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PubMed2002

Effect of mild head injury on event-related potential correlates of Stroop task performance.

The effect of mild head injury on event-related potential (ERP) correlates of Stroop task performance was explored with the aim of further elucidating the basis of processing impairments after mild head injury. Computer- and card-based Stroop tasks were employed to assess attention function. A sequence of incongruent color words were presented followed by a sequence of congruent color words (printed in congruent colors). Control performance was equivalent on computer- and card-based versions of the incongruent task and faster on the congruent card task than the preceding congruent computer task. The mild head injury group were as fast as controls on the computer-based task but made more errors. However, they were relatively slower on both the congruent and incongruent parts of the card-based task and made more errors in the incongruent task. ERP correlates of computer-based Stroop task performance suggested a greater allocation of attention resources in the incongruent condition in both groups in the form of relatively greater negativity in the latency range 350 to 450 ms with a distribution consistent with the activation of the anterior cingulate gyrus. In addition the mild head injured group showed relatively greater enhancement than the control group in this latency range in both congruent and incongruent conditions. There was, however no evidence of reduced amplitude P1, N1, N2, or P3b deflections. Trails, digit symbol, digit span and auditory verbal learning tests (AVLT) were also administered. Mild head injured participants were impaired only on the AVLT. The finding of greater ERP negativity in the mild head injured group is consistent with greater allocation of attention resources to achieve equivalent performance in the computer-based Stroop task.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Long-term neuropsychological outcomes following mild traumatic brain injury.

Mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) is common, yet few studies have examined neuropsychological outcomes more than 1 year postinjury. Studies of nonreferred individuals with MTBI or studies with appropriate control groups are lacking, but necessary to draw conclusions regarding natural recovery from MTBI. We examined the long-term neuropsychological outcomes of a self-reported MTBI an average of 8 years postinjury in a nonreferred community-dwelling sample of male veterans. This was a cross-sectional cohort study derived from the Vietnam Experience Study. Three groups matched on premorbid cognitive ability were examined, those who (1) had not been injured in a MVA nor had a head injury (Normal Control; n = 3214), (2) had been injured in a motor vehicle accident (MVA) but did not have a head injury (MVA Control; n = 539), and (3) had a head injury with altered consciousness (MTBI; n = 254). A MANOVA found no group differences on a standard neuropsychological test battery of 15 measures. Across 15 measures, the average neuropsychological effect size of MTBI compared with either control group was -.03. Subtle aspects of attention and working memory also were examined by comparing groups on Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) continuation rate and California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) proactive interference (PI). Compared with normal controls, the MTBI group evidenced attention problems in their lower rate of continuation to completion on the PASAT (odds ratio = 1.32, CI = 1.0-1.73) and in excessive PI (odds ratio = 1.66, CI = 1.11-2.47). Unique to the MTBI group, PASAT continuation problems were associated with left-sided visual imperceptions and excessive PI was associated with impaired tandem gait. These results show that MTBI can have adverse long-term neuropsychological outcomes on subtle aspects of complex attention and working memory.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Perceived cognitive dysfunction and observed neuropsychological performance: longitudinal relation in persons with multiple sclerosis.

The relation between self-reported cognitive dysfunction and neuropsychological performance over 24 weeks was assessed in a sample of 53 multiple sclerosis patients. Subjects were assessed at Weeks Zero and 24 as part of a clinical trial to enhance cognition. At baseline, subjects had at least mild cognitive impairment on the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test and an absence of depression. Neuropsychological performance was assessed with a modification of the well standardized Brief Repeatable Battery. The 5-item Perceived Deficits Questionnaire and a 2-item memory and attention/concentration questionnaire assessed self-perceived cognitive impairment. Self-assessed cognition did not correlate with neuropsychological performance at either baseline or 24 weeks. However, changes in the self-assessment measures did correlate with changes in neuropsychological performance. Patients accurately perceived some changes in their level of cognitive dysfunction, though they were insensitive to the degree of their current dysfunction. Possible explanations of this pattern of results are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Working memory deficits in multiple sclerosis: comparison between the n-back task and the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test.

