[IS INFORMATION MEASUREMENT USEFUL FOR STATEMENTS ABOUT HUMAN BEINGS?].
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Central Nervous System↗
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HUMAN USE OF SHORT TERM MEMORY IN PROCESSING INFORMATION ON A CONSOLE. ESD-TDR-64-620.
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Computers↗
Neuronal responses of the rat amygdala during extinction and reassociation learning in elementary and configural associative tasks.
To investigate functional heterogeneity within the amygdala in appetitive conditioned instrumental behaviours, neuronal activity was recorded from the amygdala of behaving rats during learning and discrimination of conditioned sensory stimuli associated with or without reinforcement [sucrose solution, intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS)]. Sensory stimuli included auditory (tone), visual (light) and configural (simultaneous presentation of tone and light) stimuli. The rat was trained to lick a spout protruded close to its mouth just after a conditioned sensory stimulus to obtain a reward. Of the 609 neurons recorded from the amygdala and amygdalostriatal transition area, 154 responded to one or more sensory stimuli. The 62 amygdalar neurons responded strongly to certain conditioned sensory stimuli associated with rewards. Of these 62 neurons, 45 were tested with the extinction trials. Responses of 31 neurons to conditioned stimuli were finally extinguished, and those of the remaining 14 were not extinguished. Furthermore, responses of 26 of these 31 neurons resumed in the relearning trials (plastic neurons), suggesting that these sensory responses were associative rather than just responses to physical properties of the stimuli. These plastic neurons were located mainly in the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala, and responses of the plastic neurons were correlated with behavioural responses. These results suggest that the basolateral nucleus is crucial in associative learning between sensory information and affective significance for behavioural outputs in appetitive conditioned instrumental behaviours.
Acoustic Stimulation↗
Patterns of communication through interpreters: a detailed sociolinguistic analysis.
BACKGROUND: Numerous articles have detailed how the presence of an interpreter leads to less satisfactory communication with physicians; few have studied how actual communication takes place through an interpreter in a clinical setting. OBJECTIVE: Record and analyze physician-interpreter-patient interactions. DESIGN: Primary care physicians with high-volume Hispanic practices were recruited for a communication study. Dyslipidemic Hispanic patients, either monolingual Spanish or bilingual Spanish-English, were recruited on the day of a normally scheduled appointment and, once consented, recorded without a researcher present in the room. Separate postvisit interviews were conducted with the patient and the physician. All interactions were fully transcribed and analyzed. PARTICIPANTS: Sixteen patients were recorded interacting with 9 physicians. Thirteen patients used an interpreter with 8 physicians, and 3 patients spoke Spanish with the 1 bilingual physician. APPROACH: Transcript analysis based on sociolinguistic and discourse analytic techniques, including but not limited to time speaking, analysis of questions asked and answered, and the loss of semantic information. RESULTS: Speech was significantly reduced and revised by the interpreter, resulting in an alteration of linguistic features such as content, meaning, reinforcement/validation, repetition, and affect. In addition, visits that included an interpreter had virtually no rapport-building "small talk," which typically enables the physician to gain comprehensive patient history, learn clinically relevant information, and increase emotional engagement in treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of an interpreter increases the difficulty of achieving good physician-patient communication. Physicians and interpreters should be trained in the process of communication and interpretation, to minimize conversational loss and maximize the information and relational exchange with interpreted patients.
Communication↗
Acetylcholine and memory.
Acetylcholine may set the dynamics of cortical networks to those appropriate for learning of new information, while decreased cholinergic modulation may set the appropriate dynamics for recall. In slice preparations of the olfactory cortex, acetylcholine selectively suppresses intrinsic but not afferent fiber synaptic transmission, while decreasing the adaptation of pyramidal cells. In biologically realistic models of this region, the selective suppression of synaptic transmission prevents recall of previously learned memories from interfering with the learning of new memories, while the decrease in adaptation enhances the response to afferent input and the modification of synapses. This theoretical framework may serve to guide future studies linking neuromodulators to cortical memory function.
Acetylcholine↗
Recent progress in the neurology of learning: memory molecules in the developing brain.
