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At least 1,297 records · Page 72Linked to original sources
PubMed1993

Autobiographical recollection and frontal damage.

A neuropsychological experiment on autobiographical retrieval of incidental past events, checked by means of a standardized enquiry, was carried out on a series of 16 patients with CT-assessed frontal lobe lesions. Of 16 patients, six were impaired on autobiographical retrieval. Moreover, eight were impaired on supraspan verbal learning. Impairment on both resulted in three patients, whereas in five there was no impairment on either test. Concordance between autobiographical and learning impairment was far from significant. Poor autobiographical retrieval correlated significantly with "executive" test performances and with the CT-verified bilaterality of the frontal damage. Poor learning of new information did not correlate significantly with "executive" performances, nor did it appear to be related to the hemispheric side or to the bilaterality of the frontal lesion. We propose that the relationship between the attentional system of retrieving from remote memory and of learning new information is qualitatively different.

Aged↗
PubMed1986

Extrapulmonary effects of maintenance therapy with theophylline and inhaled albuterol in patients with chronic asthma.

The extrapulmonary effects of slow-release theophylline and an inhaled beta 2-agonist (albuterol) were examined separately and in combination among 18 adults and adolescents with asthma during a 3-month randomized, double-blind, crossover trial. Although neither global impressions nor daily diaries revealed differences in adverse effects, a structured questionnaire completed at the end of each regimen suggested a small but statistically significant increase in nausea and depressive and caffeine-like symptoms during the theophylline-containing regimens. Theophylline was also associated with improved verbal learning but decreased motor steadiness. Metabolic effects associated with theophylline included lower serum bicarbonate, greater urinary calcium excretion, and higher serum calcium, uric acid, and creatinine. Albuterol was associated with lower neutrophil counts and lower serum theophylline concentrations. There were no drug-induced effects on cardiac rhythm.

Administration, Inhalation↗
PubMed1992

Cognitive function in major depression.

Forty patients with a major depressive episode were divided into equal endogenous and neurotic sub-groups using the Newcastle scale. They were all rated on the 17-item Hamilton scale and with a variety of neuropsychological tests. They were compared with 20 age- and education-matched control subjects. Both endogenous and neurotic groups had impaired memory function on the auditory verbal learning test; recall and recognition were equally impaired suggesting that effort was not a major determinant of performance. The endogenous group was more impaired on digit symbol substitution and the Trail making test (A and B). Impairment was correlated with symptom scores on the Hamilton and Newcastle scales, even after allowing for the effect of age. It is concluded that the conventional distinction between organic and functional impairment breaks down in severe depressive illness. The implications of this for clinical neuropsychological testing and the anatomy of the brain dysfunction in depressive illness are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Acquisition and retrieval of information in amphetamine-treated hyperactive children.

State-dependent learning and memory (retrieval) processes were examined in 15 amphetamine-treated hyperactive boys. While stimulant treatment enhanced the acquisition of information and its retrieval 24 hours later, there was no evidence of poorer retrieval of information learned in a state different from the retrieval state. Amphetamine appeared particularly to facilitate effortful cognitive processes. Subgroups of hyperactive children respond to amphetamine treatment in different ways, some showing changes in motor restlessness and others changes in cognition. The lack of dissociative effects when information is learned and recalled under different drug conditions suggests that what the stimulant-treated child learns can be effectively recovered after completion of treatment.

Attention↗
PubMed1984

The effects of desmethylimipramine on cognitive function in healthy subjects.

The cognitive effects of the specific norepinephrine (NE) uptake inhibitor desmethylimipramine (DMI) were examined in normal subjects. Although there were no differences in performance on drug compared to placebo treatment, there was an improvement in cognition 1 week after the drug had been discontinued. On DMI, there was evidence for increased noradrenergic activity, which was uncorrelated with measures of learning and memory. An improvement in mood during drug withdrawal was uncorrelated with the cognitive enhancement. It was concluded that the discontinuation of DMI, a drug which primarily affects NE uptake, improves several measures of learning and memory. Drug effects on cognition may be most pronounced during the withdrawal period.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Evaluation of the stability of neuropsychological functioning after acute episodes of schizophrenia: one-year followup study.

