Neuropsychological development

Recent studies have reported that cerebellar lesions can cause cognitive, behavioral, and affective symptoms. This constellation is called the cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome (CCAS). A bedside instrument, the CCAS-Scale, has been developed to screen for this clinical presentation. The aim of this study is to adapt the CCAS-Scale to Hungarian according to international cross-cultural guidelines. In cooperation with the senior author of the original CCAS-Scale, we defined a five-step adaptation protocol (license number 6758-1/2021)...

COVID-19 has a wide range of clinical manifestations. Apart from respiratory symptoms, neurological manifestations and cognitive impairment are commonly seen. Due to lack of a clear consensus on the definition of long COVID a pragmatic approach of assessing change from neurological baseline has become prevalent. We present the case of a high functioning woman in her late 40s who had a mild course of acute illness but developed cognitive difficulties. No organic causes for her cognitive difficulties were found...

People with dementia vary in awareness of difficulties. Evaluating awareness could facilitate personalized care. However, current research measures are unsuitable for practical clinical application. We aimed to develop a brief multidimensional awareness interview for clinical use. Informed by available evidence about awareness of dementia, items suitable for both in-person and remote administration were modified from validated measures or developed for clinical application. The interview was administered via telephone or videoconference to 31 community-dwelling people with mild-to-moderate dementia...

This review is based on a conference presented in June 2023. Its main objective is to explain the cognitive differences between humans and non-human primates (NHPs) focusing on characteristics of their brains. It is based on the opinion of a clinical neurologist and does not intend to go beyond an overview of this complex topic. As language is the main characteristic differentiating humans from NHPs, this review is targeted at their brain networks related to language. NHPs have rudimentary forms of language, including primitive lexical/semantic signs...

The second part of this review is an attempt to explain why only Homo sapiens developed language. It should be remarked that this review is based on the opinion of a clinical neurologist and does not intend to go beyond an overview of this complex topic. The progressive development of language was probably due to the expansion of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and its networks. PFC is the largest area of the human cerebral cortex and is much more expanded in humans than in other primates. To achieve language, several other functions should have been attained, including abstraction, reasoning, expanded working memory, and executive functions...

Behavioural disturbances are often observed, but (to our knowledge) not systematically assessed, in children who are in post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Therefore, we aimed to develop a prototype scale that measures the full range of behavioural disturbances exhibited by school-aged children in PTA. Quantitative and qualitative feedback was collected via online surveys. First, experts (n = 7) evaluated the relevance and developmental appropriateness of 37 behavioural items, extracted from the scoping literature review...

Research on social determinants of health has highlighted the influence of neighborhood characteristics (e.g., neighborhood safety) on adolescents' health. However, it is less clear how changes in neighborhood environments play a role in adolescent development, and who are more sensitive to such changes. Utilizing the first three waves of data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) project (N = 7932, M (SD) age = 9.93 (.63) years at T1; 51% boys), the present study found that increases in neighborhood safety were associated with decreased adolescent externalizing symptoms, internalizing symptoms, but not sleep disturbance over time, controlling for baseline neighborhood safety...

Adolescence is characterized by dynamic neurodevelopment, which poses opportunities for risk and resilience. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) confer additional risk to the developing brain, where ACEs have been associated with alterations in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) BOLD signaling in brain regions underlying inhibitory control. Socioenvironmental factors like the family environment may amplify or buffer against the neurodevelopmental risks associated with ACEs. Using baseline to Year 2 follow-up data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, the current study examined how ACEs relate to fMRI BOLD signaling during successful inhibition on the Stop Signal Task in regions associated with inhibitory control and examined whether family conflict levels moderated that relationship...

BACKGROUND: As modern medicine continues to make strides in effective surgical treatments, we must also consider the critical impact of anesthesia on neuropsychological outcomes. Recent evidence suggests that anesthesia exposure may be a risk factor for postoperative cognitive decline and the eventual development of dementia. OBJECTIVES: To explore the vulnerability of the aging brain in the context of anesthesia exposure in surgery, studies will be reviewed, and pertinent findings will be highlighted and explored to better understand risks and possible factors that need to be considered when contemplating surgery...

