Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and anxiety: is there an association with neurodevelopmental deficits?

OBJECTIVE: The co-occurrence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and anxiety is a well-established clinical observation. However, its status as a clinical construct is debated. We review the prevalence of 'ADHD and anxiety', its definitions, and its clinical correlates and we hypothesise that neurodevelopmental deficits may be increased in 'ADHD and anxiety'. METHOD: The authors identified empirical studies in the psychiatric and psychological literature. The search categories included hyperactivity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, attention deficit disorder and anxiety. RESULTS: 'ADHD and anxiety' is considerably more common in clinical than epidemiological samples. There are a range of definitions which address the situational variation in both ADHD and anxiety symptoms and the use of categorical and continuous variables to define them. Yet the nature of the anxiety is still unclear. It is associated with a poor response to psychostimulant medication treatment, and alternative pharmacotherapy approaches have been suggested. There is a controversy about whether neurodevelopmental deficits are associated with hyperactivity alone, or anxiety, or both. CONCLUSIONS: 'ADHD and anxiety' is important clinically because it is common and less responsive to psychostimulant medication. Important research issues include its heterogeneity which necessitates the collection of parent, teacher, and child self-reports of symptoms' presence or absence and the hypothesis that neurodevelopmental deficits may be increased in this group of children.     

Prolonged and monosymptomatic dysphasic status epilepticus

Dysphasic seizures are an infrequent form of epilepsy, and their serial appearance as a partial status epilepticus is quite exceptional. The young patient reported here had a partial dysphasic status epilepticus of 3 weeks' duration without other temporal lobe seizures. Simultaneous serial electroencephalograms, tape recordings of the seizures, and repeated neuropsychologic ictal examinations permitted studies of increased impairment of neuropsychologic function on testing and the appearance of new irritative discharges on encephalography.     

Development of principles for the controlled autolysis of Escherichia and Salmonella

The autolysis of Escherichia and Salmonella, depending on the conditions of the medium where the cultivation and lysis of the bacteria took place, was studied. The study revealed that the autolysis of these bacteria was most intensive if lysis was induced at the moment when the culture achieved the maximum specific growth rate, as well as in case when the extreme conditions were maintained in the medium during the autolytic process. Approaches to controlling the process of the induced autolysis of Escherichia and Salmonella were proposed and substantiated.