Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Verbal Learning”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,693 records · Page 94Linked to original sources
PubMed1980

Interictal memory and language impairment in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Memory and language were evaluated in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and generalized epilepsy. Subjects were matched for age, duration of illness, and seizure frequency, and grouped according to the electroencephalographic results and seizure type into right temporal, left temporal, and generalized. In formal tests of intelligence, auditory and visual memory, and language, a significant difference was noted only on a confrontation naming test. The mean score on this test was considerably lower in the left temporal group; right temporal and generalized groups scored in the normal range. This correlated with impairment on many verbal subtests of intelligence and memory. These results suggest that the interictal memory impairment of temporal lobe epilepsy may be an anomia and that the anomia may contribute to impairment of verbal learning and memory; both circumlocution and circumstantiality may compensate for anomia.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Memory dysfunction in myasthenia gravis: evidence for central cholinergic effects.

Two studies are presented that investigate the possible central cholinergic effects of myasthenia gravis as measured by cognitive dysfunction. In the first study, performance on a battery of cognitive tasks by 12 subjects with myasthenia gravis is compared with that of ten healthy control subjects and ten medical control subjects with chronic disease of a nonneurologic nature. The tests used were the Boston Naming Test, Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT), and the Logical Memory and Design Reproduction portions of the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS). Results indicate that the myasthenic group was significantly impaired relative to both the medical and healthy control groups for performance on the Boston Naming Test, WMS Logical Memory, and WMS Design Reproduction. Both the myasthenic and the medical control groups were impaired relative to the healthy controls on the AVLT. In the second study, a myasthenic patient had plasmapheresis for treatment of her myasthenia on two separate occasions. Her memory was examined prior to as well as following each series of plasma exchanges with a variation of the Peterson-Peterson consonant trigram task. Results showed that this patient had significantly fewer interference effects and less rapid forgetting following plasmapheresis. The results of these two studies support the hypothesis that myasthenia gravis has central cholinergic effects manifested by cognitive dysfunction.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Memory function in normal aging.

We evaluated memory function in a group of 161 community-dwelling, cognitively normal individuals aged 62 to 100 years recruited as part of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's Disease Patient Registry. We used the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test to evaluate two aspects of memory function thought to be sensitive to the effects of aging: learning (acquisition) and delayed recall (forgetting). The results were quite consistent and demonstrated that learning or acquisition performance declines uniformly with increasing age but is not related to education. Delayed recall or forgetting, however, remained relatively stable across age when adjusted for the amount of material initially learned. These findings are relevant for assessing normal memory function relative to the early impairments found in dementia and form a baseline against which memory performance can be assessed by the clinician. In particular, suspicion regarding a disorder of brain function affecting memory processes should be raised if learning performance declines more rapidly than expected or if delayed recall is impaired to any significant extent.

Aged↗
PubMed1992

Memory impairment and depression in patients with Lyme encephalopathy: comparison with fibromyalgia and nonpsychotically depressed patients.

Lyme encephalopathy, primarily manifested by disturbances in memory, mood, and sleep, is a common late neurologic manifestation of Lyme disease. We compared 20 patients with Lyme encephalopathy with 11 fibromyalgia patients and 11 nonpsychotically depressed patients using the California Verbal Learning Test, Wechsler Memory Scale, Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), and Beck Depression Inventory. Compared with patients with fibromyalgia or depression, the Lyme encephalopathy group showed mild, but statistically significant, memory deficits on two of the three memory tests. In contrast, the patients with fibromyalgia scored significantly higher than both other groups on the MMPI scale most sensitive to somatic concerns (scale 1), while the depressed patients scored higher than the Lyme patients on the scales most sensitive to depression (scale 2) and anxiety (scale 7). Physical complaints and depression were not major factors in memory performance among Lyme patients. These data support the hypothesis that Lyme encephalopathy is caused by CNS dysfunction and cannot be explained as a psychological response to chronic illness.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Neuropsychological and structural brain lesions in multiple sclerosis: a regional analysis.

