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Biomedical subjects

O A Parsons

Publications and source records attributed to O A Parsons.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1988

The effects of repeated withdrawals from alcohol on the memory of male and female alcoholics.

The measure of number of withdrawals, as a separate drinking variable of relevance to cognitive functioning in alcoholics, is a relatively uninvestigated measure. An ethanol withdrawal hypothesis has been suggested that would predict poorer cognitive performance with increased number of withdrawals from alcohol. In this study, the effects of withdrawals (defined as a 24 hr period of abstinence following the consumption of alcohol) on tests of learning and memory were examined. Using 76 male and 67 female alcoholics, results indicate that greater number of withdrawals is related to poorer memory test performance. Results provide support for the ethanol hypothesis of poorer cognitive performance with increasing number of withdrawals, and suggest that females may exhibit accelerated responses to the effects of alcohol misuse.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Interpersonal problem solving in alcoholics.

In Study 1, a verbal role-playing test of interpersonal problem solving, the Adaptive Skills Battery (ASB), and selected "impersonal" neuropsychological problem-solving tests were given to male alcoholics (N = 73) in a VA alcohol treatment program and to male nonalcoholic controls (N = 36). Alcoholics' ASB competency scores under a "give your typical response" instructional set were significantly lower than controls' scores. In response to a "give the very best response" set, ASB scores for alcoholics and controls did not differ. Alcoholics' interpersonal problem-solving deficits appear to be due to their less effective execution of cognitive or problem-solving skills as opposed to their capacities for such skills. A lack of correlation between performance on impersonal neuropsychological tests and performance on the ASB suggests that these areas of functioning involve quite different psychological processes. In Study 2, alcoholics with alcoholic family members (family history positive) were found to have lower ASB scores than family history negative alcoholics. "Best" ASB responses were positively correlated with therapists' ratings of treatment behaviors and treatment outcome; "typical" ASB responses were not. Thus, alcoholics' therapeutic progress was predicted by their conceptualization of the "best" response in the interpersonal problem-solving situations and not by their typical pretreatment response.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Abstracting deficits and childhood conduct disorder as a function of familial alcoholism.

Using a large sample (n = 515), family history-positive male alcoholics (FH+) performed poorer than family history-negative (FH-) alcoholics on a test of abstracting ability. They also reported an earlier age of onset of alcoholism, more symptoms of childhood conduct disorder, and tended to report more depressive symptoms than FH- alcoholics, however, these variables were not significantly related to abstracting score. FH+ and FH- samples did not differ on average amount of ethanol consumed per day, vocabulary, state anxiety, childhood attentional deficit disorder, and childhood learning disability. The significant differences found in this study between FH+ and FH- alcoholics were minimal. With such weak effects, the inconsistent findings in studies that have investigated differences between FH+ and FH- alcoholics are understandable.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Verbal and nonverbal abstracting--problem-solving abilities and familial alcoholism in female alcoholics.

Women alcoholics (N = 54) had significantly worse performance on clusters of verbal and nonverbal abstracting - problem-solving tasks than peer nonalcoholic controls (N = 48). On the nonverbal cluster, alcoholic women with an alcoholic parent or sibling (FH+) performed significantly poorer than peer alcoholics without such a family history (FH-) and nonalcoholic FH+ and FH- groups. On the verbal cluster, FH+ alcoholics performed significantly worse than the nonalcoholic groups. FH- alcoholics did not differ significantly from the nonalcoholic groups on either of the clusters. There were no differences between FH+ and FH- nonalcoholics on the two types of tasks. The results suggest that female alcoholics have a generalized deficit on cognitive tasks involving abstracting and problem-solving, and that these deficits tend to be more pronounced in alcoholic women with a positive family history of alcohol abuse. Whether these deficits are due to a premorbid lowering of abstracting - problem-solving abilities in the FH+ individuals who subsequently become alcoholics, or are the result of a selective vulnerability of these cognitive processes to the effects of alcohol abuse in such subjects, or some combination of these factors, remains to be investigated.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Learning and memory test performance in alcoholics as a function of monetary incentive.

The performance deficits of alcoholics on tests of learning and memory are typically attributed to cognitive impairment. This study tests an alternative hypothesis that the deficits are due to motivational impairment. A face-name learning and memory test was administered to 30 sober male nonalcoholic and 40 alcoholic subjects in a 2 x 2 [Group (alcoholic, nonalcoholic) x Monetary incentive (incentive, no incentive)] between-subjects design. The monetary incentive was made contingent upon performance. Alcoholics required significantly more trials to learn face-name pairs, and they recalled fewer face-name pairs at the delayed recall. Incentive subjects manifested a trend toward impairment on the trials-to-learn measure. However, there were no significant Group x Incentive interactions in learning or memory, or on a self-report questionnaire of subjective states (e.g., effort expended) experienced during the test. Thus, no evidence was found to support the impaired motivation hypothesis; the cognitive hypothesis remains as the most credible hypothesis to account for the performance deficits of alcoholics.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Learning impairment in male and female alcoholics.

