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PubMed1996

The association between P300 and age from preadolescence to early adulthood.

The present study examined the latency and amplitude of P300 in a large sample of subjects between 11 and 21 years old. The P300 components of the visual event-related potential showed consistent and significant age-related changes. Peak amplitude was found to diminish with increasing age, whereas peak latency decreased. Our data indicate that a linear relationship best explains the association between age and P300 amplitude and latency. The changes in P300 amplitude and latency across the different ages are likely to reflect developmental changes in mental processing that are not due to a decrease in general cortical reactivity with increasing age or the result of subject noncompliance.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Quality-of-life and formal functional testing of survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest correlates poorly with traditional neurologic outcome scales.

STUDY HYPOTHESIS: The traditional (and unvalidated) five-point Cerebral Performance Category (CPC) score at hospital discharge does not correlate with the results yielded by a validated functional status instrument and subjective quality-of-life assessment. METHODS: We compared CPC scores with the results of prospective standardized testing after discharge in survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Consenting survivors were tested with the validated Functional Status Questionnaire (FSQ), a subjective quality-of-life assessment, and traditional CPC scoring. RESULTS: Of the 3,130 arrests during the 52 months of the study, 93 patients survived. Thirty-five patients were tested (71% of those eligible at the time of follow-up). Of these patients, 34% said their quality of life was worse, 38% said it was the same, and 28% said it was better than before the cardiac arrest. Fifty-four percent of patients scored normally on all FSQ subscales, but the remainder had an average 2.1 areas (of 6) with significant impairment. CPC score correlated very poorly with quality-of-life rating and with all scores and subscores on the FSQ. A CPC of 1 on discharge (supposedly normal function) had a sensitivity of 78%, a specificity of 43%, a positive predictive value of 64%, and a negative predictive value of 60% for quality of life the same as or better than that before arrest. With regard to ability to predict the presence of any major areas of impairment on the FSQ, the respective figures were 32%, 43%, 43%, and 32%. CONCLUSION: The CPC score, relied on as a measure of functional outcome in cardiac arrest, correlates poorly with subsequent subjective quality of life and with validated objective functional testing instruments, and conclusions based on it are suspect. Future researchers should employ standardized testing instruments.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1999

Issues in teaching and learning time-limited psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy training is briefly reviewed, with particular attention to short-term forms of treatment and to empirical investigations of therapy training. There have been relatively few investigations of actual psychotherapy training, and the prospect is for even fewer in the future. The traditional pedagogic strategy for conceptualizing and developing psychodynamic training programs has been to adapt psychoanalytic clinical theory for instructional purposes. It is proposed that concepts, principles, and instructional strategies from the area of the cognitive sciences concerned with the development of generic expertise offers a potentially more fruitful theoretical/empirical framework for understanding therapeutic expertise and can be applied to developing improved psychotherapy teaching methods. The mental processes of therapists are discussed from this perspective. A teaching format based on multimedia computer technology and designed to fill a gap between didactic course work and actual therapy supervision is briefly described. In addition, recommendations are offered for improving psychotherapy training using existing methods.

Cognition↗
PubMed2001

Hippocampus in relation to mental sweating response evoked by memory recall and mental calculation: a human electroencephalography study with dipole tracing.

Mental-sweating response (MSR) was observed in the palm when the subject was asked to perform a mentally stressful task such as memory recall or mental calculation. About 4 s before the development of MSR, small MSR-related wavelets (MSR wavelets) and large waves were randomly generated on electroencephalograph. After differentiating the two types of waves, we calculated locations of the current dipole of MSR wavelets using the two-dipole model of the SSB/dipole tracing method. The result showed that one current dipole of MSR wavelets was consistently located in the hippocampus while the other dipole was widely dispersed in the cortex during memory recall and mental calculation.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Unconscious attention manifested in non-averaged human brain potentials by optional short-latency cognitive electrogeneses without subsequent P300.