Quantified lesion scores derived from MRI correlate significantly with neuropsychological testing in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Variables used to reflect disease severity include total lesion area (TLA), ventricular-brain ratio, and size of the corpus callosum. We used these general measures of cerebral lesion involvement as well as specific ratings of lesion involvement by frontal, temporal, and parieto-occipital regions to quantify the topographic distribution of lesions and consequent effects upon cognitive function. Lesions were heavily distributed in the parieto-occipital regions bilaterally. Neuropsychological tests were highly related to all generalized measures of cerebral involvement, with TLA being the best predictor of neuropsychological deficit. Mean TLA for the cognitively impaired group was 28.30 cm2 versus 7.41 cm2 for the cognitively intact group (p less than 0.0001). Multiple regression analyses revealed that left frontal lobe involvement best predicted impaired abstract problem solving, memory, and word fluency. Left parieto-occipital lesion involvement best predicted deficits in verbal learning and complex visual-integrative skills. Analysis of regional cerebral lesion load may assist in understanding the particular pattern and course of cognitive deficits in MS.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Permanent global amnesia with unknown etiology.

Three patients developed severe and selective memory impairment with no known cause, one during a period of a few days and two others during a period of 1 to 2 years. In two of these patients, the amnesia has been stable and circumscribed for 5 to 6 years. The third patient appears to have declined in cognitive functions during the past year, at the age of 78, after 6 years of stable, circumscribed amnesia. Neuropsychological testing reveals severe impairment in the ability to learn verbal and nonverbal material as well as retrograde amnesia covering at least 20 years. CT and routine brain MRIs were uninformative. Subsequently, a high-resolution protocol for imaging human hippocampus with MR revealed that the hippocampal formation was markedly reduced in size in all three patients. The pattern of cognitive impairment and the MR findings are similar to the findings in other patients with chronic amnesia due to a known anoxic or ischemic episode, and differ from the findings in amnesic patients with alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome. We suggest that the amnesia may be due to ischemic damage to medial temporal lobe brain structures important for memory.

Aged↗
PubMed1996

Prediction of probable Alzheimer's disease in memory-impaired patients: A prospective longitudinal study.

We determined whether a battery of neuropsychological tests could predict who would develop Alzheimer's disease (AD) in a group of 123 memory-impaired nondemented patients. Patients were followed longitudinally for 2 years with a research battery of neuropsychological tests. After 2 years, 29 developed probable AD, and 94 did not develop dementia. We used logistic regression analyses to examine the classification accuracy of subjects' performance at entry to the study on the research battery. The logistic regression model was significant with an accuracy of 89%, sensitivity of 76%, and specificity of 94%. Two tests contributed significantly to this model: the delayed recall from the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test and the Mental Control subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale. These two tests alone produced the same accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity as the larger model. These results demonstrate that probable AD can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy and with a relatively brief battery of neuropsychological tests.

Alzheimer Disease↗
PubMed1996

Memory in myasthenia gravis: neuropsychological tests of central cholinergic function before and after effective immunologic treatment.

There are reports of central cholinergic deficits in myasthenia gravis (MG) describing impaired performance on a variety of tests of memory with varying benefits from plasmapheresis. We tested 11 patients with symptomatic MG at the start of a trial of immunosuppressive treatment (prednisolone plus azathioprine or placebo) and again when in remission. The tests included the Logical Memory and Design Reproduction parts of the Wechsler Memory Scale, the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, Peterson-Peterson task, and an auditory vigilance task. Muscle strength improved significantly over the period of treatment, but overall performance on tests of memory or attention did not. These results fail to substantiate reports of functionally significant and reversible central deficits in myasthenia gravis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Comparison of African-American and white persons with Alzheimer's disease on language measures.

We assessed 11 African-American and 32 white subjects with early to midstage AD using seven measures (the Boston Naming Test, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised, Shortened Token Test, a modified Reporter's Test, two subtests of a shortened Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, and selected stimuli from the Test of Problem Solving). There were no ethnic differences, with Mini-Mental State Examination score and education accounting for most of the variance between ethnic groups. However, white subjects tended to score higher than African-Americans on five of the seven measures. African-Americans tended to perform better on the Test of Problem Solving, a measure of the pragmatic use of language. Although these preliminary findings suggest no test bias for ethnicity, the trends indicate that language measures should continue to be examined for ethnic differences in larger samples.

