Temporal Lobe Signs and Reports of Subjective Paranormal Experiences in a Normal Population: A Replication

1985 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 903-909 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Persinger ◽  
P. M. Valliant

Correlations ( r = 0.50) were found between the numbers of different psi (paranormal) experiences and the numbers of temporal lobe signs within a population of university students ( n = 99). The strongest correlation of 0.60 occurred with a cluster of signs that are similar to symptoms reported by patients who show chronic foci in the mesiobasal temporal lobe. However, there were no significant correlations between numbers of different psi experiences and clusters of control items or a lie scale. Specific analyses of the 140 items of the inventory indicated only 23 reached statistical criterion ( p < .001). Of these 17 were direct temporal lobe signs that implied deepened affect, auditory-vestibular experiences (vibrations, hearing one's name called), olfactory auras, perseveration (“forced” thinking), depersonalization, and sense of the personal. Five items involved beliefs about exotic phenomena or philosophical ideas. Only one item was from a control cluster. These results support the hypothesis that mystical or paranormal experiences are associated with transient electrical foci within the temporal lobe of the human brain. The repeated occurrence of these experiences within normal individuals may be embedded within a more complex symptomatology of temporal lobe signs.

1987 ◽  
Vol 64 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1112-1114 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Persinger

Comparisons were made between personality (MMPI) profiles of 26 part-time university students who scored in the upper and 29 students who scored in the lower one-quarter of the range on a scale that measures temporal-lobe signs in the normal population. Compared to the reference group, the subjects who displayed mote temporal-lobe signs showed statistically significant elevations above a T score of 70 on Schizophrenia and Hypomania. There were secondary elevations on Psychasthenia and frequency scales. Similar profiles whose high-point scores display greater amplitude are typical for patients with schizotypal disorders and for many patients who have long histories of temporal lobe epilepsy. These results support the existence of a continuum of temporal-lobe lability that extends into the normal population.


1988 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Persinger

Mature university students (14 men and 16 women) were asked to complete the 16 PF and a scale that samples temporal lobe signs in the normal population. People who reported frequent temporal lobe experiences were more emotionally unstable, impulsive, emotionally sensitive (imaginative inner self, actions based upon intuition and self-anxiety), and tense (free-floating anxiety). The results were compatible with personality characteristics of people who report “temporal lobe experiences” and have been assessed by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the California Personality Inventory.


2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 707-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH W. TWAMLEY ◽  
SUSAN A. LEGENDRE ROPACKI ◽  
MARK W. BONDI

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a common, devastating form of dementia. With the advent of promising symptomatic treatment, the importance of recognizing AD at its very earliest stages has increased. We review the extant neuropsychological and neuroimaging literature on preclinical AD, focusing on longitudinal studies of initially nondemented individuals and cross-sectional investigations comparing at-risk with normal individuals. We systematically reviewed 91 studies of neuropsychological functioning, structural neuroimaging, or functional neuroimaging in preclinical AD. The neuropsychological studies indicated that preclinical AD might be characterized by subtle deficits in a broad range of neuropsychological domains, particularly in attention, learning and memory, executive functioning, processing speed, and language. Recent findings from neuroimaging research suggest that volume loss and cerebral blood flow or metabolic changes, particularly in the temporal lobe, may be detected before the onset of dementia. There exist several markers of a preclinical period of AD, in which specific cognitive and biochemical changes precede the clinical manifestations. The preclinical indicators of AD reflect early compromise of generalized brain integrity and temporal lobe functioning in particular. (JINS, 2006,12, 707–735.)


PROTEOMICS ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (18) ◽  
pp. 4987-4996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sizhi He ◽  
Qingsong Wang ◽  
Jintang He ◽  
Hai Pu ◽  
Wei Yang ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Schweighauser ◽  
Diana Arseni ◽  
Melissa Huang ◽  
Sofia Lövestam ◽  
Yang Shi ◽  
...  