The cognitive unconscious is distinct from the psychoanalytic unconscious and is defined in experimental psychology as including mental processes which can influence behavior while remaining outside phenomenal awareness. We analyzed its physiological basis in scalp-recorded averaged and non-averaged human brain potentials evoked by near-threshold somatic (finger) sensory stimuli while the subject attended a non-somatic task. The early N20 electrogenesis in parietal area 3b, which was present and did not change across conditions, is thought to reflect automatic procedural processing of stimulus features. Short-latency cognitive P40, P100 and N140 electrogeneses were identified in non-averaged responses by assessing their characteristic scalp topographies with the Z method. They were found to be present intermittently in only 4-16% of the trials, respectively. These results establish that the unattended finger inputs are occasionally submitted to incomplete optional cognitive processing in the parietal cortex. There was no associated P300 electrogenesis which is taken to substantiate the view that these sensory inputs remained outside the subject's awareness. On this basis, we propose to relate the psychological phenomena of 'unconscious attention' and implicit perception to characteristic physiological mechanisms in the human brain, namely the incomplete parallel cognitive processing of sensory inputs which remain on the fringe of the consciously attended objects or events.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

[Electroencephalographic rhythms during psychometric tests at 50 and 70 years of age].

The experiments were conducted to investigate changes occurring between maturity and old age in variations of the EEG when performing a series of mental tasks. Forty three normal male volunteers, divided in two age groups separated by 2 decades (52.9 +/- 0.2 yr, N = 22; 72.2 +/- 0.2 yr, N = 21), were continuously recorded by telemetry in 3 conditions: control, tests, questionnaires. Beta, alpha and theta rhythms and the number of slow waves were measured after visual EEG interpretation. The study showed that: (1) theta rhythms and slow waves were in higher proportions in men in their 70s; (2) variations induced by the various mental tasks were very similar at ages 50 and 70; (3) the two groups differed mostly in theta rhythm responses during tests with a coding task; (4) test performances and EEG indices were correlated only in the older group for theta rhythms.

Aged↗
PubMed2001

A credo for a revitalized behaviorism: characteristics and emerging principles.

The fundamental assumptions of scientific psychology are examined by asking three key questions concerning the accessibility, analyzability, and reducibility of mental processes. It is concluded that current research does not support the premises of mentalistic cognitive psychology and that we should return to a modernized version of behaviorism if psychology is to prosper as a valid science.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1998

Inquiry-based learning and critical thinking in an advanced practice psychiatric nursing program.

The advanced practice psychiatric nurse must be prepared to meet the changing demands being placed on the nursing profession. Some changes are the product of health care reforms, especially managed care. Others are more fundamental, because continuing scientific advances drive rapid changes in the knowledge base required of mental health nurses. Curricular reforms initiated earlier this decade were intended to equip nurses with the problem-solving and critical-thinking skills required to deal with novel and complex situations in a rapidly changing healthcare system. This article describes how the Inquiry-Based Learning tutorial method attends to the mental processes of graduate students and fosters critical-thinking skills.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1998

Neuropsychological deficits associated with schizophrenic syndromes.

A battery of computerised tests and the classical Stroop test were administered to a group of 56 patients with DSM-III-R schizophrenia and 17 controls to explore the nature of the mental processes associated with the psychomotor poverty and disorganisation syndromes. In patients with persistent illness, psychomotor poverty was associated with slower responses in a two-choice guessing task in which the appropriate response was not dictated by the circumstances. This association was not observed in patients with remitting illness, providing neuropsychological support to the distinction between 'negative' and 'deficit' symptoms in schizophrenia. Disorganisation syndrome was associated with impaired performance in the classical Stroop test, as shown in previous studies, but not with impairment in a task which required suppression of processing of irrelevant aspects of a stimulus, nor with impairment in a task which required the suppressing of a primed but irrelevant non-verbal response. This suggests that the disorganisation syndrome might be associated with a specific difficulty in suppressing irrelevant verbal responses.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Cognitive neuroscience.

The last decade of the 20th century has seen the development of cognitive neuroscience as an effort to understand how the brain represents mental events. We review the areas of emotional and motor memory, vision, and higher mental processes as examples of this new understanding. Progress in all of these areas has been swift and impressive, but much needs to be done to reveal the mechanisms of cognition at the local circuit and molecular levels. This work will require new methods for controlling gene expression in higher animals and in studying the interactions between neurons at multiple levels.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Intelligence and cognitive function in children and adolescents with spinal muscular atrophy.

