Calculation and number processing: assessment battery; role of demographic factors

This paper describes the structure and contents of EC301, a standardized testing battery for the evaluation of brain-damaged adults in the area of calculation and number processing. The battery was administered to 180 normal subjects stratified by education (3 levels), age (3) and gender. EC301 is composed of a large variety of tasks dealing with basic arithmetic skills, and their linguistic, spatial, and mnesic dimensions. The three main notational systems for numbers--Arabic digits, written verbal, and spoken verbal number forms--are explored. Analysis of error rates indicated the effect of some demographic factors (principally, education; incidentally, gender) on normal performance in some tasks.     

Successful overlapping anal sphincter repair: relationship to patient age, neuropathy, and colostomy formation

OBJECTIVE: Although it is documented that brain dopamine activity declines with age, the functional significance of this is not known. This study assessed the relation between measures of brain dopamine activity and indexes of motor and cognitive function in healthy individuals. METHOD: Thirty healthy volunteers aged 24-86 years were studied with positron emission tomography and [11C]raclopride to assess dopamine D2 receptors. All subjects underwent a neuropsychological test battery that included tasks found to be sensitive to dopamine alterations in patients with neurodegenerative disease and control tasks. RESULTS: Transfer of [11C]raclopride from plasma to brain in the striatum and cerebellum was not affected by age. In contrast, D2 receptor availability in the caudate and putamen declined with age. Correlations between D2 receptors and neuropsychological test performance were strongest for the motor task (Finger Tapping Test) and were also significant for most tasks involving frontal brain regions, including measures of abstraction and mental flexibility (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) and attention and response inhibition (Stroop Color-Word Test, interference score). These relationships remained significant after control for age effects. CONCLUSIONS: Age-related decreases in brain dopamine activity are associated with a decline in motor function and may also contribute to impaired performance on tasks that involve frontal brain regions. Interventions that enhance dopamine activity may improve performance and quality of life for the elderly. The fact that correlations remained significant after age effects were partialed out suggests that dopamine activity may influence motor and cognitive performance irrespective of age.     

Immediate and delayed responses from memory in brain-damaged patients.

Hypothesized that brain-damaged (bd) patients perform more poorly than non-brain-damaged (nbd) patients on both immediate and delayed memory tasks and that the difference is greater on the delayed memory tasks. 24 bd and 24 nbd psychiatric patients were administered a 15-design multiple choice version of the benton visual retention test. Results support earlier findings that memory performance is susceptible to brain damage, but questions its relevance in specifying the 2 different memory functions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cross-validation of the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery.

30 brain-damaged males with evidence of unilateral left-hemisphere (mean age 58 yrs), unilateral right-hemisphere (mean age 57 yrs), or bilateral-diffuse brain lesions (mean age 41 yrs), as well as 10 normal control Ss (mean age 54 yrs), were administered the standardized Luria-Nebraska test battery. Data demonstrate that the battery was effective in discriminating brain-damaged from normal control Ss. However, it was relatively ineffective in distinguishing the laterality of brain damage. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of integrated sensory-motor function following brain damage by a computerized preview tracking task

A preview tracking task has been developed which has particular application to neurological assessment and rehabilitation. Generated and monitored by a graphic display computer, it permits accurate global quantification of the upper-limb sensory-motor system. The incorporation of 'preview' into the tracking task is considered to significantly increase its effectiveness and relevance in relation to normal daily activities. Applied to three groups of normal subjects, several features of normal psychomotor performance and learning were identified or verified: hand dominance is not significant in overall arm control; learning does not completely plateau; increase in age (15-59 years) results in only a minor overall decrement in performance; an initial wide performance distribution decreases dramatically in subsequent sessions. Applied to brain-damaged patients, particularly head injury or stroke, the preview tracking task allows assessment at regular intervals enabling sensory-motor recovery curves to be generated. The potential of this technique, to help determine the efficacy of therapeutic procedures on the recovery process, is illustrated with the presentation of results from three brain-damaged patients demonstrating zero, significant and disjointed recovery of sensory-motor function. The usefulness of the preview tracking task can be expanded by combination with a less frequently applied but more component specific neurological assessment battery.     

An attentional assessment of foster children at risk for schizophrenia.

