Mathematical disabilities: Cognitive, neuropsychological, and genetic components.

Cognitive, neuropsychological, and genetic correlates of mathematical achievement and mathematical disability (MD) are reviewed in an attempt to identify the core deficits underlying MD in children. Three types of distinct cognitive, neuropsychological, or cognitive and neuropsychological deficits associated with MD are identified. The 1st deficit is manifested by difficulties in the representation or retrieval of arithmetic facts from semantic memory. The 2nd type of deficit is manifested by problems in the execution of arithmetical procedures. The 3rd type involves problems in the visuospatial representation of numerical information. Potential cognitive, neuropsychological, and genetic factors contributing to these deficits and the relationship between MD and reading disabilities are discussed. Finally, suggestions for the subtyping of math disorders are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Capgras syndrome: Neurological/neuropsychological perspectives.

Discusses the Capgras syndrome, a disorder in which the patient believes that a close friend, relative, or other person is not the real person but an exact look-alike or impostor. References in the literature are reviewed regarding a neurological/neuropsychological cause of the disorder. The focus is shifted from a psychodynamic approach to a wider perspective, conceptualizing the syndrome as a disorder of the central nervous system (CNS). The importance of considering neurology and neuropsychology in proper diagnosis and treatment is highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and source monitoring: Cognitive processes and neuropsychological correlates.

This study shows that relative to younger adults, older adults are more adversely influenced by similar items when judging a memory's source, and the phenomenal features of their correctly and incorrectly attributed memories have greater overlap. The authors argue in accordance with the source monitoring framework that this age-related impairment in source accuracy is related to processes involved in binding features into complex memories and those involved in accessing and evaluating contextual features of memories. These processes are linked to medial temporal and frontal brain regions, respectively, as evidenced by correlations in older adults between source accuracy and neuropsychological tests often used to assess medial temporal and frontal function. The results suggest that adequate feature binding is particularly important when items from different sources share similar features and access-evaluation processes are particularly important after a delay. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive and neuropsychological characteristics of physically aggressive boys.

Cognitive–neuropsychological tests were given to adolescent boys (N?=?177) to investigate processes associated with physical aggression. Factor analysis yielded 4 factors representing verbal learning, incidental spatial learning, tactile–lateral ability, and executive functions. Physical aggression was assessed at ages 6, 10, 11, and 12, and 3 groups were created: stable aggressive, unstable aggressive, and nonaggressive. The authors found main effects for only the executive functions factor even when other factors were used as additional covariates in a step-down analysis; nonaggressive boys performed better than stable and unstable aggressive boys. The covariates family adversity and anxiety were both related only to the verbal learning factor. This study highlights the importance of deficits in executive function in the expression of physical aggression relative to other cognitive–neuropsychological functions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive neuropsychological analysis and neuroanatomic correlates in a case of acute anomia

We describe an analysis of lexical processing performed in a patient with the acute onset of an isolated anomia. Based on a model of lexical processing, we evaluated hypotheses as to the source of the naming deficit. We observed impairments in oral and written picture naming and oral naming to definition with relatively intact semantic processing across input modalities, suggesting that output from the semantic system was impaired. In contrast to previous reports, we propose that this pattern represents an impairment that arises late in semantic processing prior to accessing mode-specific verbal and graphemic output lexicons. These deficits were associated with a lesion in the posterior portion of the middle temporal gyrus or area 37, an area of supramodal association cortex that is uniquely suited as a substrate for the multimodal deficit in naming.     

Adult recollections of childhood abuse: Cognitive and developmental perspectives.

This research was conducted, as part of American Psychological Association Working Group on the Investigation of Memories of Childhood Abuse (see record 2000-13581-002), to address concerns about cases in which an individual has no memory for a traumatic experience, enters therapy, and emerges sometime later with an elaborate memory. The article summarizes research on human memory, focusing on the literature in cognitive and developmental psychology. The authors provide a broad overview of memory and its development by making use of a conceptual framework for thinking about the flow of information within the memory system. They then focus on 3 topics: (1) a developmental perspective and its relevance for considering questions of adults attempting to remember things from the distant past; (2) suggestibility, memory distortions, and the extent to which misleading information may degrade memory performance; and (3) distinguishing between reality and fantasy, and monitoring the sources of information. The report concludes with a treatment of the importance of determining boundary conditions for some of the effects that are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cardiac psychophysiology and autonomic space in humans: Empirical perspectives and conceptual implications.