Working memory (WM) deficits are common in multiple sclerosis (MS). The Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) is used frequently to measure WM in clinical settings. The n-back paradigm is used often in experimental studies of WM. One unique component of the n-back task is that it provides a measure of reaction time (RT), an additional behavioral index of processing speed and task difficulty. Despite the use of both tasks to measure WM, their common variance has not been documented. We tested 32 MS patients and 20 controls; performance measures were obtained for both tasks. Compared with controls, MS patients generally had poorer performance on both the PASAT and n-back task. MS patients also had slower RTs on the n-back than controls and showed more slowing than controls as a function of WM load. Correlational analyses showed a high correspondence between performance measures on the PASAT and n-back. Principal components analysis pointed to a common feature of the PASAT, n-back, and specific other neuropsychological measures, that is, processing speed. Although the PASAT and n-back were shown to have a significant amount of shared variance, each test has specific advantages and disadvantages for use in clinical populations.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2006

The impact of sleep deprivation and task difficulty on networks of fMRI brain response.

Previous fMRI research has found altered brain response after total sleep deprivation (TSD), with TSD effects moderated by task difficulty. Specific models of the impact of sleep deprivation and task difficulty on brain response have yet to be developed. Differences in networks of fMRI measured brain response during verbal encoding in sleep deprived and well-rested individuals were examined with structural equation modeling (SEM). During fMRI scanning, 23 healthy volunteers memorized words either easy or difficult to recall, 12 (well-rested) and 36 hours (sleep deprived) after awaking. A priori models that linked specified regions of interest were evaluated, with the focus on the extent to which two left parietal regions interacted with the left inferior frontal gyrus (Model 1) or with the right inferior frontal gyrus (Model 2). Task difficulty, not TSD, determined which model fit the brain response data; Model 2 fit best for hard words before and after TSD, whereas Model 1 fit best for easy words. TSD altered the patterns of interaction within each of the best fitting models: prefrontal interactions with the left inferior parietal lobe were diminished and intra-parietal interactions increased. Sleep deprivation and item difficulty produce different effects on brain networks involved in verbal learning.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

When does Huntington's disease begin?

Recent studies have detected basal ganglia atrophy in clinically asymptomatic persons with the genetic mutation that causes Huntington's disease (HD). Whether reductions in caudate and putamen volume on MRI scans are associated with changes in cognitive and neurologic functioning was examined in 13 healthy adults with the IT-15 mutation. Reduced striatal volume was found to correlate with greater neurologic (largely motor) impairment, slower mental processing speed, and poorer verbal learning, although none of the participants met even liberal criteria for clinical diagnosis of HD. These correlations are strikingly similar to those observed in symptomatic HD patients, possibly reflecting the earliest manifestations of disease.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Olfactory identification in combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder.

Recent neuropsychological conceptualizations of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) implicate dysfunction of the fronto-limbic system, a brain system thought to be involved in the mediation of emotion. However, few studies have examined fronto-limbic subregions, such as the orbitofrontal cortex, in PTSD. As a measure of orbitofrontal integrity, olfactory identification was assessed in 26 Vietnam War veterans with PTSD, 25 Vietnam War veterans without mental disorders, and 17 Vietnam-era, non-war-zone veterans without mental disorders. Relative to veterans without PTSD, those diagnosed with PTSD were less proficient in odor identification and verbal learning but not on other cognitive tests sensitive to dorsolateral prefrontal and mesial temporal functioning. Results bolster prior research indicating fronto-limbic dysfunction in PTSD, and suggest involvement of the orbitofrontal region.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2001

Neurocognitive and symptom correlates of self-reported childhood sexual abuse in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

This study examined whether self-reported childhood sexual abuse in schizophrenia spectrum disorders is linked with severity of neurocognitive deficits. The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, California Verbal Learning Test, and select WAIS III subtests were administered to 15 participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who had been sexually abused and to 28 participants with no abuse history. Controlling for age and premorbid IQ, a MANCOVA indicated there were group differences (f(9, 31) = 5.53, p < .001). Subsequent ANCOVA indicated that the sexual abuse group performed more poorly on tests of working memory and information processing speed. Childhood sexual abuse is associated with more severe working memory deficits in adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Brain↗
PubMed1999

Memory functioning in adult women traumatized by childhood sexual abuse.