Investigated whether processes observed in adult schizophrenics could be detected in children who were not schizophrenic but were at heightened risk for the disorder. A battery of 8 attention-demanding tasks was administered to (a) 9 foster children at heightened risk for schizophrenia by virtue of having a schizophrenic biological mother, (b) 10 foster children without a family history of psychiatric disorder, and (c) 10 children living with their biological parents, none of whom had a history of psychiatric disorder. The tasks included in the battery had been demonstrated in previous research to be sensitive discriminators of adult schizophrenic pathology. Results indicate the presence of attentional dysfunction in high-risk children prior to the onset of clinical symptoms. The high-risk group showed significantly lower levels of performance on certain tasks, notably the complex versions of the span-of-apprehension and Spokes tests from the Halstead-Reitan Test Battery, and the simple conditions of the concept attainment task. Examination of low-scoring Ss, intercorrelations between tasks, and the results of a cluster analysis revealed that within the high-risk group there was a subset of Ss who showed impairment across these tasks to produce the overall low group means. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concept identification and practice in brain-damaged and process-reactive schizophrenic groups.

A nonverbal concept identification task involving easy and difficult subtests was given to groups of process and reactive schizophrenic, brain-damaged, and control patients. The same test was administered twice. Brain-damaged and process schizophrenic groups had poorer overall performance than the other 2 groups but did not differ from each other significantly. However, patterns of improvement on the easy and difficult subtests were different for the schizophrenic vs. brain-damaged groups. Implications for "organic" vs. "functional" explanations of process schizophrenia were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The measurement of executive function at age 3 years: Psychometric properties and criterion validity of a new battery of tasks.

In this study, the authors examined the psychometric properties and criterion validity of a newly developed battery of tasks that were designed to assess executive function (EF) abilities in early childhood. The battery was included in the 36-month assessment of the Family Life Project (FLP), a prospective longitudinal study of 1,292 children oversampled from low-income and African American families. Ninety-one percent of children were able to complete 1 or more of the tasks. Psychometric analyses were used to test the dimensionality of each task, evaluate the item and task properties, test the dimensionality of the task battery, and evaluate the criterion validity of the battery with multi-informant measures of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptomatology and child performance on two subtests of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence. Results indicated that the tasks were successful in measuring interindividual differences in child EF ability, that task scores were most informative about ability level for children in the low to moderate range of ability, that children's performance across the entire battery was adequately summarized by a single factor, and that individual differences on the EF battery were related to ADHD symptomatology and intelligence in expected ways. Results are discussed with respect to the importance of developing psychometrically sound, scalable instruments that facilitate the measurement of interindividual differences in intraindividual change of EF across the early childhood period. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in the neuropsychological functioning of epileptics.

Compared the performance of 137 male and 113 female epileptics on a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery (e.g., WAIS, 3 Wide Range Achievement Test subtests, a modified Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery, and Babcock Story Recall Test). Significant differences were found for 12 of 33 test comparisons, with the pattern of results resembling sex differences found among neurologically normal Ss. Although the most pronounced differences were obtained on motor speed and strength measures, an illustration was provided of how subtle effects found for more complex tasks may affect diagnostic decisions. Theoretical implications of these findings for the Sex by Functional Brain Asymmetry interaction noted by other investigators are discussed. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of age and education to Halstead test performance in different patient populations

Examined the effects of age and education on Halstead Neuropsychological Test Battery performance in a cross-validation of the A. Vega and O. A. Parsons's study (see record 1968-01419-001). Ss in the present study were 32 male and 3 female brain-damaged patients (mean age, 34.6 yrs) and 18 male and 7 female non-brain-damaged medical-surgical and psychiatric controls (mean age, 33.2 yrs). Age was significantly correlated with performance on the Category Test, Tactual Performance Test Time, Memory, Location, and the Impairment Index but not with Speech, Rhythm, or Tapping in brain-damaged patients. In medical-surgical and psychiatric patients, however, age was significantly correlated with all Halstead test performances. Education was not significantly correlated with performance in brain-damaged or psychiatric patients but was correlated with 6 Halstead tests in the medical-surgical group. Differences between correlation in psychiatric patients and medical-surgical control Ss are discussed. The importance of taking age into consideration as well as differences in various "control" or reference groups when making clinical inferences about the presence of brain dysfunction is stressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Level versus pattern of neuropsychological performance among schizophrenic and diffusely brain-damaged patients.

