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PubMed1999

[Psychological gerontology in German-speaking countries 1988-1998: introduction, cognitive development in aging (I)].

In this four-part review article, an update of psychological gerontology since 1988 in German speaking countries is given as follows: Cognitive development in old age (part I), personality development in old age (part II), social relations in old age (part III), tasks, burdens, and border situations in old age (part IV). In part I of the update which is presented in this issue, the description of recent trends in cognitive research serves as a background to highlight, in a first step, the basic research in the field concerned with the mechanics as well as the pragmatics of intelligence in the later years. In a further step, research on memory processes including psychological work with relevance for the investigation of dementia is reviewed. Finally, cognitive intervention studies reflecting the impact of an applied cognitive gero-psychology and aimed to support the potential and limits of the plasticity of the intelligence and memory development in old age find consideration.

Aged↗

PubMed1992

P300 in multiple sclerosis: a preliminary report.

The P300 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) elicited with auditory stimuli and pattern-shift visual evoked potentials (VEPs) was obtained from 16 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and 16 matched control subjects. P300 latency was significantly longer and component amplitude relatively depressed in the MS patients compared to control subjects. The P100 potential of the VEP also was delayed for both full-field and half-field stimulus conditions in the patients compared to control subjects. The findings suggest that the P300 ERP may reflect the cognitive decline associated with MS.

Adult↗

PubMed1983

Correlation between reaction time and intelligence in psychometrically similar groups in America and India.

The relationship between psychometrically tested reasoning ability, or general intelligence (Raven's Progressive Matrices), short-term memory (forward and backward digit span), and measures of reaction time (RT), including visual and auditory simple RT and four degrees of choice RT, was investigated in groups of unskilled workers, mostly of below average, borderline, or retarded mental ability, selected in the United States and in India. Both groups showed parallel phenomena with respect to the relative difficulty of the various RT tests, their factor structure, and their theoretically expected correlations with psychometric intelligence, although the correlations were lower (and generally nonsignificant) in the Indian group, most likely because of this group's greater restriction in range of ability. The findings, overall, are consistent with other recent studies of RT and intelligence, which indicate that our standard IQ tests reflect basic cognitive processes, particularly speed of information processing, involved in individual differences in intellectual ability, and not merely differences in specific acquired knowledge, skills, or cultural background.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1992

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the frontal lobe syndrome.

The usefulness of frontal lobe (FL) dysfunction as a conceptual model for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was investigated. Twenty-four ADHD and 24 normal control (NC) children were tested using two batteries of tasks. The first was sensitive to FL deficits in motor control and problem solving skills. The second consisted of memory tasks sensitive to temporal lobe dysfunction. ADHD children differed significantly from NCs on measures of FL function, but not on tests of temporal lobe functions. Where norms were available for normal children on the same FL tests, ADHDs performed like 6- to 7-year-olds, despite their mean age of 10 years and minimum age of 8 years. The differential performance of ADHDs on tasks sensitive to FL and temporal lobe dysfunction supports the hypothesis that ADHD deficits are analogous to FL dysfunction and demonstrates that the children's deficits do not reflect generalized cognitive impairment.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗

PubMed1979

Autonomic classical conditioning as a function of awareness of stimulus contingencies.

Two groups of 32 college students were presented compound CSs (lights and tones presented simultaneously) during a classical conditioning paradigm. By means of a masking task and verbal instructions, a partially informed group was made aware of only the visual CS's contingency with the UCS, while a fully informed group was made aware of both the visual and auditory contingencies. Autonomic indices of conditioning (electrodermal responses, heart rate, and digital pulse volume) were later measured to the individual component CSs and to various compound CSs. It was found that: (1) the partially informed group exhibited conditioning exclusively to the visual CS+ and to compounds which included the visual CS+, while (2) the fully informed group exhibited conditioning to both visual and auditory CS+s. The results confirm the importance of awareness in human autonomic discrimination classical conditioning. It is suggested that human autonomic conditioning may be usefully conceptualized as an information processing task with the autonomic indices of conditioning reflecting central cognitive processes.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed1996

Propylthiouracil treatment reduces long-term potentiation in area CA1 of neonatal rat hippocampus.

Rat pups were made hypothyroid by exposure to propylthiouracil in drinking water beginning at 1 week of age, and the degree of long-term potentiation (LTP) in hippocampal area CA1 determined from brain slices of animals ranging in age from 2 to 6 weeks. Serum T3 levels were less than 20% of that of age matched controls after 3 weeks of treatment, and remained at that level. Relative to the age-matched controls, LTP was reduced significantly after 2 weeks of treatment. These observations are consistent with the conclusion that LTP magnitude is a reflection of cognitive function, which is known to be depressed in hypothyroid conditions in both animals and man.