Contemporary findings reveal that autonomic control of dually innervated visceral organs does not lie along a single continuum extending from parasympathetic to sympathetic dominance. Rather, a bivariate autonomic space bounded by sympathetic and parasympathetic axes is the minimal representation necessary to capture the modes of autonomic control. A quantitative bivariate model for the chronotropic control of the heart in humans is empirically instantiated. This model provides a more comprehensive characterization of psychophysiological response than simple measures of end-organ state and permits a differentiation of behavioral states and processes that would otherwise remain obscure. The model also illuminates and subsumes general principles such as the law of initial values and reveals a fundamental physiological rationale for the selection of heart period over heart rate as a metric for cardiac chronotropy. The present article also considers strategies for psychophysiological investigations within the autonomic space model, the limitations of these methods, and analytical tools for assessing their validity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electroconvulsive shock: Conflict, competition, consolidation, and neuroanatomical functions.

Recent studies supporting conflicting interpretations of ECS effects were reviewed and related to limbic system seizure proneness, neuroanatomical response specificities, and the electrophysiological correlates of conditioning. The effects of ECS, viewed against such a perspective, appeared to be quite consistent, even though several nonunifying hypotheses are extant. (42 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive complaints, depression, medical symptoms, and their association with neuropsychological functioning in HIV infection: A structural equation model analysis.

The main objective of this study was to use structural equation modeling (SEM) to clarify the relationship between subjective cognitive complaints and neuropsychological functioning in 160 adults with HIV infection. Participants completed questionnaires assessing cognitive complaints, symptoms of depression, and HIV-related medical symptoms. Neuropsychological tests included measures of attention, verbal fluency, psychomotor skills, learning, memory, and executive skills. SEM was used to test models of the relationships among cognitive complaints, mood, and medical symptoms with neuropsychological functioning. The model indicated that although depressed mood (β = 0.32, p     

The nonverbal affect lexicon: Theoretical perspectives from neuropsychological studies of affect perception.

Reviews evidence from neuropsychological studies of affect perception, which suggest that the right hemisphere contains a vocabulary of nonverbal affective signals (facial expressions, prosody, and gestures). This vocabulary is referred to as the nonverbal affect lexicon, and evidence is reviewed suggesting that it is modular in organization, with independent lexicons for faces and prosody. The authors feel that affect lexicon represents one component of a cortically based affect-processing network that is dedicated to reading the nonverbal social displays of other members of the species. Discordances between this cortical affect system and other components of the emotion enterprise are discussed, as well as the relationship of the nonverbal affect lexicon to valence-related asymmetries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive and affective aspects of thigmotaxis strategy in humans.

The present article describes the cognitive and emotional aspects of human thigmotaxis (a wall-following spatial strategy) during exploration of virtual and physical spaces. The authors assessed 106 participants with spatial and nonspatial performance-based learning-memory tasks and with fear and anxiety questionnaires. The results demonstrate that thigmotaxis plays a distinct role at different phases of spatial learning. The 1st phase shows a positive correlation between thigmotaxis and general phobic avoidance, whereas there is no association between thigmotaxis and general phobic avoidance during later phases of learning. Furthermore, participants who underperformed in working memory tests and in a spatial construction task exhibited greater thigmotaxis and a higher potential for fear response. Findings are interpreted in the framework of interactions among emotion-, action-, and knowledge-controlled spatial learning theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive functioning in older depressed outpatients: Relationship of presence and severity of depression to neuropsychological test scores.

Neuropsychological evaluation of 73 older healthy, unmedicated outpatients with major depression and 110 controls suggested that relatively distinct cognitive profiles may correspond to the presence vs. severity of depression. Specifically, the presence of depression was associated with subtle weaknesses in visual memory and nonverbal intelligence, with sparing of verbal skills (verbal intelligence, language, and verbal memory), constructional ability, attention, information processing speed, and executive functions. In contrast, increasing severity of depression was associated with mild weaknesses, primarily in information-processing speed and executive skills, but was essentially unrelated to memory (verbal or visual), intelligence, language skills, constructional ability, or basic attention. Findings are discussed in terms of a possible state vs. trait model of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory-delineated subtypes of schizophrenia: Relationship to clinical, neuroanatomical, and neurophysiological measures.

Memory performance was examined in patients with schizophrenia to determine whether subgroups conforming to cortical and subcortical dementias could be identified and, if so, whether subgroups differed on clinical, neuroanatomical, and neurophysiological measures. A cluster analysis of California Verbal Learning Test performance classified patients into 3 subgroups. Two groups exhibited memory deficits consistent with the cortical-subcortical distinction, whereas 1 group was unimpaired. Cortical patients tended to be male, and they had earlier illness onset, reduced temporal lobe gray matter, and hypometabolism. Subcortical patients had ventricular enlargement and more negative symptoms. Unimpaired patients had fewer negative symptoms and dorsal medial prefrontal hypermetabolism. The authors conclude that categorizing patients on the basis of memory deficits may yield neurobiologically meaningful disease subtypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detection of neuropsychological impairment among substance-abusing patients: Accuracy of the Neurobehavioral Cognitive Status Examination.