Memory, the ability to store and retrieve information, is essential for learning in children. Modern neurobiology research is revealing some of the fundamental steps that encode memories within networks of neuronal synaptic connections in the brain. Somewhat different networks store verbal declarative memories and habit or procedural memories. Several biochemical steps convert short-term memories into permanent memories. These changes include activation of neurotransmitter and growth factor receptors, intracellular protein kinases, and nuclear transcription factors that stimulate gene expression of memory proteins. The proteins strengthen synaptic connections and stabilize long-term memories. Genetic defects in those pathways appear to be responsible for several human retardation and learning disability syndromes, including Coffin-Lowry syndrome and neurofibromatosis.
Animals↗
The effect of feedback in learning clinical diagnosis.
There is evidence that students who are given information about how they appear to weight information in reaching a judgment can learn to make judgments more accurately. In teaching medical diagnosis, the present authors used a microcomputer system to generate simulated cases and then calculate the relationship between the data presented and the student's diagnosis. Students who were given feedback comparing their apparent weighting of clinical information with the correct weighting learned to diagnose urinary tract infection more accurately than control students who received feedback only on the outcome of their diagnosis.
Computer-Assisted Instruction↗
Are seizures harmful: what can we learn from animal models?
Epilepsy is a brain disease that requires distributed neuronal networks for its expression. Several characteristics of epilepsy, including its natural history, the latency between an initial insult and the first manifestation of seizures, the complex interaction of seizures with development as a function of developmental stage, the modulating effect of systemic physiological responses, and the fact that seizures are ultimately defined by a combination of electrical and behavioral criteria all suggest that epilepsy should ideally be studied in an intact whole animal preparation. Such preparations offer the ability to study acute and chronic changes in brain structure and function after single or repeated seizures. Animal models have major limitations, however, including strain specificity, difficulty in isolating potentially confounding variables, a relative lack of accessible higher cortical functions, such as language and abstract processing, and shorter lifespans that may be insufficient to allow the complete expression of seizure-related injury. Information we have learned from animal studies includes a broad understanding of the chemical, molecular and anatomic consequences of seizures, including their temporal and spatial relationships to each other, and information on the consequences of seizures as a function of development. Recent studies have cast light on potential mechanisms of resistance to seizure-induced injury in the developing brain. In the future, we can anticipate that animal models will continue to be useful, especially when whole-animal preparations are used to generate material for detailed in vitro examination.
Animals↗
Church-based telephone mammography counseling with peer counselors.
Little is published about step-by-step implementation of telephone counseling interventions to promote community-based health activities. This article describes the authors' experience of implementing a church-based telephone mammography counseling intervention with peer counselors representing three principal racial or ethnic groups: African American, Latino, and Anglo (White). Twenty-six women from 12 churches in the Los Angeles area were recruited and trained to deliver the counseling annually over a two-year period to 570 women participants who were recruited from participating churches (n = 15). The counseling sessions were conducted from church-based telephone centers in key geographic locations in our program area. Training and supervision proved challenging: most of the Latino counselors had fewer than seven years of education and spoke only Spanish, while most of the other counselors had at least some college and spoke only English. Culturally specific and small group interactions, role plays, and a more modular approach to training were the most effective ways to enhance counselors' skills. Latina participants' mammography adherence rates were lowest, and their barriers reflected their low socioeconomic status; as Latina counselors shared basic information about mammograms and where to obtain them at little or no cost, the counseling exchanges tended to be nonconflictive and supportive. Black and White participants were generally more knowledgeable and adherent with screening guidelines than Latinas. We found that it was possible to implement this intervention with diverse groups and conclude with lessons learned that may inform others considering such a strategy.
Adult↗
Explaining age differences in temporal working memory.
To determine the cognitive mechanisms underlying age differences in temporal working memory (WM), the authors examined the contributions of item memory, associative memory, simple order memory, and multiple item memory, using parallel versions of the delayed-matching-to-sample task. Older adults performed more poorly than younger adults on tests of temporal memory, but there were no age differences in nonassociative item memory, regardless of the amount of information to be learned. In contrast, a combination of associative and simple order memory, both of which were reduced in older adults, completely accounted for age-related declines in temporal memory. The authors conclude that 2 mechanisms may underlie age differences in temporal WM, namely, a generalized decline in associative ability and a specific difficulty with order information.
