Gene E Alexander

PMID: 8562497;Abstract:

The reliability of psychiatric diagnosis has a direct effect on the validity of post-mortem analyses of neuropathological data, yet little is known about the reliability of retrospective diagnostic procedures which rely on review of medical records. In this paper, we report on the reliability of DSM-III-R psychiatric diagnoses assigned by a pool of 8 raters to a set of 106 state hospital charts of elderly, chronic patients who had died while institutionalized and were autopsied. Diagnoses were grouped by general diagnostic class, and Kappa coefficients computed for agreement among raters, as well as for agreement between ultimate consensus diagnoses and those made while subjects were living. Interrater agreement for those diagnoses that occurred most frequently in this sample (e.g. Schizophrenia and Dementia) was excellent, and comparable to the the agreement observed for ratings of live patients. Interrater agreement for less frequently occurring diagnoses (e.g. Mental Retardation, Mood Disorders, other non-Schizophrenic Psychoses) ranged from excellent to poor. We found high agreement between our raters diagnoses and those assigned by state hospital personnel while patients were living, although post-mortem review produced lower rates of diagnosis of both schizophrenia and Alzheimer-type dementias. Overall, results suggest that the reliability of chart review diagnosis is comparable to that obtained from interviews of live patients when experienced raters are used and diagnostic base rates are high enough to produce stable estimates of reliability. © 1995.

Study demonstrating the beneficial effect of aerobic fitness on cognitive function in older women with increased risk for Alzheimer's disease.;Your Role: Contributed to analysis, aspects of study design, and revision of manuscript.;Full Citation: Etnier JL, Caselli RJ, Reiman EM, Alexander GE, Sibley BA, Tessier D, McLemore EC. Cognitive performance in older women relative to ApoE-epsilon4 genotype and aerobic fitness. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2007 39(1):199-207.;Collaborative with faculty member at UA: Yes;

PMID: 2967348;Abstract:

The construct of alexithymia has been postulated as a predisposing factor in psychosomatic illness. The alexithymia construct has achieved wide currency in psychosomatic research and theorizing despite its doubtful psychometric foundations. Also, the question of between-group variability in alexithymia has not been addressed. In this study we proposed and tested a Rorschach measure of alexithymia on four groups of psychosomatic patients (back pain, gastrointestinal, dermatology, migraine headache). It was hypothesized that psychosomatic groups would be more alexithymic than nonpatients. To examine the question of between-group variability in alexithymia, it was hypothesized that back pain patients would be more alexithymic than other psychosomatic groups. Both hypotheses were supported. Additionally, exploratory comparisons between psychosomatic groups revealed a number of differences between the groups in basic personality processes. The findings show promise for the use of the Rorschach test as an alexithymia measure. Based on the current study, heterogenous grouping of psychosomatic patients in research designs and treatment programs appear to be a highly questionable procedure.

PMID: 16791083;Abstract:

Healthy aging has been associated with brain volume reductions preferentially affecting the frontal cortex, but also involving other regions. We used a network model of regional covariance, the Scaled Subprofile Model, with magnetic resonance imaging voxel-based morphometry to identify the regional distribution of gray matter associated with aging in 26 healthy adults, 22-77 years old. Scaled Subprofile Model analysis identified a pattern that was highly correlated with age (R²=0.66, P≤0.0001). Older age was associated with less gray matter in the bilateral frontal, temporal,thalamic, and right cerebellar regions. Gender differences suggested more advanced brain aging in the men. In this healthy adult sample, aging was associated with a regional pattern of gray matter atrophy most prominently involving the frontal and temporal cortices. Scaled Subprofile Model network analysis may aid in the detection and tracking of brain aging and in the evaluation of putative antiaging therapies. © 2006 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Development of new method to fully quantify 18FDG PET non-invasively.;Your Role: Contributed to analysis, aspects of study design, and revision of manuscript.;Full Citation: Chen K, Chen X, Renaut R, Alexander GE, Bandy D, Guo H, Reiman EM. Characterization of the image-derived carotid artery input function using independent component analysis for the quantitation of [18F] fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography images. Phys Med Biol. 2007 Dec 7;52(23):7055-71.;Collaborative with faculty member at UA: Yes;