The accuracy of the Neurobehavioral Cognitive Status Examination (NCSE) in detecting the presence of cognitive impairment among substance-abusing patients was examined. The NCSE and the Neuropsychological Screening Battery (NSB), which has been shown in previous studies to discriminate reliably between cognitively impaired and intact substance abusing patients, were administered to 51 detoxified patients. Using participants' performances on the NSB as the criterion measure, 22 (43%) were found to be cognitively impaired. The NCSE identified only 8 of these 22 patients (36%) as being impaired; additionally, 4 of the 29 patients found to be cognitively intact by the NSB (14%) were classified as impaired by the NCSE. Thus, the false-negative rate of the NCSE is too high to recommend its use with substance-abusing patients (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Model phenylketonuria (PKU) in the albino rat: Behavioral, biochemical, and neuroanatomical effects.

Model phenylketonuria was induced in Holtzman albino rats by injecting (at 1–20 days of age) and feeding (at 21–80 days) levophenylalanine and parachlorophenylalanine. Behavioral testing on an 8-item battery occurred twice: once while the Ss were either receiving the excess phenylalanines or not (original), and again following a 90-day drug-free recovery period (retention). Results indicate drug-dependent deficits in learning and activity on both original and retention tests. Serum phenylalanine, serum tryptophan, and liver phenylalanine hydroxylase activity levels were positively correlated with the behavioral deficit. Clumped dense material in some myelin sheaths and associated degeneration of axons were found in experimental Ss. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electrophysiological and neuropharmacological study of tectoreticular pathways in lampreys

Tectoreticular (TR) cells along the diencephalic-mesencephalic border are the origin of prominent crossed and uncrossed pathways that project to the middle (MRRN) and posterior (PRRN) rhombencephalic reticular nuclei in juvenile and adult lampreys [I.C. Zompa, R. Dubuc, Diencephalic and mesencephalic projections to rhombencephalic reticular nuclei in lampreys, Brain Res. (1998) in press.]. This study investigated the synaptic contacts between TR axons and the reticular cells. Intracellular recordings were carried out in reticular neurones (n=124) while microstimulating the TR regions. Tectoreticular inputs were recorded in all reticular cells studied (248 PSPs); although stronger responses were evoked in the MRRN neurones. The majority of responses were excitatory, but increasingly mixed and inhibitory when recorded in the middle and caudal part of the reticular nuclei. The excitation had the shortest onset latencies and sharpest slopes measured in both reticular nuclei, while the inhibition was longer and smoother. The characteristics of TR inputs to different reticular cell types is also presented. The transmission of evoked responses was isolated to the crossed and uncrossed TR pathways by studying the effects of 1% Xylocaine ejections and surgical lesions. The TR inputs were transmitted to reticular cells through monosynaptic and polysynaptic contacts. The synaptic transmission involved excitatory amino acids, acting through AMPA and NMDA receptors, while the inhibition was glycinergic. Comparisons with other sensory systems in lampreys are discussed.     

Gender, alcoholism, and neuropsychological functioning.

35 female and 25 male alcoholics (mean age 45) performed significantly more slowly than similar numbers of age-matched nonalcoholic controls on the Tactual Performance Test (TPT), especially with the left hand. Alcoholism effects were not significant for TPT Memory or Location. Women recalled significantly more shapes but correctly located fewer of those remembered than did men. Results suggest that (a) alcoholism effects on tactual–spatial performance are similar in men and women, (b) right hemisphere functions or less well-practiced skills may be selectively vulnerable to alcoholism, and (c) sex differences exist in tactual memory and spatial location abilities. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive decline and human (Homo sapiens) aging: An investigation using a comparative neuropsychological approach.

Using a comparative neuropsychological approach, the authors compared performance of younger and healthy older adults ages 65 and over on tasks originally developed to measure cognition in animals. A battery of 6 tasks was used to evaluate object discrimination, egocentric spatial abilities, visual and spatial working memory, and response shifting. Older adults performed more poorly than younger adults on tasks that evaluate egocentric spatial abilities, response shifting, and to a lesser extent object recognition. The two groups did not differ for tasks that evaluate spatial working memory and object discrimination. The impairments the authors observed in tasks that evaluate response shifting and object recognition are consistent with those found in canines and primates as well as those found in Alzheimer's disease. The results are consistent with the notion that cognitive processes supported by the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex are among the first to decline with increasing age in both humans and animals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance in planning: Processes, requirements, and errors.

Planning is not only an aspect of our day-to-day lives, it represents a critical aspect of performance on many high-level tasks. Although few of us would dispute the need for planning, the psychology of planning remains relatively undeveloped. With this point in mind, the intent in the present article was to review the available literature on planning. The authors begin by examining alternative models of planning and delineating their implications for performance. Subsequently, the findings obtained in various studies of planning are reviewed with respect to 8 key questions ranging from when planning is useful to how errors in planning should be minimized. The implications of current answers to these questions are discussed in terms of research needs and development of a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of performance in planning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)