Many age-dependent neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, are characterised by abundant inclusions of amyloid filaments. Filamentous inclusions of the proteins tau, amyloid-β (Aβ), α-synuclein and TDP-43 are the most common. Here, we used electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) structure determination to show that residues 120-254 of the lysosomal type II transmembrane protein 106B (TMEM106B) also form amyloid filaments in the human brain. We solved cryo-EM structures of TMEM106B filaments from the brains of 22 individuals with neurodegenerative conditions, including sporadic and inherited tauopathies, Aβ-amyloidoses, synucleinopathies and TDP-43opathies, as well as from the brains of two neurologically normal individuals. We observed three different TMEM106B folds, with no clear relationship between folds and diseases. The presence of TMEM106B filaments correlated with that of a 29 kDa sarkosyl-insoluble fragment of the protein on Western blots. The presence of TMEM106B filaments in the brains of older, but not younger, neurologically normal individuals indicates that they form in an age-dependent manner.


1982 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 782-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
D E Comings

Abstract To understand at a molecular level the basis of the normal and pathological genetic differences between individuals it is necessary to begin a detailed two-dimensional gel electrophoretic mapping of the proteins of the human brain in normal individuals and those with various genetic neurological disorders. The present study is an examination of the polypeptide patterns of extracts of the human brain made with 9 mol/L urea solution. Details of the technique and the nomenclature of the patterns obtained are presented. the gels are separated into 20 sub-sections, based on standards with known molecular masses and isoelectric points. Groups of polypeptides within these sub-sections are identified by a number and a letter; the individual proteins are identified by a number. Thus, protein 1 in subsection 8, group b, would be designated 8b: 1. Subsequent papers in this series identify many of these proteins; show which proteins belong to the cytosol, synaptosome, myelin, and other brain fractions; show how these patterns vary between normal individuals and those with different neurological and psychiatric conditions; examine the effect of severe gliosis; and present the results of non-equilibrium gel electrophoresis for the more basic proteins.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 2986-2996
Author(s):  
Xue Tian ◽  
Ruosi Wang ◽  
Yuanfang Zhao ◽  
Zonglei Zhen ◽  
Yiying Song ◽  
...  

Abstract Previous studies have shown that individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) show specific deficits in face processing. However, the mechanism underlying the deficits remains largely unknown. One hypothesis suggests that DP shares the same mechanism as normal population, though their faces processing is disproportionally impaired. An alternative hypothesis emphasizes a qualitatively different mechanism of DP processing faces. To test these hypotheses, we instructed DP and normal individuals to perceive faces and objects. Instead of calculating accuracy averaging across stimulus items, we used the discrimination accuracy for each item to construct a multi-item discriminability pattern. We found DP’s discriminability pattern was less similar to that of normal individuals when perceiving faces than perceiving objects, suggesting that DP has qualitatively different mechanism in representing faces. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study was conducted to reveal the neural basis and found that multi-voxel activation patterns for faces in the right fusiform face area and occipital face area of DP were deviated away from the mean activation pattern of normal individuals. Further, the face representation was more heterogeneous in DP, suggesting that deficits of DP may come from multiple sources. In short, our study provides the first direct evidence that DP processes faces qualitatively different from normal population.


Neurology ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 560-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Gambardella ◽  
I. Manna ◽  
A. Labate ◽  
R. Chifari ◽  
A. La Russa ◽  
...  

Background: Dysfunction of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) (B) receptors has been implicated in the pathogenesis of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).Objective: To evaluate the genetic contribution of cloned human GABA(B) receptors to TLE.Methods: The authors genotyped 141 patients (78 women and 63 men; mean age = 49.1 ± 18.0 years) with nonlesional TLE and 372 age- and sex-matched normal individuals for the known polymorphism G1465A in the human GABA(B) receptor 1 [GABA(B[1])] gene.Results: There was a highly significant overrepresentation of the G1465A heterozygote in patients with TLE compared with controls. The A/G genotype was found in 17% of the 141 patients with TLE and in only 0.5% of the 372 controls (p < 0.0001). The authors also found that patients carrying the A allele had a significantly higher risk (p = 0.003, OR = 6.47, 95% CI = 2.02 to 20.76) of developing drug-resistant TLE. Furthermore, the age at onset of seizures tended to be lower in patients with A/G genotype, but the difference was not significant.Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that the GABA(B[1]) polymorphism (G1465A) confers a highly increased susceptibility to TLE. Moreover, it seems to influence the severity of this common epileptic disorder.


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