Few studies have evaluated the longitudinal stability of neuropsychological deficits in schizophrenia. In the present study, 39 inpatients with DSM-III-R schizophrenia were administered a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests after achieving sufficient clinical recovery to warrant discharge, and again 1 year after the first assessment during a nonacute period. Significant improvement in neuropsychological functioning from the first to the second assessment was observed on several tasks, including the following: Trails A and B, Digit Symbol, Judgment of Line Orientation, recognition memory on the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, the Wisconsin Card Sort, and Finger Tapping. These improvements were unrelated to treatment history, and were similar in first episode and chronic cases. For many patients, the improvement in functioning brought test performance into line with normative scores from test standardization samples. These results indicate that considerable improvement in neuropsychological functioning can occur in schizophrenic patients over the months following an acute episode of illness, and that recovery of cognitive functioning can occur after substantial clinical recovery from an acute episode of illness has already been achieved.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Neuropsychological predictors of skills training for chronic psychiatric patients.

Measures of neuropsychological functioning were examined for their relationship to skills training ability. In a longitudinal design, 16 psychotic inpatients were followed during their involvement in a skills training program. The two training programs (Symptom Management and Medication Management) included daily 2-hour sessions over an 8-month period. Five clinical neuropsychological measures and three laboratory-based information processing measures were administered at baseline. The outcome variables included two measures of skill knowledge/ability and a measure of on-task behavior. Modest correlations were found between outcome measures and three types of predictors: serial verbal learning, susceptibility to distraction, and vigilance. These findings suggest that selected measures of neuropsychological functioning may help to target those cognitive abilities necessary for skill acquisition, and may aid in selecting patients most likely to benefit from skills training.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1992

Forgetting curves in long-term memory: evidence for a multistage model of retention.

An experimental study with 20 normal healthy young adult subjects was performed to evaluate the interaction of type of memory tasks, type of learning modalities, and length of acquisition/recall interval. Four different tasks were employed (serial learning, paired learning, rote learning, and visuolinguistic transfer), some requiring a single trial learning modality others a multitrial learning modality. Acquisition/recall intervals were immediate, intermediate (3 min), and delayed. The experimental design allowed for the comparison of effects from five different delayed recall intervals (2, 8, 12, 24, and 48 hr). Results demonstrated a specific interaction on learning rates due to different ceiling effects for the different types of memory tasks. Forgetting rates, on the other hand, demonstrated a specific effect due to type of memory tasks and learning modalities only for differences between immediate and intermediate recall. These differences remained stable during the longer intervals and were not affected by length of interval. A multistage composition of long-term retention was suggested to explain these results, and a practical indication to build experimental procedures to study memory in the clinical field was evidenced.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Experimental nitrous oxide exposure as a model system for evaluating neurobehavioral tests.

A recent study reported that a minimally suprathreshold dose of 20% nitrous oxide significantly affected performance on 3 of 9 computer-administered neurobehavioral tests. Performance decrements were observed in that study on 3 tests of psychomotor speed while other neurobehavioral functions such as visuospatial ability, verbal learning and mood were not significantly affected. The current study was undertaken to assess the reproducibility of these earlier results. Its experimental design was expanded to include an additional dose of the anesthetic and a more complex reaction time task implemented by the authors since the earlier study. Fifteen males aged 24-34 years were tested with the Neurobehavioral Evaluation System (NES) test battery on 4 separate occasions. An initial training session was followed by randomly presented control, 20%, and 40% drug sessions. Drug-induced decrements in performance were observed in the current study at the 20% dose for 2 of the 3 tests of psychomotor speed which had shown effects in the earlier study, and average decrement in performance on the third approached statistical significance in the current study (P = 0.055). Performance on a complex reaction time task was significantly affected at the low dose. The higher dose of nitrous oxide impaired performance on 8 of the 9 tests administered, and impairment on the ninth test was nearly significant (P = 0.055). Overall, these data are consistent with those in the previous study and with other reports that higher doses of nitrous oxide produce impairments in more cognitive CNS functions. Owing to its relative safety at low dosages, ease of administration, and ready acceptance by experimental subjects, nitrous oxide appears to be a useful model for evaluating the validity of neurobehavioral tests.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Psychopathological and neuropsychological effects of 8-days' corticosteroid treatment. A prospective study.

