(C) 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Impaired theory of mind (TOM) reasoning is considered

an underlying cause of social cognition deficits in patients with acquired learn more brain injury (ABI). However, the literature does not agree on the severity of ToM impairment in this clinical population, nor does it coincide on the proper tools for its assessment. In this paper, we use a meta-analytic approach to review 26 studies which compare the performance of ABI patients and healthy controls in four widely-used ToM tasks: first-order belief task, second order belief task, understanding indirect speech (IS) and social faux pas. Overall, patients show moderate to severe ToM impairment. The latter appears in faux pas (effect size =0.70) and understanding IS tasks (ES= 0.87), while moderate impairment can be seen in second-order (ES = 0.60) and first-order belief tasks (ES = 0.52). The severity of ToM impairment was influenced by ratio of patients with frontal lobe lesion, ratio of patients with right hemisphere injury, type of belief task, and heterogeneity

of the sample’s etiology. Our results provide important quantitative buy PRN1371 evidence on the severity of ToM deficits in the ABI population, while identifying variables that influence these deficits. Implications for basic and clinical neuropsychology are discussed. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Hemispherectomy is currently the only effective treatment for relieving constant seizures in children with severe or progressive unilateral cortical disease. Although early hemispherectomy has been advocated to avoid general dysfunction due to continued seizures, it remains unclear whether age at Plasmin surgery affects specific sensorimotor functions. Little is know about the anatomical status of sensorimotor pathways after

hemispherectomy and how it might relate to sensorimotor function. Here we measured motor function and sensory thresholds of the upper and lower limbs in 12 hemispherectomized patients. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was used to determine status of brainstem corticospinal tracts and medial lemniscus. Hemispherectomy subjects showed remarkable recovery in both sensory and motor function. Many patients showed normal sensory vibration thresholds. Within the smaller Rasmussen’s subgroup, we saw a relationship between age at surgery and sensorimotor function recovery (i.e. earlier was better). Anatomically, we found marked asymmetry in brainstem corticospinal tracts but preserved symmetry in the medial lemniscus, which may relate to robust sensory recovery. Age at surgery predicted anatomical status of brainstem sensorimotor tracts. In sum, we found that age at surgery influences anatomical changes in brainstem motor pathways, and may also relate to sensorimotor recovery patterns. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Objective: Patients with cerebellar stroke are impaired in motor skill acquisition and cognitive/executive performance.