Administration, Oral↗

PubMedDate not supplied

12- and 24-month neurobehavioural follow-up of children prenatally exposed to marihuana, cigarettes and alcohol.

The motor, mental, and language development plus the home environment was examined in 217 twelve-month and 153 twenty-four-month-old children for whom prenatal exposure to marijuana, alcohol and cigarettes was previously ascertained. With this low-risk sample multiple regression analysis was used to assess the association between outcome measures and prenatal drug exposure while adjusting for potential confounding factors. Prenatal exposure to marijuana was uniquely positively associated with a series of items evaluating the child's attitudes and interests that reflect a cognitive factor. Moderate levels of alcohol were significantly associated with lower mental scores at 24 months of age. Prenatal maternal cigarette smoking was significantly associated with lower mental scores at 12 months of age and altered responses on auditory items at 12 and 24 months. However, at 24 months, the strong relationship of postnatal environmental factors with cognitive outcomes and with prenatal maternal smoking resulted in loss of significant, unique predictive power for maternal smoking. Based on the present work and supplemented by previously reported data pertaining to maternal attitudes during pregnancy and neonatal behaviour, a transactional interpretation is presented.

Alcohol Drinking↗

PubMed1992

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test: an indicator of vulnerability to schizophrenia?

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is a neuropsychological test, hypothesized to be an indicator of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) functioning. The performance of schizophrenic patients in our sample (off medication) was worse than the performance of healthy controls in all variables of the WCST, including perseverative responses (PR) as well as non-perseverative responses (NPR). The rate of perseverative and non-perseverative responses was neither a function of the severity of the illness (measured by SANS/SAPS scales) nor the duration of the disease. Healthy siblings of schizophrenic probands revealed more perseverative responses than healthy controls, but did not show any difference with respect to the non-perseverative responses. This finding suggests that the difficulty to shift a cognitive set, reflected by the frequency of perseverative responses, is in favor of the WCST as a vulnerability marker for schizophrenia, whereas non-perseverative responses presumably indicate a state, but not a trait marker of the disease. However, the usefulness of this indicator may be limited by its association with age, which is worthy of being studied in closer detail.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Latent structure of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test: a confirmatory factor analytic study.

The present study represents the first large scale confirmatory factor analysis of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The results generally support the three factor solutions reported in the exploratory factor analysis literature. However, only the first factor, which reflects general executive functioning, is statistically sound. The secondary factors, while likely reflecting meaningful cognitive abilities, are less stable except when all subjects complete all 128 cards. It is likely that having two discontinuation rules for the WCST has contributed to the varied factor analytic solutions reported in the literature and early discontinuation may result in some loss of useful information. Continued multivariate research will be necessary to better clarify the processes underlying WCST performance and their relationships to one another.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Error-related ERP components and individual differences in punishment and reward sensitivity.

Although the focus of the discussion regarding the significance of the error related negatively (ERN/Ne) has been on the cognitive factors reflected in this component, there is now a growing body of research that describes influences of motivation, affective style and other factors of personality on ERN/Ne amplitude. The present study was conducted to further evaluate the relationship between affective style, error related ERP components and their neural basis. Therefore, we had our subjects fill out the Behavioral Activation System/Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS/BAS) scales, which are based on Gray's (1987, 1989) biopsychological theory of personality. We found that subjects scoring high on the BIS scale displayed larger ERN/Ne amplitudes, while subjects scoring high on the BAS scale displayed larger error positivity (Pe) amplitudes. No correlations were found between BIS and Pe amplitude or between BAS and ERN/Ne amplitude. Results are discussed in terms of individual differences in reward and punishment sensitivity that are reflected in error related ERP components.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Pupillary responses and attentional allocation problems on the backward masking task in schizophrenia.

Early visual information processing impairment has consistently been found on the backward masking task in patients with schizophrenia, but the nature of this impairment remains unclear. Pupillometry was used to measure attentional allocation during visual backward masking task performance in patients with schizophrenia (n=16) and nonpsychiatric controls (n=16). The extent of pupil dilation recorded during a cognitive task reflects the processing load placed on the nervous system by the task. Schizophrenia patients detected significantly fewer targets than controls only when the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between targets and masks reached 317 ms. For both groups, peak pupil dilation responses were also significantly larger in the 317 ms SOA condition relative to a no-mask condition, suggesting that the processing load of the 317 SOA masking condition was greater than the no-mask condition. In addition, a principal components analysis of pupillary response waveforms identified time-related factors that appeared to differentially index attentional allocation to targets vs. masks. Patients with schizophrenia showed less dilation than controls on a middle factor that appeared to index attentional allocation to targets, but patients showed greater dilation than controls on a late factor that appeared to index attentional allocation to masks. That is, controls attended more to targets than to masks, but patients attended more to masks than to targets. These findings suggest that masking impairments at SOA intervals greater than 100-200 ms may be due abnormalities in attentional allocation mechanisms.