Male VA alcoholics have been found to perform significantly poorer than nonalcoholics in face-name learning. Can these results be (a) replicated in a sample of male alcoholics from community treatment programs, (b) extended to female alcoholics, and (c) accounted for by childhood symptoms of attention deficit, conduct, and learning disorders? Seventy-six male and 66 female alcoholics were compared to 48 male and 49 female nonalcoholic controls on a 12-item face-name learning test. Both male and female alcoholics had poorer learning scores than their respective control groups. Learning scores were unrelated to self reports of childhood attention deficit disorder, conduct disorder, and learning problems. Whether alcoholics' impaired face-name learning is due to the direct effect of alcohol on the brain or is a concomitant of alcoholics' disrupted interpersonal relationships remains to be investigated.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1988

Subject selection biases in alcoholic samples: effects on cognitive performance.

The effects of subject selection bias in research on cognitive deficits in sober alcoholics were studied in a sample of 523 subjects (98 controls, 276 ineligible alcoholics, 40 eligible alcoholics who declined to participate, and 144 eligible and participatory alcoholics). All subjects received the Shipley Institute of Living Scale (Vocabulary and Abstracting subscales) and measures of anxiety, depressive symptoms, childhood hyperkinesis and attentional deficit disorders were obtained. Results indicate that current guidelines for alcoholic subject selection are biasing analyses toward support of the null hypothesis. Declined alcoholics performed more poorly on the Shipley Abstracting than did the "Used" group, yet did not differ significantly from the Used alcoholic groups on depression or anxiety. Declined alcoholics did, however, report significantly fewer Hk/MBD symptoms than did other alcoholic groups. ANCOVAs that used the affective and childhood disorders as covariates did not alter the differences in cognitive performance described above.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Alcoholics' self-assessment of their neuropsychological functioning in everyday life.

Self-reports of impairment in everyday cognitive and perceptuomotor functioning for the 6 months that preceded treatment were investigated in 60 male, middle-aged alcoholics and for a comparable time period in 60 nonalcoholic controls matched on age, education, and Shipley Vocabulary age. Alcoholics reported significantly more everyday impairment than did controls in memory, higher cognitive functions, language skills, and perceptual-motor function. Laboratory tests of neuropsychological performance revealed that the alcoholics were significantly poorer than controls on measures of memory, higher cognitive functions, and overall neuropsychological functioning, but test performances essentially were uncorrelated with self-reported everyday impairment and with self-reported levels of depression and anxiety. However, in both groups, measures of depression and anxiety were correlated significantly with self-perception of impairment. In alcoholics, quantity-frequency of drinking (QFI) was also correlated with reported impairment; chronicity was not. Multiple regression analyses indicate that in alcoholics, both quantity-frequency measures of alcohol intake and affective distress (depression, anxiety) made independent and roughly equal contributions to reported everyday impairment; in controls, only affective distress contributed significantly.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1987

Semantic (verbal) and figural memory impairment in alcoholics.

In two separate studies, episodic semantic (verbal) and figural-memory abilities as measured by the Wechsler Memory Scale (Russell Method) are compared in middle-aged detoxified male alcoholics and controls. Both studies gave rise to similar findings. Alcoholics recalled significantly less verbal and figural material at both immediate recall and 30-min delayed recall than did the controls. Contrary to expectation, compared to controls, alcoholics did not have a greater differential deficit for the figural material as compared with the verbal or a greater differential deficit on delayed than on immediate memory. The percentage of material recalled at the delayed testing, when taken as a function of the amount of material recalled immediately, did not differ for the two groups on the semantic or figural tasks in either study. Thus, rates of forgetting were equivalent in alcoholics and controls suggesting that the alcoholics' deficit lies in the initial acquisition process. Whether that deficit is in encoding or initial retrieval processes remains to be investigated. Implications for future research are given.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Learning impairment in alcoholics using an ecologically relevant test.

Sober male middle-aged alcoholics with a mean duration of 11.5 years of abuse and abstinence for a minimum of 3 weeks performed more poorly than age- and education-equated controls on a face-name learning test, replicating previously reported findings. Duration of alcoholism was unrelated to learning scores; however, a measure of alcohol intake (maximal quantity-frequency) over the 6 months before treatment was significantly and inversely correlated with learning. Significant positive correlations between face-name learning and ratings of alcoholics' treatment behavior by their therapists provided objective evidence that the face-name learning test is ecologically relevant.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Verbal reasoning deficits in alcoholics.