Black or African American↗
PubMed2000

APOE-epsilon4 is associated with memory decline in cognitively impaired elderly.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the association between APOE-epsilon4 and memory decline is modified by baseline cognition and age in a population-based elderly sample. METHODS: The study sample consisted of 1,243 subjects, 62 to 85 years old, with a Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score between 21 and 30 and known APOE phenotypes. Memory performance was measured with an abbreviated Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT) at baseline and repeated after 3 years (n = 854). Memory decline was defined as a decrease of at least 1 SD from the mean change score on immediate recall (IR), delayed recall (DR), and retention, based on the AVLT. RESULTS: Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that APOE-epsilon4 is associated with memory decline in cognitively impaired subjects (MMSE score, 21 to 26) (OR for decline on IR adjusted for age, sex, education, and baseline recall score, 3.8; 95% CI, 1.4 to 10.0; adjusted OR for decline on DR, 2.9; 95% CI, 1.2 to 7.0; adjusted OR for decline on retention, 3.3; 95% CI, 1.1 to 10. 1), but not in cognitively normal subjects (MMSE score, 27 to 30) (adjusted OR for decline on IR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.6 to 2.0; adjusted OR for decline on DR, 1.0; 95% CI, 0.6 to 1.8; adjusted OR for decline on retention, 1.5; 95% CI, 0.7 to 3.0). In particular, cognitively impaired epsilon4 carriers older than 75 years were at high risk of memory decline (adjusted OR for decline on IR, 4.5; 95% CI, 1.4 to 13.8; adjusted OR for decline on DR, 3.6; 95% CI, 1.2 to 10.8; adjusted OR for decline on retention, 6.6; 95% CI, 1.5 to 29.7). CONCLUSIONS: APOE-epsilon4 was associated with memory decline in subjects with cognitive impairment, but not in normally functioning subjects. Contrary to AD studies, our study suggests that the risk of APOE-epsilon4 on memory decline does not decrease at higher ages.

Age Distribution↗
PubMed2001

Memory complaints and APOE-epsilon4 accelerate cognitive decline in cognitively normal elderly.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate to what extent subjective memory complaints and APOE-epsilon4 allele carriage predict future cognitive decline in cognitively intact elderly persons, by evaluating both their separate and combined effects. METHODS: We selected 1,168 subjects from the population-based Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam who were 62 to 85 years of age and had no obvious cognitive impairment at baseline (Mini-Mental State Examination [MMSE] score, > or =27). Memory complaints and APOE phenotypes were assessed at baseline. MMSE, the Auditory Verbal Learning Test (memory: immediate recall and delayed recall), and the Alphabet Coding Task-15 (information processing speed) were used to study cognitive decline. Follow-up data were collected after 3 and 6 years. Data were analyzed with generalized estimating equations, adjusted for age, sex, education, and depression. RESULTS: Baseline memory complaints were reported by 25.5% of the cognitively intact elderly persons. Overall, 25.3% of the subjects were carriers of at least one APOE-epsilon4 allele. Memory complaints were associated with a greater rate of decline in all cognitive measures, except immediate recall. In addition, APOE-epsilon4 allele carriers had a greater rate of cognitive decline shown by MMSE scores and slower information processing speeds after 6 years. The effects of both memory complaints and APOE-epsilon4 allele carriage were additive: subjects with both factors had a two times higher cognitive decline than did subjects without both factors. CONCLUSIONS: Both memory complaints and APOE-epsilon4 allele carriage predict cognitive decline at an early stage. This finding highlights the importance of subjective memory complaints, which are important even at an early stage when objective tests are still unable to detect cognitive deficits and are especially important for elderly carriers of the APOE-epsilon4 allele because they have an additional risk.

Aged↗
PubMed2002

Phenotypic features of myoclonus-dystonia in three kindreds.

