RH utilizes a specific-exemplar code. The relationships between these features are also coded asymmetrically, with the LH relying on associative co-occurrence Monoiodotyrosine values and the RH relying on spatial metrics. Finally, the LH controlled selection system focuses on isolating features and the RH focuses on conjoining features. It is suggested that each hemisphere utilizes efficient (apparently parallel) processing when stimuli are congruent with its preferred processing style and inefficient (apparently serial) processing when they are not, resulting in the typical left-lateralization for orthographic analysis and right-lateralization for face analysis. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“It has been shown that visual stimulation can activate cortical regions normally devoted to auditory processing in deaf individuals.