The Conceptual Level Analogies Test (CLAT), a well-constructed test of analogical reasoning, was given to groups of middle-aged male alcoholics and control subjects in two separate studies. As predicted, the alcoholics had lower CLAT scores than nonalcoholics in both studies. These results support the generalized-diffuse model of the neuropsychological effects of alcoholism. Contrary to prediction, alcoholics differed from control subjects as much on the easy analogies as they did on the hard analogies, which suggested that alcoholics differ both qualitatively and quantitatively from nonalcoholics in cognitive impairment. Finally, in two of three studies in our laboratory, familial alcoholics had significantly lower CLAT scores than nonfamilial alcoholics. These findings emphasize the importance of considering familial history of alcoholism when studying the neuropsychological functioning of alcoholics.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Intellectual impairment in alcoholics: persistent issues.

Intellectual impairment in sober intermediate stage alcoholics has been well established. However, a number of persistent issues remain to be explored. Three of the most important concern 1) variability in cognitive-perceptual functioning in samples of alcoholics, 2) differential vulnerability of cognitive-perceptual functions to alcohol abuse and 3) the relationship of cognitive-perceptual impairment to treatment behaviour and benefit. Consideration of these issues resulted in the following conclusions. There is a substantial minority of alcoholics who do not manifest impairment on any given cognitive test. Variability of findings with different samples of alcoholics may be, in part, a function of family history of alcoholism and/or severity of alcoholism. Verbal and rote learning functions are less sensitive to alcohol abuse than non-verbal, or complex verbal, abstracting/problem-solving skills. Alcoholics' impersonal and interpersonal problem-solving abilities are both impaired but appear to be uncorrelated. Impairment in cognitive-perceptual functioning in alcoholics does predict therapists' ratings of treatment behaviour and benefit.

Alcoholism↗
PubMed1986

Cognitive functioning in sober social drinkers: a review and critique.

There have been recent scientific reports of an association between amount of alcohol drunk per occasion and inefficiencies in performance on cognitive-perceptual tests. The empirical evidence and six different hypotheses concerning the causal nature of the obtained relationships are reviewed. The findings are variable and seldom reproducible. There is no consistent evidence to support any of the causality hypotheses. Despite these limitations, the problem is of sufficient social, economic, legal and humanistic importance that continued investigation is warranted. The complexity of the problem addressed demands careful consideration of a number of relevant experimental variables. Guidelines for future research are offered as regards sampling, subject characteristics, measurement of cognitive-perceptual functioning and drinking history, as well as methods of analysis. The possible confounding roles of family history of alcoholism, anxiety, native intelligence and past educational experiences are stressed. The need for prospective studies is emphasized.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Neuropsychology of dementia.

In this article, the neuropsychology of dementia is discussed with special attention given to Alzheimer's disease. The clinical use of neuropsychological testing in neurologic practice is presented along with relevant recent research in the area.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1986

Previous alcohol intake and residual cognitive deficits in detoxified alcoholics and animals.

A common assumption is that protracted alcohol consumption is causally related to the intellectual impairment seen in sober recovering alcoholics. However, attempts to demonstrate consistent and significant relationships between alcohol intake and cognitive-perceptual functioning in such alcoholics have been inconclusive. A review of the human studies indicates that the inconsistent results cannot be accounted for by potentially confounding variables such as age, education, sex, days abstinent, years of abuse, type of hospital and number of tests used. In detoxified mice and rats there is clear evidence for a causal relationship between duration of alcohol intake and learning and memory tasks, although limited mainly to studies of relatively high levels of alcohol intake and performance on a few types of tasks. These studies suggest a duration threshold for impairment before which impairment does not occur and after which there is a systematic inverse relationship between duration and quality of performance. Finally there is an asymptote effect where, with increase in duration and increase in age, there is no corresponding decrement in performance. A number of promising areas to be investigated using the rodent model are discussed. Findings from such investigations should have heuristic value for human studies. Reasons for the inconsistent results in humans are detailed and suggestions offered to facilitate further research in this area.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Statistical relationships and discriminative accuracy of the Halstead-Reitan, Luria-Nebraska, and Wechsler IQ scores in the identification of brain damage.

Ninety-two patients (46 brain-damaged and 46 control) were administered both the Halstead-Reitan and Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Batteries and the WAIS. The relationship between the Luria and the Halstead Battery was assessed using a common metric, T scores, and also by comparing impairment ratings for both batteries. Diagnostic screening accuracy was compared using discriminative functions and by computing the percentage of brain-damaged and control cases falling above and below the combined group medians. Results of the discriminative analyses were also compared with those obtained using only IQ scores from the WAIS. Findings support the comparability of the two neuropsychological test batteries with respect to diagnostic screening accuracy and the extent to which they measure level of impairment. Interestingly, equivalent discrimination between organic and control subjects was obtained using WAIS IQ scores. However, differences in the instruments did emerge on an individual case basis.

Adult↗