Corticosteroids often induce a variety of psychiatric symptoms, such as alterations of mood, neuropsychological deficits and even psychotic states. To date, only a few studies have specifically addressed behaviour as well as cognitive functioning in patients under steroid treatment. Fifty ophthalmologic patients participated in this prospective study. They received methylprednisolone or fluocortolone at doses of 119 +/- 41 mg/day in the beginning and 75 +/- 22 mg after 8 days of treatment. Psychopathology and neuropsychological functioning were examined before and after steroid therapy, mood was self-rated on days 0, 3, 5 and 8. No marked psychopathological abnormalities such as psychosis, dementia or delirious states were observed. However, a significant proportion of patients suffered from an organic mood disorder, 26-34% experienced a hypomanic syndrome, 10-12% a depressive syndrome. Most neuropsychological tests did not reveal significant effects of steroid treatment. Performance of Word Fluency and Trail Making A improved, while the Auditory-Verbal-Learning and the Digit-Symbol showed a worsening. Psychopathological and neuropsychological effects were not significantly correlated.

Administration, Oral↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Predictors of neuropsychological impairment in alcoholics: antisocial versus nonantisocial subtypes.

The role of demographic, perinatal/developmental, and acquired subject characteristics in determining neuropsychological (NP) performance was investigated in 22 alcoholics with Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) and 84 non-ASPD alcoholics. Results of stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that in ASPD subjects, poor NP performance was predicted by less education, childhood symptoms of Conduct Disorder, drinks per drinking day, and history of head injury, accounting for 80% of the explained variance (p < .0001). In non-ASPD subjects, NP performance was predicted by self-reported history of diagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder, Verbal Learning Disability, and symptoms of Nonverbal Learning Disability, accounting for 24% of the explained variance (p < .0001). These results suggest the presence of potentially different lifelong paths to NP impairment among ASPD and non-ASPD alcoholics. Further exploration of the multivariate predictors of neuropsychological performance in subgroups of alcoholics is warranted.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Neuropsychological test performance and MEG-based brain lateralization: sex differences.

Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) auditory evoked fields (EF) were recorded from left and right hemispheres of 9 normal males and 12 normal females. Source location of the 100 ms latency component (M100) was localized to superior temporal lobes bilaterally using an inverse solution algorithm. All subjects also were administered the Wechsler block design and visual reproduction subtests, and the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT). M100 source locations demonstrated significant sex differences in interhemispheric asymmetry. Males had source locations further anterior than females, with the differences most pronounced in the right hemisphere. Expected sex differences were found in neuropsychological test performance, with males performing better on block design ad visual reproduction, and females performing better on the CVLT. Across both sexes, block design scores correlated significantly with right hemisphere M100 location, with more anterior source locations associated with better performance. CVLT scores were negatively correlated with right hemisphere M100 source locations. These findings suggest MEG-based measures of interhemispheric asymmetry may be related to specific neuropsychological test performance measures.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1993

Neurocognitive subtypes of chronic schizophrenia.