Differences in both mean level and pattern of neuropsychological test performance were examined among groups of carefully screened schizophrenic and acute and chronic diffusely brain-damaged patients (24 Ss in each group). This was done separately for the WAIS subtests and the 12 average impairment rating (AIR) variables derived from the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery. The schizophrenics performed at a significantly higher level than brain-damaged Ss on both test batteries. Subsequent deficit pattern analyses and coefficients of profile pattern similarity revealed very little difference among the 3 groups in their patterns of performance on the WAIS and AIR batteries. Discriminant function analyses were employed to estimate the diagnostic utility of level vs pattern of performance on the WAIS and AIR in discriminating schizophrenics from brain-damaged Ss. Results suggest that mean level of performance can be used to discriminate clearly defined schizophrenic and diffusely brain-damaged groups, but that pattern analysis offers little additional information. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intradimensional reversal shift performance in brain-damaged and chronic alcoholic patients.

Examined impaired set-shifting behavior frequently reported in brain-damaged Ss. Using a simple E-paced, 2-choice, visual, intradimensional reversal shift task, samples of brain-damaged (n = 24), alcoholic (n = 28), and control (n = 24) male patients were compared on errors, reaction time, and behavioral impulsivity (finger lift before signal). Alcoholic Ss were not significantly different from controls on any of the measures. As expected, brain-damaged Ss had significantly more total errors, longer reaction times, and higher impulsivity scores than controls. Differences in errors appeared to be due to difficulty in maintaining the perceptual and motor set rather than in set shifting. The importance of investigating disruptions in set maintenance in the performance of brain-damaged Ss is emphasized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of deficits in relation to severity of cerebral dysfunction in children and adults.

A battery of psychological tests was administered to 4 groups of brain-damaged Ss and 3 groups of controls. The brain-damaged Ss included both groups of adults and groups of children with 2 degrees of severity of cerebral impairment represented at each of the 2 age levels. Each group of brain-damaged Ss was compared with an appropriate control group on the test variables and the patterns of deficits which emerged were then compared. Similar patterns of psychological deficit were found for mildly impaired children, moderately impaired children, and moderately impaired adults. This pattern of deficit consisted of relatively greater impairment on tests of language and symbolic ability as compared with tests of immediate adaptive ability. This pattern did not resemble that obtained for the mildly brain-damaged adults. A tentative explanation for this difference emphasizing the importance of age of onset of cerebral dysfunction was offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Background interference procedure: A means of assessing neurologic dysfunction in school-age children.

Administered the bender-gestalt test incorporating the background interference procedure (bip) devised by A. Canter to 180 8-12 yr. Olds in (a) a brain-damaged group, (b) an emotionally disturbed group, and (c) a normal control group. The bip yielded significantly higher scores for the brain-damaged, while the scores of the controls and emotionally disturbed did not differ. All of the brain-damaged had higher test scores on the bip than on the standard bender administration, while over 1/2 the emotionally disturbed had lower scores on the bip. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences in test performance between brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and medical patients.

Gave 18 white male hospitalized patients from each of 3 diagnostic categories (brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and medical) a battery of 9 psychological tests, including 5 from the Halstead Impairment Index, the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, the Trail Making Test (R. Reitan), and 2 tests from the WAIS. 16 measures were obtained, and the 3 groups of Ss were compared on each. The performance of the brain-damaged was significantly inferior to the medical patients on 14 of the 16 measures, and to the schizophrenics on 9 of the 16. There were no significant differences between the schizophrenics and the medical group on any of the 16 measures. When the scores on the 4 different tests were combined into Z scores, 78% of the brain-damaged, 67% of the schizophrenics, and 78% of the medical Ss were correctly diagnosed for presence or absence of brain damage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Directional hyperattention in tactile neglect within grasping space