Memory impairment has been reported in some studies of patients with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and in rape victims with PTSD. The authors tested whether explicit memory impairment was evident in adult women who were traumatized by severe sexual abuse in childhood. The California Verbal Learning Test (Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, & Ober, 1987) and the Benton Visual Retention Task (Benton, 1974), were administered to 22 female adult survivors of childhood sexual trauma and to 20 demographically and educationally similar nonvictimized women. No evidence was found of explicit memory impairment in the abuse survivors. Furthermore, neither PTSD severity, dissociative symptom severity, nor extent of preexisting amnesia for childhood trauma contributed to the variance in memory functioning. Additional studies are needed to determine the extent to which impaired explicit memory functioning is a common feature of posttraumatic stress syndromes.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Cognitive functioning predicts outpatient service utilization in schizophrenia.

Aim of the study was to evaluate the cognitive and symptom predictors of outpatient service utilization in schizophrenia. The relationships between cognitive functioning (verbal learning and memory, executive functions), symptoms (positive symptoms, negative symptoms), and outpatient service utilization (case management, medication monitoring), were examined in 20 patients receiving outpatient services at a psychosocial clubhouse over a 12-month period. Executive functions, as measured on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), were the only significant predictor of outpatient service utilization, accounting for over 20% of the variance in total outpatient services used, with greater impairment associated with higher service utilization. Specifically, poorer performance on the WCST was associated with delivery of more case management services, but not medication management services. More case management services may be required to compensate for impairments in executive functioning in patients with schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Hippocampal and temporal lobe atrophy and age-related decline in memory.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the relationship of memory decline that accompanies aging with structural changes in the medial temporal lobe, in healthy middle-aged and older subjects. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A sample of 35 neurologically non-diseased subjects, between 55 and 70 years of age, were examined in a 5-year follow-up study. Neuropsychological investigation included tests of learning, verbal memory, and visual memory. MRI was performed with a superconducting MRI system operating at 1.0 T, using coronal slices of T1-weighted images. Medial temporal lobe atrophy was rated separately in the neocortical, entorhinal and hippocampal regions. RESULTS: We did not find any statistically significant relationship between mild hippocampal or temporal atrophy and memory test performance. Nor did the longitudinal decline in memory show a relationship with temporal lobe atrophy. CONCLUSIONS: The main outcome of our study was that age-related memory decline was not related to mild temporal lobe atrophy in healthy subjects without mild cognitive impairment. There could be other factors influencing memory functions besides age-related structural changes in temporal lobes.

Aged↗
PubMed1997

Changing relations between phonological processing abilities and word-level reading as children develop from beginning to skilled readers: a 5-year longitudinal study.

Relations between phonological processing abilities and word-level reading skills were examined in a longitudinal correlational study of 216 children. Phonological processing abilities, word-level reading skills, and vocabulary were assessed annually from kindergarten through 4th grade, as the children developed from beginning to skilled readers. Individual differences in phonological awareness were related to subsequent individual differences in word-level reading for every time period examined. Individual differences in serial naming and vocabulary were related to subsequent individual differences in word-level reading initially, but these relations faded with development. Individual differences in letter-name knowledge were related to subsequent individual differences in phonological awareness and serial naming, but there were no relations between individual differences in word-level reading and any subsequent phonological processing ability.

Aptitude↗
PubMed1991

Learning the structure of event sequences.

