HUMAN CLINICAL STUDIES OF ATTENTION DISORDERS

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This research comprises three related areas of investigation concerned with specifying neuropsychological factors underlying clinical conditions in humans in which disturbed attention is a major symptom. A major emphasis is on (1) illuminating the nature of brainstem pathophysiology, if any, in such entities as petit mal or absence epilepsy, infantile autism, schizophrenia, and related diseases; (2) an additional major emphasis is on extending the neurobehavioral analysis of attention loss in absence epilepsy so as to facilitate developing alternative treatment strategies for such patients. Both of these projects form part of a larger effort which is aimed at (3) developing a comprehensive and systematic taxonomy of attentional disorders in humans. This latter study will eventually comprise study of patients with cerebral lesions, seizures, dementing diseases, and metabolic illnesses of the brain.