Attention↗

PubMed2006

Effects of visual stimulation on cortico-spinal coherence during isometric hand contraction in humans.

The effects of visual stimuli on cortico-spinal synchronization were investigated by measuring the coherence between electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyogram (EMG) during isometric contraction of the first dorsal interosseous muscle of the right hand. Because a spinal motoneuron and the corresponding muscle fibers form a motor unit with one-to-one correspondence of their action potentials, the EMG indirectly measures the activity of the corresponding spinal neuronal group. The tasks were isometric contraction (Control condition); and isometric contraction with concurrent ignoring of visual stimuli (VS condition). By comparing the Control and VS conditions, the following results were obtained. The coherence increased significantly in magnitude, but was unchanged in frequency range (beta band) and scalp location; the EEG and EMG spectral power in the beta band were unchanged in amplitude; and the alpha and gamma bands of EEG spectral power were significantly increased and decreased, respectively. These findings suggest that the cortico-muscular coherence reflects the cognitive effort needed to maintain isometric muscle contraction. When visual stimuli need to be ignored, the cognitive effort and cortico-spinal coherence are enhanced.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Psychopathology of panic attacks in panic disorder.

PURPOSE: This study examined the relationships among certain subtypes of panic attacks (full vs. limited symptom; spontaneous vs. situational) and between these subtypes, panic disorder subtypes, and other characteristics of panic disorder, especially agoraphobia. METHOD: Data were drawn from a large (n = 1,168) treatment study of panic disorder in which panic attacks were carefully subtyped and counted using a diary. Relationships between variables at baseline were examined primarily using non-parametric methods, and the course of improvement for panic subtypes among completers was plotted. RESULTS: The median number of spontaneous panic attacks per week at baseline was similar among patients with panic disorder without agoraphobia (PD), limited phobic avoidance (PDL), and agoraphobia (PDA). The median number of situational attacks and the median agoraphobia ratings rose progressively across diagnostic subtypes. Anticipatory anxiety, HAM-A, HAM-D, and disability scores were higher in PDA than in PD. Full and limited symptom panic attacks were positively correlated. The proportion of total attacks that were limited rose during the first two weeks of treatment, suggesting conversion of full to limited symptom attacks before complete disappearance. Spontaneous and situational attacks were correlated minimally or not at all. Agoraphobia ratings were more positively correlated with situational than with spontaneous panic attacks. Few of the correlations among measures at baseline were high. CONCLUSIONS: Full and limited symptom panic attacks differ primarily in severity. Spontaneous and situational attacks are relatively independent, and situational attacks are more closely related to agoraphobia. These findings are consistent with previous work suggesting that spontaneous attacks reflect a biological component, whereas situational attacks reflect a cognitive component in the psychopathology-- and possibly the pathogenesis-- of panic disorder. This provides a rationale for the use of combined pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy in the treatment of panic disorder. Future investigations of panic disorder should carefully separate panic attack subtypes.

Agoraphobia↗

PubMed2004

Quantitative evaluation of age-related white matter microstructural changes on MRI by multifractal analysis.

Multifractal analysis has been applied to evaluate biological tissues, which are composed of complex structures. We carried out multifractal analyses in a group of healthy young and elderly subjects to examine age-related white matter microstructural changes on T2-weighted MR images without any visible abnormal intensity, and to correlate such changes with age-related cognitive decline. Comparison between the two age groups showed that Deltaalpha (established as the most suitable index of heterogeneity in our previous report) in the frontal region was significantly higher in the elderly group, but no significant group difference was found in Deltaalpha in the parieto-occipital region. The Trail-Making Test score (a measure of executive dysfunction) was significantly higher in the elderly group. In the elderly group, the Trail-Making Test score was positively correlated with Deltaalpha in the frontal region, but not in the parieto-occipital region. These results suggest that microstructural changes in the white matter preferentially occur in the frontal region with normal aging, and these changes are associated with executive cognitive decline reflective of frontal-subcortical dysfunction.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Brain oscillatory 1-30 Hz EEG ERD/ERS responses during the different stages of an auditory memory search task.