How is complex sequential material acquired, processed, and represented when there is no intention to learn? Two experiments exploring a choice reaction time task are reported. Unknown to Ss, successive stimuli followed a sequence derived from a "noisy" finite-state grammar. After considerable practice (60,000 exposures) with Experiment 1, Ss acquired a complex body of procedural knowledge about the sequential structure of the material. Experiment 2 was an attempt to identify limits on Ss ability to encode the temporal context by using more distant contingencies that spanned irrelevant material. Taken together, the results indicate that Ss become increasingly sensitive to the temporal context set by previous elements of the sequence, up to 3 elements. Responses are also affected by priming effects from recent trials. A connectionist model that incorporates sensitivity to the sequential structure and to priming effects is shown to capture key aspects of both acquisition and processing and to account for the interaction between attention and sequence structure reported by Cohen, Ivry, and Keele (1990).

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Effects of repetition on short-term retention of order information.

Two experiments examined the effects of repetition on the short-term retention of order information. A partial report procedure was coupled with the distractor paradigm to vary which one of two 4-letter sequences was tested after a digit-filled retention interval. Repeatedly presenting the stimulus but not its testing did not increase recall, but recall did increase when both presentation and testing were repeated. Recall was also improved by precues that informed subjects in advance which sequence was to be recalled. The perturbation model of Estes (1972; Lee & Estes, 1981) was able to account for the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the results by making an explicit distinction between two types of rehearsal: the reactivation process, which corresponds to a passive, automatic rehearsal process; and an active, conscious rehearsal process that crystallizes the memory structure and makes perturbations less likely.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

The lag effect and differential organization theory: nine failures to replicate.

In our first experiment, we tried to replicate and extend previous results that had provided seemingly convincing support for a differential organization explanation of the monotonically increasing lag effect in free recall. However, we failed to obtain the lag effect. Eight additional experiments also failed to replicate the lag effect. In all, we made 918 observations of performance on items repeated at each of three lags, and the mean percentage of correct free recall varied by less than one percentage point. These results suggest that there are boundary conditions limiting the generality of the monotonically increasing lag effect in free recall. In addition, caution should be exercised in accepting certain previous findings as strong evidence for a differential organization explanation of the phenomenon.

Cues↗
PubMed1990

Acquisition and retention of a letter-detection skill.

In two experiments, we examined the acquisition and retention of a letter-detection skill with a consistent-mapping procedure. In Experiment 1, subjects were trained from 0 to 4 sessions at detecting the letter H in displays containing random letters, and retesting occurred after a 1-month delay. Performance improved and in some cases became more automatic, and the performance level was maintained over the retention interval. When tested with a prose passage, the high error rate on the word THE was eliminated after training and after the retention interval, regardless of the amount of training. In Experiment 2, two subjects were given 12 sessions of training followed by a retention test 6 months later. For 1 subject there was also a retention test 15 months after acquisition. Performance improved dramatically with training, and substantial but not complete automaticity was achieved. Performance on the retention tests was close to the final acquisition level. The surprising lack of forgetting in this study was contrasted with the substantial forgetting typically found in studies of verbal learning.

Form Perception↗
PubMed1991

Dissociative effects of generation on item and order retention.

The effects of generation on the long-term retention of item and order information were examined in a between-list design in 3 experiments. In each experiment, completing word fragments during presentation significantly impaired long-term retention of serial order, as measured by either a reconstruction task or the amount of input-output correspondence in free recall. Memory for the individual items, however, was sometimes helped by generation. This pattern of dissociation, reminiscent of immediate memory findings, is used to interpret problematic issues in the generation effect literature and to argue for the role of the item-order distinction in the long-term-memory arena.

Humans↗
PubMed1992

Reaction time measures of spelling: testing a two-strategy model of skilled spelling.

Two strategies have been suggested to be important in skilled English spelling: a lexical strategy, which relies on word-specific graphemic information, and a rule strategy, which relies on phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences. Limitations in the usefulness of spelling accuracy as a dependent variable make it difficult to test claims about how the strategies might work together. Two experimental paradigms that measure both spelling accuracy and time are suggested to be useful. Results produced with the paradigms were consistent with the claims that skilled spellers make use of both strategies and that the lexical strategy is more useful than the rule strategy. Working memory may be important in combining products of both strategies. Results were inconsistent with the claim that the rule strategy is invoked only when the lexical strategy fails to produce a complete spelling.

Adult↗