Browsing by Subject "Persian Gulf Syndrome"
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Item Examining Neurological and Psychological Symptoms of Gulf War Illness Using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2(2014-12-22) Hillis, George Andrew James; Cullum, C. Munro; Posamentier, Mette; Motes, Michael A.BACKGROUND: Gulf War Illness (GWI) reflects a constellation of symptoms that affect a large number of veterans from the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Reported ailments include a variety of cognitive, musculoskeletal and psychological complaints. Whereas many symptoms were originally attributed to psychological causes, chemical exposures resulting in neurological damage have since been reported. The purpose of the study was to examine self-reported psychological symptoms and profiles in GWI, with an emphasis on symptoms that may have a neurological basis. SUBJECTS: Groups were comprised of 65 Gulf War veterans with GWI (“cases”) and 31 healthy age-matched veteran controls recruited from a National Survey. The case group was divided into one of three GWI syndromes: syndrome 1 (Impaired Cognition), syndrome 2 (Confusion-Ataxia), and syndrome 3 (Central Pain). METHOD: Participants completed the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI- 2), a common self-report psychological diagnostic inventory, including the standard clinical scales, a set of restructured scales which eliminates item overlap, and a set of scales designed to assess neurologic symptoms, across cases, controls, and syndromes. RESULTS: GWI subjects displayed higher scores across all MMPI-2 scores compared to controls. Additionally, those with GWI who endorsed a larger percentage of neurological items displayed higher elevations on all other MMPI-2 scales. Within GWI syndromes, syndrome 2 (Confusion-Ataxia) endorsed the highest percentage of neurological ailments and scored higher than the other groups on all additional scales examined. DISCUSSION: Veterans with GWI displayed a nonspecific, generalized pattern of distress on the MMPI-2. While specific neurological and psychological processes were not identified, results highlight the range and severity of symptoms reported in veterans with GWI.Item Gulf war syndrome: clinical science at the interface with politics(2004-12-02) Haley, Robert W.Item Gulf war syndrome: stress or neurotoxic brain damage?(1999-09-02) Haley, Robert W.Item Image Processing Considerations for High Resolution Diffusion Tensor Imaging of the Human Brainstem(2012-07-17) Hulsey, Keith McLeod; McColl, Roderick W.Diffusion weighted MRI is used to measure the diffusivity of water in the human brain noninvasively. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) fits the diffusivity measurements from many directions to a tensor model of the diffusivity of water in brain tissue. DTI is particularly useful for interrogating the health and organization of white matter in the brain. The human brainstem has many white matter tracts that connect small nuclei in the brainstem to other regions of the brain. High resolution DTI of the brainstem may be helpful in understanding diseases that implicate brainstem nuclei. There are technical challenges for DTI which must be addressed to provide the most sensitive and meaningful measurements. Some of these challenges are: accurate registration between diffusion weighted images, accurate fitting of the data to the tensor model, measuring significance of group differences using DTI results, and increasing image resolution. This study has focused on finding solutions for accurate fitting of data to the tensor model in the presence of signal void artifacts and on increasing image resolution beyond the point at which signal aliasing occurs. To meet the aims of this study I have; 1) developed an innovative approach to detect and remove signal void artifacts caused by subject motion, brain motion induced by cardiac pulsation and scanner vibration, 2) developed an innovative approach to mask aliased signal in DTI scans which have a field of view smaller than the subject's head, and 3) shown that removing signal void artifacts from the DTI scans acquired for the Gulf War Illness study produces significant changes in FA for most subjects in the study. Removing signal void artifacts from the Gulf War Illness study data did not, however, alter the conclusions of group comparisons for the samples of Gulf War veterans studied. Two conclusions of this study are that signal void artifacts should be removed from DTI data before conducting analysis and that an image with a field of view larger than the subject's head can be used to estimate the location of aliased signal in DTI scans acquired with fields of view smaller than the subject's head.Item Item [Southwestern News](2000-04-13) Baxter, MindyItem [Southwestern News](1997-10) Mullen, KrisThe date for this news release was not printed on the front page. The date can be located on the last page (2) of the news release just below the web site URL. The date is consistent with the original organization within the binders.Item [Southwestern News](1997-01-08) Mullen, KrisItem [Southwestern News](1997-10-31) Mullen, KrisThe date for this news release was not printed on the front page. The date can be located on the last page (2) of the news release just below the web site URL. The date is consistent with the original organization within the binders.Item [Southwestern News](1996) UnknownThe date for this news release was not printed on the release itself. The year is inferred from the original organization of news releases within dated binders.Item [Southwestern News](2000-09-14) Baxter, MindyItem [Southwestern News](1999-06-16) Warren, MindyItem [Southwestern News](2000-05-25) Baxter, MindyItem [Southwestern News](2004-09-27) Morales, KatherineItem Transverse Relaxation Times of Major Brain Metabolites in Gulf War Illness(2010-05-14) Chang, Audrey Jennifer; Briggs, Richard W.Because many neurodegenerative diseases, like Gulf War Illness (GWI), are unidentifiable on conventional MRI or other imaging modalities in their early stages, diagnosis and treatment must wait until the disease has progressed to a more debilitating and obvious phase. The first aim of this thesis was to develop a reliable protocol to investigate the more subtle changes in metabolite concentrations and T2 relaxation times in GWI. This protocol generated reproducible MRS results, with small inter- and intrasubject variability, on normal controls in the basal ganglia region using single voxel spectroscopy. The second aim of this thesis was to compare T2 values of major brain metabolites in the basal ganglia in Gulf War Syndromes 1-3 and age-matched control veterans. Significant differences were found between Syndrome 2 and controls for NAA and Cr in left basal ganglia and for Cho in right basal ganglia. Finally, measured T2 values were also used to correct concentrations of brain metabolites to investigate relaxation effects on concentration results. At low TE values (TE=30 ms in this study) T2 relaxation measurements were found to have a small effect (approximately 10%) on concentration data. At larger TE values (TE=270 ms in this study) T2 relaxation measurements have a greater impact on concentration results. This finding reinforces the concentration data as evidence of neurophysical damage underlying cognitive difficulties experienced by Gulf War Illness patients, instead of T2 time effects creating false differences in concentration or metabolite signal ratios. / By establishing a dependable and efficient method of acquisition, T2 relaxation measurements can be incorporated into future MRS protocols, ensuring metabolite concentration measurements can be accurately corrected, especially for acquisitions with long TE, instead of using a static quantity, and moving the analysis of single voxel spectroscopy towards true absolute quantitation values. Also, this method, confirmed here to be reliable on existing equipment, can be expanded for use in other disease models which are similarly difficult to detect in conventional MRI.Item [UT Southwestern Medical Center News](2008-11-11) Morales, KatherineItem [UT Southwestern Medical Center News](2009-03-20) Morales, Katherine