BACKGROUND: Myoclonus-dystonia (M-D) is a movement disorder with involuntary jerks and dystonic contractions. Autosomal dominant alcohol-responsive M-D is associated with mutations in the epsilon-sarcoglycan gene (SGCE) (six families) and with a missense change in the D2 dopamine receptor (DRD2)gene (one family). OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical phenotype associated with M-D including motor symptoms, psychiatric disorders, and neuropsychological deficits. METHODS: Fifty individuals in three M-D families were evaluated and a standardized neurologic examination and DNA analysis were performed. Psychiatric profiles were established with the Diagnostic Interviews for Genetic Studies (DIGS) and the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (YBOCS). Cognition was evaluated with standardized neuropsychological tests. RESULTS: Distinct truncating mutations in the SGCE gene were identified in each family. Additionally, a missense alteration in the DRD2 gene was previously found in one family. Motor expression was variable, with onset of myoclonus or dystonia or both affecting the upper body and progression to myoclonus and dystonia in most cases. Psychiatric profiles revealed depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance abuse, anxiety/panic/phobic disorders, and psychosis in two families, and depression only in the third family. Averaged scores from cognitive testing showed impaired verbal learning and memory in one family, impaired memory in the second family, and no cognitive deficits in the third family. CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive deficits may be associated with M-D. Psychiatric abnormalities correlate with the motor symptoms in affected individuals. Assessment of additional M-D families with known mutations is needed to determine whether these are characteristic phenotypic manifestations of M-D.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Impaired memory and behavioral performance with fentanyl at low plasma concentrations.

Fentanyl is commonly administered to conscious patients by continuous epidural or intravenous (i.v.) infusions, or by the transdermal route, which result in relatively constant, low, concentrations of the drug. Previous studies of memory and cognitive effects have not been performed at constant plasma concentrations of fentanyl. Based on simulated infusions using the pharmacokinetic modeling program IV-SIM, we administered fentanyl or placebo to nine healthy volunteers (aged 21-45 yr) by continuous i.v. infusion, targeting plasma concentrations of 1, 1.5, and 2.5 ng/mL in succession. A battery of memory and psychomotor tasks was administered at each plasma concentration of fentanyl, and at two points in the recovery phase while drug levels were decreasing. At increasing plasma concentrations of fentanyl, we found the following effects on memory (in comparison with placebo): a progressive decline in verbal learning (P < 0.03); decreased delayed recognition of words presented at different test times (P < 0.02); and decreased spontaneous recall of pictures shown during infusion (P < 0.03). Fentanyl at concentrations above 2.5 ng/mL caused a performance decrement of 15%-30% relative to baseline on all the psychomotor tests administered. Plasma concentrations less than 2.25 ng/mL had negligible effects on performance with the exception of the critical flicker fusion frequency, which decreased by 5 Hz at plasma concentrations between 1.5 and 2.25 ng/mL. Visual analog scale (VAS) measures of mental and physical sedation were significantly affected by fentanyl, but euphoria was not demonstrable. All subjects receiving fentanyl experienced severe nausea and four of six had one or more episodes of emesis (P < 0.03).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMed2007

Cognitive performance in older women relative to ApoE-epsilon4 genotype and aerobic fitness.

INTRODUCTION: Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) genotype and aerobic fitness are each associated with cognitive performance in older adults. However, their potentially interactive effects on cognitive performance have not been examined. PURPOSE: The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether ApoE genotype and aerobic fitness interact to uniquely impact memory performance and executive functioning. A secondary purpose was to examine the interactive effects on other measures of cognition to provide a more comprehensive assessment of cognitive abilities across a broad range of functions. METHODS: Community-dwelling, cognitively normal older women (N = 90) provided blood samples to allow for assessment of ApoE genotype, completed cognitive tests, and performed a maximal aerobic fitness test. Primary outcome variables were the auditory verbal learning test (AVLT), the complex figures test (CFT), and the Wisconsin card-sorting task (WCST). Secondary outcome variables were the block design test and the paced auditory serial addition task (PASAT). RESULTS: Regression analyses indicated that aerobic fitness was associated with significantly better performance on measures of the AVLT, the CFT, and the PASAT for the ApoE-epsilon4 homozygotes. CONCLUSION: The preliminary findings from this study support the possibility that aerobic fitness is positively associated with the memory performance of those individuals at most genetic risk for Alzheimer disease.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Neurotoxic risk caused by stable and variable exposure to methylmercury from seafood.

