No abstract

This research examined deductions from a new theory of emotional imagery (Lang, 1979). Two experiments were performed, testing the hypothesis that the conceptual content processed during imagery determines the amplitude and pattern of coincident efferent activity. The image was manipulated by varying the content of the prompting instructions (either stimulus detail or active responding was emphasized in the image script) and by prior imagery training (in which subjects' post‐image verbal reports were shaped to emphasize either stimulus or response material). Three thematic contents were examined: neutral, action, and fear scenes. In Experiment I, a group which received response‐oriented imagery training and response scripts was compared to a stimulus‐oriented group. The results strongly supported the hypothesis: response subjects showed greater physiological activity during imagery, and their efferent pattern generally followed the script content. In Experiment II, one group again received response training and the other, stimulus training. However, half of each group was later tested on response‐structured scripts and the other half on stimulus scripts. Results again supported the hypothesis. As in Experiment I, response‐trained subjects tested on response scripts showed substantial physiological activity. None of the other groups, which received stimulus training and/or stimulus scripts, showed significant physiological responses during imagery. Response‐trained subjects generally rated their imagery as more vivid. Subjects administered response‐oriented scripts reported more emotional arousal than did subjects administered stimulus scripts.

SUMMARY Twenty subjects with minor head injury were compared to an uninjured group at 1 and 12 months after injury on a battery of neuropsychological and psychosocial measures. The results indicate that single minor head injury in persons with no prior compromising condition is associated with mild but probably clinically non-significant difficulties at 1 month after injury. Disruptions of everyday activities, however, are extensive with other system injuries significantly contributing to these problems. Recent reports in the literature may represent overestimation of head injury related losses due to lack of control for the effects of pre-injury characteristics and other system injuries.Interest in minor head injury has existed for some time, owing to the high incidence rate with which it occurs and the relatively high morbidity associated with it. A major research focus of the past was on the post-concussional symptoms and why they persisted in some cases (see refs I and 2 for reviews). More recent investigations have attempted to identify additional sequelae, such as neuropsychological and psychosocial, and determine the time course for natural recovery from such consequences. There has been a strong interest in neuropsychological consequences based on the belief and the hope that they would provide objective evidence of impaired brain functions and, therefore, explain patients' subjective complaints and disruptions in psychosocial functioning.Significant impairment of neuropsychological functions, in the absence of other positive neurological findings, do in fact seem to occur within days of minor head injury.3 S The main question is how long do these difficulties last. Persistent neuropsychological and psychosocial difficulties at 3 months after minor head injury were reported in the well known studies by Rimel etal6 and Barth etal7 which were based on the same subject pool. These discrepant findings warrant more careful scrutiny. The neuropsychological results for the group studied by Rimel et al6 were indeed impaired as compared with normative standards. However, in the absence of a proper comparison group, it is difficult to sort out the contribution of head injury as contrasted with the contribution of other factors which could influence neuropsychological functions (for example, premorbid characteristics, method of case selection).The purpose of the present study was to carefully delineate the effects of minor head injury. In an effort to achieve this purpose, a number of important methodological considerations and other factors were taken into account. These included: (1) the selection of consecutive cases as opposed to cases seen for clinical reasons; (2) the administration of an extensive battery of both neuropsychological and psychosocial measures; (3) the attainment of a 95% follow up rate; (4) the utilisation of a control group comparable with the head injured subjects; and (5) the examination of the contribution of other system injuries (for example, orthopaedic problems) in the same accident. M...

Axonal injury (AI), as defined by amyloid precursor protein (APP) positive axonal swellings, was recorded on a series of line diagrams of standard brain sections divided into 116 sectors to provide an Axonal Injury Sector Score (AISS) ranging from 0 to 116. This sector scoring method of recording axonal damage and providing a topographic overview of AI was applied to a series of 6 mild head injury cases [Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) 13-15] and six severe head injury cases (GCS 3-8). The AISS ranged from 4 to 107 overall and varied from 4 to 88 in the mildly injured group and 76 to 107 in the severe head injury group, supporting the concept that there is a spectrum of AI in traumatic head injury and that the AISS is a measure of the extent of AI. APP immunostaining demonstrated positive axonal swellings 1.75 h after head injury and analysis of the pattern of AI in the mild and severe head injury groups showed that axons were more vulnerable than blood vessels and that the axons in the corpus callosum and fornices were the most vulnerable of all.