Event-related desynchronization (ERD) and event-related synchronization (ERS) responses of 1-30 Hz EEG frequencies during the different stages of an auditory Sternberg memory task were examined. The ERD/ERS responses were examined separately for successive memory set items (four) and for the two recognition conditions (YES/NO). The presentation of the memory set elicited ERS responses in the theta and alpha frequencies, and also beta ERD responses. These ERD/ERS responses elicited during encoding were found to evolve with successive memory set item presentation. The ERD/ERS responses elicited during the presentation of the probe dissociated significantly between the two recognition conditions (YES/NO). When the probe was included in the memory set (YES condition), recognition elicited stronger alpha and beta frequency ERD responses as compared to the NO condition. The findings from the current study verify that alpha ERD/ERS responses robustly dissociate between auditory encoding and recognition. The increasing alpha ERS responses with increasing memory set item presentation during encoding may be correlates of the functioning phonological loop, active memory maintenance and/or attention. The alpha ERD responses during recognition are undoubtedly associated with auditory memory search processes and distinguish between previously presented versus not presented verbal material. We propose that alpha ERD/ERS responses reflect explicitly auditory memory processes, discriminating between auditory encoding and recognition. Theta ERS responses may be associated with working memory processes, and possibly more specifically with the functioning of the central executive. Beta ERD/ERS responses may reflect also cognitive and/or memory processing, rather than merely the activity of the motor cortices.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2005

Visuospatial deficits in patients with early left-hemispheric lesions and functional reorganization of language: consequence of lesion or reorganization?

INTRODUCTION: Patients with early left-hemispheric lesions have repeatedly been reported to show spared language functions (which are then mediated by the right hemisphere), but exhibit deficits in visuospatial functions. The "crowding hypothesis" explains these deficits by a neuronal scarcity in the right hemisphere for the original right hemispheric functions. An alternative hypothesis suggests direct lesion effects as the sole reason for the visuospatial impairments. The scope of this study was to examine the relations between visuospatial skills and hemispheric preference for language, and between visuospatial skills and cerebral lesion size. METHODS: In a sample of young adults with pre- or perinatally acquired focal lesions of the left hemisphere and unilateral spastic cerebral palsy on the right side, we assessed intelligence and neuropsychological functions in the verbal and visuospatial domains. The behavioural data was correlated with structural MRI information and language preference as assessed using fMRI. RESULTS: Patients with right hemispheric language production were impaired in visuospatial functions, compared not only to normal controls, but also to patients without right hemispheric language preference. Additionally, the degree of right hemispheric language correlated negatively with performance in visuospatial tasks. Lesion size correlated negatively only with performance IQ, which again correlated negatively with motor impairment of the patients and thus does not seem to reflect true cognitive deficits. CONCLUSION: Visuospatial deficits in patients with early left-hemispheric lesions are a consequence of lesion-induced right hemispheric language organization, thus lending further support to the "crowding hypothesis".

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Insight and frontal cortical function in schizophrenia: a review.

Insight into illness has been identified as a clinically important phenomenon, in no small part due to an association with treatment-adherence. An increasing number of studies, but not all, have observed poor insight to be a reflection of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. A review of 34 published English-language studies found a significant number (i.e., 21) reporting a relationship between insight deficits and impaired performance on cognitive tasks primarily mediated by frontal cortex. A significant number of reviewed studies examined insight function in more than one psychiatric population, including bipolar and schizoaffective disorder. The most replicated findings from these studies were the correlations between insight deficits and impaired performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). More specifically, WCST perseverative errors correlated positively and the number of categories completed correlated negatively with poor insight, suggesting that impaired insight may be mediated by deficiencies in conceptual organization and flexibility in abstract thinking. Since the WCST requires the ability to demonstrate conceptual flexibility through the generation, maintenance and switching of mental sets along with the capacity to use verbal feedback to correct errors, it would appear that such 'executive' functions are most related to insight. In addition, recently identified structural correlates of poor insight in schizophrenia show some association with anosognosia in neurological patients. This review will discuss the implications of these findings and directions for future research.

Databases, Factual↗

PubMed2004

The aging brain: morphomolecular senescence of cortical circuits.

The human brain is uniquely powerful with respect to cognitive abilities, yet the hippocampal and neocortical circuits that mediate such complex functions are highly vulnerable to aging. Their selective vulnerability is profoundly manifested in Alzheimer's disease (AD), where degeneration of select neurons leads to a near complete loss of cognitive abilities. Most of us will avoid AD as we age. However, many will experience age-associated cognitive impairment - a decline in cognitive status presenting as deficits in memory and key capacities for strategic use of acquired information. Animal studies suggest that both AD and age-associated cognitive impairment reflect vulnerability of the same circuits. However, neuron death predominates in the former, whereas the latter is probably mediated by synaptic alterations in otherwise intact circuits. Fortunately, such age-related synaptic alterations could be reversible, as suggested by recent studies of hormone replacement.

Aging↗