OBJECTIVES: To examine whether the dose-effect relationship for developmental mercury neurotoxicity is affected by variable mercury exposure during pregnancy. METHODS: The study was based on a birth cohort of 1022 children born in the Faroe Islands between March 1986 and December 1987. Neurobehavioral performance of 917 children (90%) was assessed at age 7. Intrauterine methylmercury exposure was determined from mercury concentrations in cord blood and 2 sets of maternal hair. Complete exposure information was available for 614 children (67%). RESULTS: In children with complete exposure data, 8 of 16 neuropsychological tests showed deficits significantly associated with the cord-blood mercury concentration after confounder adjustment. Variable intrauterine exposure was suggested by disagreement between mercury concentrations in the 2 maternal hair samples. Removal of the 61 children (10%) with the greatest degree of variable exposure had a minimal effect on most exposure-effect relationships. However, the effect of the cord-blood concentration on verbal learning and memory was greater after this exclusion. CONCLUSION: The study supports previous findings from this cohort study that maternal mercury exposure during pregnancy is associated with neuropsychological deficits detectable at age 7 years and that this association is evident in women with stable exposures throughout pregnancy. Thus the association is not the result of variable exposures.

Child↗
PubMed2006

Memory impairment and awareness of memory deficits in early-stage Alzheimer's disease.

Recognition memory of auditory verbal learning tests and awareness of memory deficits were examined in 24 individuals with early-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD) using a performance prediction-postdiction paradigm. Individuals with AD displayed impaired recognition memory, and recognition performance correlated positively with regional cerebral blood flow at rest in bilateral prefrontal areas and the left medial temporal area. In addition, underawareness of memory deficits was also marked even at this early stage. Individuals with AD retrospectively overestimated memory performance after actual performance, but appeared to benefit from feedback, and displayed intact online awareness of memory dysfunction, leading to normal prediction of the second session. However, individuals with AD failed to retrospectively incorporate incidents of memory failure into generalized self-belief systems. Brain/ behavior correlational analyses suggest that the prefrontal cortex and posterior dorsomedial regions including the precuneus may be involved in self-awareness.

Aged↗
PubMed2004

Course of cognitive functioning in first episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Studies of cognitive functioning in patients with first episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders can be particularly informative. Through the use of electronic- and bibliography-based searches, the authors identified studies examining the course of cognitive functioning in first episode patients. The results of this review indicated that first episode patients at presentation for treatment often show compromised cognitive functioning, particularly in the domains of verbal learning and memory, psychomotor speed and attention. However, in comparison with patients with a longer illness history, first episode patients demonstrate significantly superior performance. In longitudinal studies of first episode patients, cognitive functioning generally remained static, suggesting limited change in performance over the first several years of the illness. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Correlations of Perceived Deficits Questionnaire of Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life Inventory with Beck Depression Inventory and neuropsychological tests.

The Perceived Deficits Questionnaire (PDQ) is a part of the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Quality of Life Inventory that assesses self-perceived cognitive difficulties. We used baseline data from 49 MS subjects participating in a clinical trial to evaluate the correlation of the PDQ with two measures of cognitive impairment, the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) and the California Verbal Learning Test, 2nd edition (CVLT-II), total score, and one measure of depression, the Beck Depression Inventory-Amended (BDI-IA). The PDQ correlated significantly (r = 0.42; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.15 to 0.62; p = 0.003) with the BDI-IA scores but not with either the PASAT (r = -0.22; 95% CI, -0.48 to 0.06; p = 0.2) or the CVLT-II total (r = -0.17; 95% CI, -0.43 to 0.12; p = 0.25). A subset of 38 of these subjects who scored worse than 0.5 standard deviation below the mean on the PASAT or CVLT-II received a more extensive neuropsychological battery of tests. No significant correlations were found between any of these tests and the PDQ. These results suggest that self-perceived cognitive dysfunction relates more to depression than to objective cognitive dysfunction.

Adolescent↗