Biomedical subjects

F C Cunha

Publications and source records attributed to F C Cunha.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

[Contributions to the neuropsychology of executive behavior: performance of normal individuals on the Tower of London and Wisconsin tests].

The concept of "executive behavior" encompasses a set of abilities which are critical for the organization of thought and behavior. To test the hypothesis that executive behavior is composed of multiple modules we investigated the performance of 61 normal adults on two widely used executive tasks, the Wisconsin Card Sorting (WCST) and the Tower of London (TOL) tests. We hypothesized that if executive behavior were composed of multiple modules, the main dimensions of each task would be weakly, if at all, statistically related. We also tested the hypothesis that occupational functioning would be related to executive performance. Our results revealed no significant association between the WCST and TOL tasks, favoring the idea that executive behavior is made up of multiple neuropsychological dimensions. Secondly, men fared significantly better than women on the difficult (4 and 5-moves) TOL puzzles. Finally, there was a significant association between performance on the difficult TOL puzzles and level of occupational functioning. These findings may explain certain dissociations in executive behavior commonly observed in patients with focal or diffuse brain damage. If replicated, they might be useful in the prediction of success in cognitive rehabilitation programs.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Functional MRI correlates of real and imagined tool-use pantomimes.

OBJECTIVE: To study the pattern of cerebral activation related to the performance of tool-use pantomimes with functional MRI (fMRI) using a task-subtraction design. BACKGROUND: Tool use comprises a particular category of transitive actions. Inability to pantomime the use of tools has been classically associated with retrorolandic dominant hemisphere damage. However, where in the left hemisphere these transitive representations are generated is unclear. METHODS: Echoplanar images were acquired in eight alternating task and control periods. Sixteen right-handed normal adults pantomimed the use of common tools and utensils with each hand. The control condition consisted of a sequence of nonsymbolic complex movements of forearm, hand, and fingers at a self-paced rate. Eight individuals also imagined the execution of the real task and control actions. A repeated measures ANOVA compared activations in five regions of interest in each hemisphere. RESULTS: Regardless of which hand was used, the left hemisphere was more active than the right in both real (p < 0.02) and imagined (p < 0.04) tasks. Activations clustered in the left intraparietal cortex and posterior dorsolateral frontal cortex. CONCLUSIONS: Pantomiming the use of tools is associated with activation of the left intraparietal cortex and dorsolateral frontal cortex. The left intraparietal cortex may store the representations of tool-use formulae, whereas the dorsolateral frontal cortex activation may reflect the switching between innervatory motor programs.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Trail making and cognitive set-shifting.

We tested the hypothesis that Part B of the Trail Making Test (TMT) is a measure of cognitive set-shifting ability in 55 normal subjects with the conventional (written) TMT and a verbal adaptation, the "verbal TMT" (vTMT). The finding of a significant association between Parts B of TMT and vTMT (r = 0,59, p < 0,001), after correcting for age and education, supports the view that Part B of TMT is a valid measure of the ability to alternate between cognitive categories.

Adolescent↗