The hidden identity of faces. A case of lifelong prosopagnosia

Wegrzyn M, Garlichs A, Heß RWK, Woermann FG, Labudda K. The hidden identity of faces. A case of lifelong prosopagnosia. BMC Psychology. 2019;7(1): 4.Background Not being able to recognize a person’s face is a highly debilitating condition from which people with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) suffer their entire life. Here we describe the case of J, a 30 year old woman who reports being unable to recognize her parents, her husband, or herself in the mirror. Case presentation We set out to assess the severity of J’s prosopagnosia using tests with unfamiliar as well as familiar faces and investigated whether impaired configural processing explains her deficit. To assess the specificity of the impairment, we tested J’s performance when evaluating emotions, intentions, and the attractiveness and likability of faces. Detailed testing revealed typical brain activity patterns for faces and normal object recognition skills, and no evidence of any brain injury. However, compared to a group of matched controls, J showed severe deficits in learning new faces, and in recognizing familiar faces when only inner features were available. Her recognition of uncropped faces with blurred features was within the normal range, indicating preserved configural processing when peripheral features are available. J was also unimpaired when evaluating intentions and emotions in faces. In line with healthy controls, J rated more average faces as more attractive. However, she was the only one to rate them as less likable, indicating a preference for more distinctive and easier to recognize faces. Conclusions Taken together, the results illustrate both the severity and the specificity of DP in a single case. While DP is a heterogeneous disorder, an inability to integrate the inner features of the face into a whole might be the best explanation for the difficulties many individuals with prosopagnosia experience

Novel Bradykinin Analogues Modified in the N-Terminal Part of the Molecule with a Variety of Acyl Substituents

In the current work we present some pharmacological characteristics of ten new analogues of bradykinin (Arg–Pro–Pro–Gly–Phe–Ser–Pro–Phe–Arg) modified in the N-terminal part of the molecule with a variety of acyl substituents. Of the many acylating agents used previously with B2 receptor antagonists, the following residues were chosen: 1-adamantaneacetic acid (Aaa), 1-adamantanecarboxylic acid (Aca), 4-tert-butylbenzoic acid (t-Bba), 4-aminobenzoic acid (Aba), 12-aminododecanoic acid (Adc), succinic acid (Sua), 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzoic acid, 3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)propionic acid and 6-hydroxy-2-naphthoic acid. Biological activity of the compounds was assessed in the in vivo rat blood pressure test and the in vitro rat uterus test. Surprisingly, N-terminal substitution of the bradykinin peptide chain itself with aforementioned groups resulted in antagonists of bradykinin in the pressor test and suppressed agonistic potency in the uterotonic test. These interesting findings need further studies as they can be helpful for designing more potent B2 receptor blockers

Comparison of primary production and pelagic community respiration rates in the coastal zone of the Gulf of Gdansk

The organic matter production/respiration balance in the coastal water column was examined, both the primary production and community respiration being measured with the oxygen light-and-dark bottle method. Community respiration (CR) was always lower than the gross primary production (GPP) measured at a standard light intensity of 390 µE m-2 s-1, which amounted, on average, to 30% of GPP. During most of the in situ sampling period, the coastal system (6-7 m depth) was found to be autotrophic, with depth-integrated GPP ranging from 6.7 mmoles O2 m-2 d-1 in December to 214.2 mmoles O2 m-2 d-1 in August, and CR ranging correspondingly from 6.0 to 177.7 mmoles O2 m-2 d-1. However, on some occasions heterotrophic conditions were recorded: depth-integrated GPP<CR. In summer (August) this was caused mainly by low water transparency, which repressed photosynthesis, while in winter (December) it was due to the short period of daylight

Klinischer Einsatz der funktionellen MRT bei chronischer Epilepsie

Friedrich G. W, Labudda K. Klinischer Einsatz der funktionellen MRT bei chronischer Epilepsie. Der Radiologe. 2010;50(2):123-130.Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is frequently used in the presurgical diagnostic procedure of epilepsy patients, in particular for lateralization of speech and memory and for localization of the primary motor cortex to delineate the epileptogenic lesion from eloquent brain areas. fMRI is one of the non-invasive procedures in the presurgical diagnostic process, together with medical history, seizure semiology, neurological examination, interictal and ictal EEG, structural MRI, video EEG monitoring and neuropsychology. This diagnostic sequence leads either to the decision for or against elective epilepsy surgery or to the decision to proceed with invasive diagnostic techniques (Wada test, intra-operative or extra-operative cortical stimulation). It is difficult to evaluate the contribution of the fMRI test in isolation to the validity of the entire diagnostic sequence. Complications such as memory loss and aphasia in temporal lobe resections or paresis after frontal lobe resections are rare and rarely of disastrous extent. This further complicates the evaluation of the clinical relevance of fMRI as a predictive tool. In this article studies which investigated the concordance between fMRI and other diagnostic gold standards will be presented as well as the association between presurgical fMRI and postsurgical morbidity