Adult↗
Interventions for improving information management in family practice.
Information management training has been neglected in family practice in the UK in the past. An adult learning model for such training is introduced. A pilot study using the adult learning approach showed improvements in information management processes over the six-month study period. The research project described in this paper compares the effectiveness of on-site training using adult learning methods, written information, and no intervention, in 33 family practices in the UK. Nine of the eleven practices in the on-site training group completed the training sessions and provided data, whereas only four of the eleven practices in the written information group provided data, and only three of the eleven practices in the control group did so. Preliminary analysis demonstrates that on-site training practices made considerable changes to the information systems in their practices, and appreciated the importance of high-quality data, both for patient care and reporting requirements. Full comparisons of data quality and information management methods are presented, and an assessment of priority training needs for maximum benefit is made.
Adult↗
Test-retest reliability of the Motor-Free Visual Perception Test Revised (MVPT-R) in children with and without learning disabilities.
The Motor-Free Visual Perceptual Test Revised (MVPT-R) is an updated edition of the original test with the addition of four items and normative data for 9-11-year-old children. Test-retest reliability studies on the MVPT-R are not reported. The purpose of this paper is to report the test-retest reliability of the MVPT-R in children with and without learning disabilities. The MVPT-R was administered to 38 children with identified learning disabilities and 37 control children (aged 7-10 years) on two separate occasions within a 2.5 week window of time. Inter-rater reliability agreement between examiners was 99%. Intra-class correlations for perceptual quotient scores ranged from .63-.79 and perceptual age scores ranged from .69-.86. Pearson product moment correlations for perceptual quotient scores ranged from .70-.80 and perceptual age scores ranged from .77-.87. Results suggest moderate test-retest reliability for the MVPT-R with more stability in visual perceptual scores for children with learning disabilities. This information will be helpful for therapists using the MVPT-R as a descriptive measure for children.
Case-Control Studies↗
Clinical applications of microarray-based diagnostic tests.
Nearly 15 years have passed since the possibility of analyzing nucleic acid analytes in a massively parallel fashion was proposed using the then new concept of microarrays. A decade ago, proof of principle demonstration projects established the use of high density microarrays to genotype multiple polymorphisms within a large gene [cystic fibrosis transmembrance regulator (CFTR)], to rapidly analyze DNA sequences by hybridization and to ascertain differential gene expression of the entire genome of an organism. The use of microarrays has had an explosive influence on the rate at which new biological information can be learned, including in a nonhypothesis driven manner. The past decade has also seen these research tools applied increasingly to questions of clinical and medical relevance. Genotyping drug metabolizing enzyme genes, resequencing important tumor suppressor genes, and classifying neoplastic disease by differential gene expression profiles are but a few of the many possibilities to provide clinically useful information using microarray-based diagnostic tests.
Base Sequence↗
Learning styles of LD and NLD ADHD children.
Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) children (N = 26) with a learning disability (LD) and without (NLD) were compared on measures of information processing using the Learning Efficiency Test (LET). Method of presentation (visual vs. auditory), order of recall (ordered vs. non-ordered), and memory processes (immediate, short-term, and long-term) were assessed. While both groups showed more difficulty with short-term and long-term memory processes than with immediate memory processes, the ADHD-LD subjects demonstrated more difficulty processing information effectively. Ordered recall was significantly more difficult for both short-term and long-term memory processes than was unordered recall. While both groups demonstrated difficulty with auditory ordered recall under short-term and long-term conditions, the ADHD-LD subjects lost the most information under auditory conditions.
Adolescent↗
Patterns of intellectual development among survivors of pediatric medulloblastoma: a longitudinal analysis.