This study was motivated by the fact that unilateral neglect, an impediment to progress in patient rehabilitation, is often reported to occur in a wider area of space than that usually assessed in clinical settings. Neglect within "grasping space" (Halligan & Marshall, 1991; Kolb & Whishaw, 1990) was assessed via two search tasks: one in which search was guided by visual information and the other in which search was guided by tactile information. The performance of 10 left brain-damaged patients (LBD) and 20 right brain-damaged patients, 10 of whom showed left visual neglect (RBD+) while 10 did not (RBD-), was compared with that of age-matched controls. The visual search task confirmed the clinical diagnoses of unilateral visual neglect. On the tactile test, both RBD groups showed reduced search within the left hemispace, although this was a particularly strong feature of the performance of the RBD+ patients. Furthermore, this reduced leftwards exploration in RBD+ patients was associated with an increased frequency of repetitions made within the right hemispace, as had also been noted in some of these patients on conventional visual star cancellation. Results are discussed in relation to hyperattentional theories of directional spatial neglect.     

Intellectual and cognitive functions in Parkinson's disease.

Compared the performance of 25 parkinson's disease patients and 25 normals matched for age, race, sex, and education on 32 behavioral variables including the wechsler-bellevue intelligence scale (form i), halstead neuropsychological battery, and R. Reitan's trail making test. Ss with parkinson's disease had lower mean scores than controls on all 32 measures. Statistical comparisons indicated these differences were significant beyond the .001 level for 25 tests, and on only 1 measure was the probability level greater than .05. Results indicate that parkinson's disease patients have suffered marked deterioration not only in motor abilities but also in problem-solving, sensory, memory, general cognitive, and abstracting and organizing abilities. (23 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Altered motor control in chronic alcoholics.

Compared the performance of 48 male chronic alcoholic patients and 48 nonalcoholic medical patients on a test of motor control (turning a knob as slowly as possible) and other tasks (e.g., time estimation). Results show that alcoholics turned the knob significantly faster than nonalcoholics. The differences between groups were greatest when Ss performed with eyes closed. The difference in knob-turning can not be accounted for by performance on the other tasks; alcoholics showed visual-spatial difficulties, muscle weakness, hand tremor, and subjective-time overestimation. In addition, impaired control was found in both hands and on a slow line-drawing test. 2 possible neuropsychological explanations are advanced to account for the alcoholics' performance: (a) damage to the frontal-limbic diencephalic circuit resulted in disrupted inhibitory motor control, and (b) right hemisphere damage interfered with utilization of kinesthetic-proprioceptive information in the feedback control of motor behavior. (25 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Talonavicular arthrodesis for rheumatoid arthritis of the hindfoot

In recent years there has been an increased interest in the development of neuropsychological tests that can diagnose accurately brain damage. The most successful of these test are represented in the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Battery, which has been shown to be 90% or more effective in the diagnosis of brain damage. However, this battery is not available to many psychologists or clients because of its length, cost, and the considerable background required to use it properly. The present study tested 121 Ss (30 normal, 91 brain-damaged) to develop an abbreviated version of the battery that is relatively brief (1 hour) and inexpensive, but accurate. It was found by discriminant analysis that the abbreviated battery is capable of diagnosing brain damage equally as well as the full battery 93% of the time. The limitations and advantages of the abbreviated battery are discussed.     

Neuropsychological aspects of multiple sclerosis

Twenty-six persons (five males and 21 females) with the neurological diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, and an equal number of control subjects matched on age, sex, and education were given a battery of tests designed to assess motor and intellectual functioning. Subjects in the multiple sclerosis group displayed marked deficits on all tests of motor skill except grip strength. Although verbal intelligence was not impaired in subjects with multiple sclerosis, these subjects performed more poorly than control subjects on two different tests of memory even though these tasks required minimal motor responsivity. Correlational analyses on the several motor and cognitive tasks revealed that correlations between motor and memory performance were consistently higher in persons with multiple sclerosis than in controls. These results suggest that whereas multiple sclerosis may not have mch effect on the utilization of stored verbal information, the processing and storage of new verbal material are disrupted by the disease to a degree that is paralleled by the extent of motor impairment. This finding is consistent with the view that the memory impairments observed are secondary to the primary motor deficit, but the alternative explanation that memory functions, like motor functions, are especially vulnerable to the demylination process of multiple sclerosis is equally viable at present.