Spinal muscular atrophy is a chronic disease characterised by loss of motor function. The aim of the study was to analyse cognitive functions in a large group of patients with spinal muscular atrophy. It was hypothesised that their intelligence is comparable to controls, but not above average as previously postulated. Ninety-six children and adolescents with spinal muscular atrophy I-III, aged 6.0-18.11 years, 45 non-affected siblings and 59 healthy, matched controls were examined with one- (CPM/SPM), as well as multi-dimensional intelligence tests (Kaufman-ABC; Wechsler tests). The mean IQ measured with the CPM/SPM tests was 109.6 for the spinal muscular atrophy group, 107.3 for the sibs and 104.1 for the healthy controls (no significant difference). In the older children and adolescents (SPM only) the mean IQ was significantly higher for the spinal muscular atrophy patients (109.6) than for the controls (95.4). The standard score in the 'mental processing composite' scale of the Kaufman-ABC was identical in the spinal muscular atrophy group and controls (103.8). The cognitive profile was relatively homogeneous. However, the older children and adolescents did have a significantly higher verbal IQ (113.8) than controls (104.6) in the Wechsler tests. There were no significant differences in any of the tests among different grades of severity (spinal muscular atrophy types I-III). It can be concluded that children and adolescents with spinal muscular atrophy have a general intelligence in the normal range. By adolescence, environmentally mediated aspects of intelligence are higher in patients with spinal muscular atrophy. It could be speculated that the development of cognitive skills and knowledge is a creative way to compensate the many restrictions due to their physical handicap.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Attitudes to the contribution of placebo in acupuncture--a survey.

Interest in placebo is increasing, and recent research suggests that the therapeutic consequence of placebo is generated through mental processes in which attitudes are important. The aim of this study is therefore to explore attitudes and beliefs concerning placebo effect in acupuncture therapy, among doctors, patients and acupuncturists. From February 1994 until June 1995, four anonymous questionnaires were distributed among 1135 randomly selected doctors, 294 medical students, 432 acupuncturists and a random sample of 653 in the general population in Norway. Fifty-seven percent indicated the treatment effect seen in acupuncture as mainly a genuine acupuncture effect, 30% indicated that half of the effect in acupuncture comes from placebo, while 13% indicated that the treatment effect in acupuncture is mainly based on placebo. Doctors and students express a more skeptical view than the others, and having tried acupuncture for one's own disease is significantly associated with a less skeptical view within all study groups. Attitudes to the use of acupuncture for cancer patients are associated with attitudes to placebo for doctors and medical students, but not for the general population or acupuncturists.

Acupuncture Therapy↗
PubMed2003

Part-list reexposure and release of retrieval inhibition.

In list-method directed forgetting, reexposure to forgotten List 1 items has been shown to reduce directed forgetting. proposed that reexposure to a few List 1 items only during a direct test of memory reinstates the entire List 1 episode. In the present experiments, part-list reexposure in the context of indirect as well as direct memory tests reduced directed forgetting. Directed forgetting was reduced when 50% or more of the items were reexposed, and was intact when only 25% were reexposed. Furthermore, part-list reexposure appeared to reinstate only reexposed items-not the entire List 1 episode.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

An approach to clinical dermatologic diagnosis based on morphologic reaction patterns.

How do dermatologists examine a patient and instantly generate a differential diagnosis? Of course, as in any other field, experience plays a large role. After a condition with a distinctive appearance is seen hundreds of times, recognition becomes automatic. Nevertheless, dermatologists need to employ a disciplined mental process to generate a differential diagnosis from clinical findings. From the perspective of clinical diagnosis, all dermatology falls into 2 separate categories--inflammatory and neoplastic. The reaction pattern technique discussed in this article relates only to inflammatory conditions such as psoriasis, eczema, and urticaria. This article describes an approach to differential dermatologic diagnosis based on clinical reaction patterns.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Re-representing consciousness: dissociations between experience and meta-consciousness.

A distinction is drawn between non-conscious (unexperienced), conscious (experienced), and meta-conscious (re-represented) mental processes. There is evidence for two types of dissociations between consciousness and meta-consciousness, the latter being defined as the intermittent explicit re-representation of the contents of consciousness. Temporal dissociations occur when an individual, who previously lacked meta-consciousness about the contents of consciousness, directs meta-consciousness towards those contents; for example, catching one's mind wandering during reading. Once meta-consciousness is triggered, translation dissociations can occur if the re-representation process misrepresents the original experience, such as when one verbally reflects on non-verbal experiences or takes stock of subtle or ambiguous experiences.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2001

Steep early negative slopes can be demonstrated in pre-movement bereitschaftspotential.