PURPOSE: To examine two competing hypotheses relating to intellectual loss among children treated for medulloblastoma (MB): Children with MB either: (1) lose previously learned skills and information; or (2) acquire new skills and information but at a rate slower than expected compared with healthy same-age peers. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Forty-four pediatric MB patients were evaluated who were treated with postoperative radiation therapy (XRT) with or without chemotherapy. After completion of XRT, a total of 150 examinations were conducted by use of the child version of the Wechsler Intelligence SCALES: These evaluations provided a measure of intellectual functioning called the estimated full-scale intelligence quotient (FSIQ). Changes in patient performance corrected for age (scaled scores) as well as the uncorrected performance (raw scores) were analyzed. RESULTS: At the time of the most recent examination, the obtained mean estimated FSIQ of 83.57 was more than one SD below expected population norms. A significant decline in cognitive performance during the time since XRT was demonstrated, with a mean loss of 2.55 estimated FSIQ points per year (P =.0001). An analysis for the basis of the intelligence quotient (IQ) loss revealed that subtest raw score values increased significantly over time since XRT, but the rate of increase was less than normally expected, which resulted in decreased IQ scores. CONCLUSION: These results support the hypothesis that MB patients demonstrate a decline in IQ values because of an inability to acquire new skills and information at a rate comparable to their healthy same-age peers, as opposed to a loss of previously acquired information and skills.
Adolescent↗
Effect of chronological age and mental age on the understanding of rules of logic.
The relative difficulty of understanding the logical rules of conjunction and disjunction was studied. Because rules of logic must be viewed in the context of the attributes of information to which they refer, three attribute dimensions were also investigated: (a) positive-negative, (b) quantitative-nonquantitative, and (c) concrete-abstract. A further issue relevant to this research was the effect of CA and MA on the understanding of rules of logic. Subjects included four groups, one group of children with average IQs, one learning-disability group, and two mentally handicapped groups. The learning disability group was matched with the average group on MA and CA. The older mentally handicapped group matched the aveage and learning-disability groups on MA. The younger mentally handicapped group matched the average and learning-disability groups for CA and the older mentally handicapped group for IQ. A test was constructed to assess rule and attribute understanding. Results indicated that all groups perfomed similarly on the concrete level. On the abstract level, the average group performed significantly higher than the other groups. The results support a developmental interpretation of rule learning which maintains that once logical rules are learned, attributes of information acquire meaning within the context of those rules.
Age Factors↗
Rule-plus-exception model of classification learning.
The authors propose a rule-plus-exception model (RULEX) of classification learning. According to RULEX, people learn to classify objects by forming simple logical rules and remembering occasional exceptions to those rules. Because the learning process in RULEX is stochastic, the model predicts that individual Ss will vary greatly in the particular rules that are formed and the exceptions that are stored. Averaged classification data are presumed to represent mixtures of these highly idiosyncratic rules and exceptions. RULEX accounts for numerous fundamental classification phenomena, including prototype and specific exemplar effects, sensitivity to correlational information, difficulty of learning linearly separable versus nonlinearly separable categories, selective attention effects, and difficulty of learning concepts with rules of differing complexity. RULEX also predicts distributions of generalization patterns observed at the individual subject level.
Adult↗
Differential hippocampal and prefrontal-striatal contributions to instance-based and rule-based learning.
It is a topic of current interest whether learning in humans relies on the acquisition of abstract rule knowledge (rule-based learning) or whether it depends on superficial item-specific information (instance-based learning). Here, we identified brain regions that mediate either of the two learning mechanisms by combining fMRI with an experimental protocol shown to be able to dissociate both learning mechanisms. Subjects had to learn object-position conjunctions in several trials and blocks. In a learning condition, either objects (Experiment 1) or positions (Experiment 2) were held constant within-blocks. In contrast to a control condition in which object-position conjunctions were trial-unique, a performance increase within and across-blocks was observed in the learning condition of both experiments. We hypothesized that within-block learning mainly relies on instance-based processes, whereas across-block learning might depend on rule-based mechanisms. A within-block parametric fMRI analysis revealed a learning-related increase of lateral prefrontal and striatal activity and a learning-related decrease of hippocampal activity in both experiments. By contrast, across-block learning was associated with an activation modulation in distinct prefrontal-striatal brain regions, but not in the hippocampus. These data indicate that hippocampal and prefrontal-striatal brain regions differentially contribute to instance-based and rule-based learning.
Adult↗