Performance on four key neurocognitive tasks was used to search for subtypes in 104 DSM-IIIR schizophrenic patients. The tasks were the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test to index executive prefrontal cerebral function, intrusion errors from the California Verbal Learning Test to tap hippocampal-diencephalic mnestic function, bilateral hand performance on the Purdue Pegboard to index fine motor-basal ganglial function, and a pro-rated IQ from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised to measure general cognitive-cerebral function. Neurocognitive data were analyzed using hierarchical and disjoint clustering procedures with Euclidean distance. A five cluster solution was considered optimal. Cluster 1 (n = 24) comprised patients with selective executive-prefrontal dysfunction; cluster 2 (n = 16) suggested normative function; cluster 3 (n = 20) involved patients with executive-motor/cortico-basal ganglial deficit; cluster 4 (n = 25) suggested dementia/multi-focal disturbance; and cluster 5 (n = 19) consisted of patients with selective motor-basal ganglial deficit. The subtypes differed significantly in age, duration of illness, and extent of hospitalization. Suggestive trends in sex composition and anti-Parkinsonian medication patterns were noted. Neurocognitive tasks combined with cluster analysis have promise in reducing and clarifying the heterogeneity of schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Neurophysiological and neuropsychological evidence for attentional dysfunction in schizophrenia.

The behavior of the P50 wave of the auditory evoked potential in a paired stimulus or conditioning-testing paradigm has been used as a measure of sensory gating disturbance in schizophrenia. Schizophrenics fail to decrement the P50 response to the second stimulus of the pair, so that the ratio of the test to the conditioning amplitude is elevated over normal values. The aim of this study was to compare this neurophysiological measure to neuropsychological measures of attention and memory. As expected, schizophrenics performed worse than controls on most measures. The time to complete a digit cancellation test, a measure of sustained attention, was found to be particularly longer in schizophrenics than in control subjects. Furthermore, the increased time to complete this task correlated with the increased ratio of the amplitude of the test P50 response to the conditioning response in the schizophrenics. Thus, a neurophysiological defect in sensory gating may relate to a disorder in sustained attention in schizophrenia. Although the P50 wave may come from the hippocampus, neuropsychological measures of verbal learning and memory were not correlated with alterations in the P50 ratio.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Stability of cognitive functioning early in the course of schizophrenia.

This study evaluated the longitudinal course of neuropsychological deficits in a group of patients with new or recent onset schizophrenia. Thirty-five inpatients with DSM-III-R diagnoses of schizophrenia were administered a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests during their index hospitalization, and either 1 or 2 years after intake. Cognitive function remained stable in most domains, including motor speed, verbal and nonverbal memory, and verbal learning. Significant improvement in neuropsychological performance was observed on a task of complex attention (Trails B) and a set response shifting task (Stroop). These improvements were correlated with changes in clinical symptoms, but not with changes in medication dose. These findings suggest that most of the neuropsychological functioning in schizophrenia is stable over the first few years of the illness. Moreover, those neuropsychological deficits that remain unchanging appear to be independent of significant change in clinical symptoms, suggesting they may be a trait of the illness. However, a small subset of functions such as complex attention and response inhibition appear to fluctuate with time, and in particular, with clinical symptomatology, and may be considered 'state' dependent.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Memory impairment in schizophrenia: its' relationship to executive function.

The presence of memory impairment in schizophrenia has frequently been documented but much less attention has been given to the qualitative aspects of this impairment and its association to executive function. Using a cognitive-process approach, we examined memory and executive function in 25 patients who met DSM-III-R criteria for schizophrenia. Patients were matched with 25 healthy volunteers. The schizophrenic group was found to have a significant impairment in immediate memory, with relatively spared long-delay memory. Performance on verbal learning and recognition memory was similar to that of controls. Memory deficits were present irrespective of the encoding strategies used and were unrelated to chronicity. In addition, the schizophrenics performed worse than controls on tests of executive function, but the degree of impairment was greater on tests of response initiation and suppression. This pattern of performance resembled that found in patients with subcortical or frontal lesions which was supported by some significant correlations between aspects of memory and executive function. Our results suggest that in schizophrenia, specific executive functions may make a selective contribution to the pattern of memory performance in schizophrenia which is subserved by frontal and to a lesser extent hippocampal/diencephalic systems.

Adult↗