The influence of emotion clarity on emotional prosody identification in paranoid schizophrenia

Background Identification of emotional facial expression and emotional prosody (i.e. speech melody) is often impaired in schizophrenia. For facial emotion identification, a recent study suggested that the relative deficit in schizophrenia is enhanced when the presented emotion is easier to recognize. It is unclear whether this effect is specific to face processing or part of a more general emotion recognition deficit. Method We used clarity-graded emotional prosodic stimuli without semantic content, and tested 25 in-patients with paranoid schizophrenia, 25 healthy control participants and 25 depressive in-patients on emotional prosody identification. Facial expression identification was used as a control task. Results Patients with paranoid schizophrenia performed worse than both control groups in identifying emotional prosody, with no specific deficit in any individual emotion category. This deficit was present in high-clarity but not in low-clarity stimuli. Performance in facial control tasks was also impaired, with identification of emotional facial expression being a better predictor of emotional prosody identification than illness-related factors. Of those, negative symptoms emerged as the best predictor for emotional prosody identification. Conclusions This study suggests a general deficit in identifying high-clarity emotional cues. This finding is in line with the hypothesis that schizophrenia is characterized by high noise in internal representations and by increased fluctuations in cerebral network

Bazex syndrome

Bazex syndrome is a paraneoplastic acrokeratosis appearing mostly at the same time as the underlying neoplasm. We report a typical case with a squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue and classical cutaneous symptoms disappearing with the treatment of the tumour

The influence of emotion clarity on emotional prosody identification in paranoid schizophrenia

Identification of emotional facial expression and emotional prosody (i.e. speech melody) is often impaired in schizophrenia. For facial emotion identification, a recent study suggested that the relative deficit in schizophrenia is enhanced when the presented emotion is easier to recognize. It is unclear whether this effect is specific to face processing or part of a more general emotion recognition deficit

Thromboangiitis obliterans: a rare cause of a reversible Raynaud's phenomenon.

A 25-year-old woman with progressive Raynaud's phenomenon and digital necrosis is presented. Systemic sclerosis and other connective tissue disorders as well as atherosclerosis and arterial emboli were excluded with appropriate laboratory examinations. Arteriography revealed multiple palmar and digital occlusions with corkscrew-shaped vessels. Based on these characteristic arteriographic and clinical findings, the diagnosis of thromboangiitis obliterans was finally retained. With intravenous perfusion of the prostacyclin analogue iloprost (2 ng/kg/min, 6 h daily during 21 days), a complete healing of Raynaud's phenomenon and of the digital necrosis was observed. There was no recurrence during the 1-year follow-up. This observation demonstrates that thromboangiitis obliterans is a potential reversible cause of severe Raynaud's phenomenon in young women even in the absence of lower limb involvement. Early recognition is important to avoid irreversible complications such as loss of digits

Wegener's granulomatosis: description of a case where cutaneous involvement was correlated with elevation of the c-ANCA titer

Wegener's granulomatosis is a systemic disease characterized by necrotizing granulomas and vasculitis involving the upper and lower respiratory tract as well as the kidneys. Cutaneous manifestations consist mainly of papules or papulonecrotic lesions. c-ANCA are known to be a valuable adjunct for the diagnosis and follow-up of Wegener's granulomatosis with systemic involvement. We report the case of a 49-year-old man with Wegener's granulomatosis who developed two relapses of the disease with cutaneous manifestation and who presented with concomitant elevation of the c-ANCA and more precisely the subset PR3-ANCA during the acute phase of the disease

Syndrome de Muckle-Wells: description de 4 cas sur trois generations. [Muckle-Wells syndrome: 4 cases in three generations]

BACKGROUND: Muckle-Wells syndrome is a hereditary condition with variable penetrance. The main manifestations are urticarial rash, malaise in the evening, joint pain, perception deafness and renal amylosis. CASE REPORT: We describe a family with 4 affected members in 3 successive generations. Clinical expression was variable. DISCUSSION: Despite the absence of renal amylosis in our patients, this family presented the syndrome described by Muckle and Wells in 1962. As for other cases reported in the literature, the clinical course was favorable with low-dose corticosteroid therapy