OBJECTIVES: The study presents data suggesting that the classic bereitschaftspotential hides in its early component (BP1) steep increases of negativity which precede the movement at varying intervals in repeated trials. METHODS: In 12 volunteers, surface EEG from Fz, Cz, C3, C4, and Pz electrodes and EMG from the flexor digitorum communis were recorded during self-paced wrist flexions. Two hundred trials were collected from each subject. The single trials were grouped for averaging in two different ways. In the first one, single trials for each subject were used to create individual averages. In the second, all single trials were divided into groups according to the point in time of small steep negative shift from the baseline detected on sweeps before the movement and time group averages were created. The identification of small shifts was based on the comparison of calculated mean amplitudes in the first and the second half of the 1 s time window moved along the time axis. RESULTS: The small negative shifts were identified in 97.2% of analyzed records. In each subject, their position on the time axis varied considerably. Individual averages exhibited the characteristics of classical readiness potential, i.e. slow early component, steep late component, laterality over motor cortices. On the other hand, all time group averages (26) displayed an early steep negative shift followed by plateau which, about 0.5 s before the movement, gave rise to the second, late steep negative shift. The slope values calculated in the definite segments of averaged curves were used as a measure of the amplitude of these shifts over various brain areas. MANOVA showed a significant effect of the electrode position both in the case of early slopes (F(4,115)=9.7; P<0.000) and in the case of late slopes (F(4,115)=22.5; P<0.000). In both cases, the largest value was demonstrated under Cz electrode. In contrast to the late slopes, the values of early slopes did not exhibit laterality and suggested greater importance of pre-frontal regions in their formation. CONCLUSION: We have suggested that the formation of steep early negative shifts from the baseline in time group averages was due to synchronization of a mental process which, under classical averaging procedure, was dispersed uniformly throughout the pre-movement period.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Cognitive status, language attainment, and prereading skills of 6-year-old very preterm children and their peers: the Bavarian Longitudinal Study.

The prevalence of intellectual-, language-, and prereading-skill deficits was investigated in a geographically defined whole-population sample of very preterm children at 6 years of age in southern Germany. The sample consisted of the following: 264 very preterm children (75.6% of German-speaking survivors); 264 term controls (matched for sex, socioeconomic status [SES], marital status and age of mother); and a representative normative sample for Bavaria (N=311). Compared with term peers, very preterm children scored significantly lower (approximately -1SD) on the measures of cognitive and language skills and had major cognitive deficits (<-2 SD) 10 to 35 times more often than the controls. Deficits in speech articulation and prereading skills (<l0th centile) were three to five times more frequent in very preterm children. More than 18% of very preterm children had cognitive deficits in more than five areas of functioning, compared with no control children. The differences between very preterm children and controls remained highly significant when only very preterm children (N= 229) and controls (N= 261) without major neurosensory impairment were considered. Little evidence for specific cognitive deficits was found once mental processing measured in the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) was controlled for. The effect of preterm birth on cognitive abilities was found to be larger than the influence of SES. In conclusion, there was a high prevalence of long-term multiple cognitive problems in very preterm children. These persistent cognitive problems appear to be of pre- or neonatal (treatment) rather than postnatal social origin.

Aptitude Tests↗
PubMed2000

The public health importance of Ascaris lumbricoides.

Numerous studies have shown that anthelminthic treatment can be effective in improving growth rates when given to malnourished children with ascariasis. Recent investigations have also indicated that Ascaris infections can affect mental processing in some school children. Poor socio-economic conditions are among the key factors linked with higher prevalences of ascariasis, as are defaecation practices, geophagia, cultural differences relating to personal and food hygiene, occupational necessity, agricultural factors, housing style, social class and gender. Chemotherapy is currently the major tool used for the strategic control of ascariasis as a short-term goal. In the long term, improvements in hygiene and sanitation are thought to aid long-term control considerably. Targeted treatment, especially when aimed at schoolchildren, has been a major focus of recent control efforts in some areas. Universal treatment reaches more people and thus decreases further aggregate morbidity, especially in nutritionally vulnerable preschool-age children. Selective treatment requires technical effort to identify heavily infected individuals; acceptance by the community may vary in less educated populations when some individuals receive treatment and others do not. Child-targeted treatment may be more cost-effective than population treatment in reducing the number of disease cases and, in high transmission areas, expanding coverage of a population can be a more cost-effective strategy than increasing the frequency of treatment.

Adolescent↗