We investigated the association between pre-COVID-19 memory function and (a) receipt of a COVID-19 test and (b) incidence of COVID-19 using the COVID-19 Questionnaire Study (CQS) of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA). The CQS included 28,565 middle-aged and older adults. We regressed receipt of a COVID-19 test on participants' immediate and delayed recall memory scores and re-ran the regression models with COVID-19 incidence as the outcome. All regression models were adjusted for sociodemographic, lifestyle, and health covariates...

Cognitive symptoms are prevalent in patients with functional neurological disorder (FND). Several studies have suggested that personality traits such as neuroticism may play a pivotal role in the development of FND. FND has also been associated with alexithymia: patients with FND report difficulties in identifying, analyzing, and verbalizing emotions. Whether or not alexithymia and other personality traits are associated with cognitive symptomatology in patients with FND is unknown. In the current study, we explored whether the Big Five personality model factors (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) and alexithymia were associated with cognitive functioning in FND...

OBJECTIVE: Brain areas implicated in semantic memory can be damaged in patients with epilepsy (PWE). However, it is challenging to delineate semantic processing deficits from acoustic, linguistic, and other verbal aspects in current neuropsychological assessments. We developed a new Visual-based Semantic Association Task (ViSAT) to evaluate nonverbal semantic processing in PWE. METHOD: The ViSAT was adapted from similar predecessors (Pyramids & Palm Trees test, PPT; Camels & Cactus Test, CCT) comprised of 100 unique trials using real-life color pictures that avoid demographic, cultural, and other potential confounds...

BACKGROUND: Cognitive reserve is a potential mechanism to cope with brain damage as a result of dementia, which can be defined by indirect proxies, including education level, leisure time activities, and occupational attainment. In this study we explored the association between dementia diagnosis and type of occupation in a retrospective Dutch outpatient memory clinic sample of patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA), behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), and Alzheimer's Dementia (AD)...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition frequently associated with structural cerebellar abnormalities. Whether cerebellar grey matter volumes (GMV) are linked to verbal impairments remains controversial. Here, the association between cerebellar GMV and verbal abilities in ASD was examined across the lifespan. Lobular segmentation of the cerebellum was performed on structural MRI scans from the ABIDE I dataset in male individuals with ASD (N=144, age: 8.5-64.0 years) and neurotypical controls (N=188; age: 8...

Binge eating is characterized as eating a large amount of food and feeling a loss of control while eating. However, the neurobiological mechanisms associated with the onset and maintenance of binge eating are largely unknown. Recent neuroimaging work has suggested that increased responsivity within reward regions of the brain to the anticipation or receipt of rewards is related to binge eating; however, limited longitudinal data has precluded understanding of the role of reward responsivity in the development of binge eating...

The transition to parenthood remains an understudied window of potential neuroplasticity in the adult brain. White matter microstructural (WMM) organization, which reflects structural connectivity in the brain, has shown plasticity across the lifespan. No studies have examined how WMM organization changes from the prenatal to postpartum period in men becoming fathers. This study investigates WMM organization in men transitioning to first-time fatherhood. We performed diffusion-weighted imaging to identify differences in WMM organization, as indexed by fractional anisotropy (FA)...

BACKGROUND: The specific non-motor symptoms associated with α-synucleinopathies, including orthostatic hypotension (OH), cognitive impairment, and emotional abnormalities, have been a subject of ongoing controversy over the mechanisms underlying the development of a vicious cycle among them. The distinct structural alterations in white matter (WM) in patients with α-synucleinopathies experiencing OH, alongside their association with other non-motor symptoms, remain unexplored...

OBJECTIVE: Compensatory strategies can be used to help mid-life and older adults successfully manage instrumental activities of daily living that rely upon prospective memory. This study compared the quality of digital and non-digital compensatory strategies in supporting accurate completion of naturalistic, real-world prospective memory tasks. METHOD: Participants included 70 community-dwelling mid-life and older adults. In this cross-sectional study, participants were tested remotely via Zoom in their homes...

OBJECTIVE: People with aphasia often experience semantic memory (SM) impairment. To improve diagnostic outcomes, SM tasks should recruit various sensory input channels (oral, written, and pictographic), permitting accessible, complete evaluation. There is a need for SM batteries for French-speaking Quebecers that use multiple input channels. The present study, therefore, describes the development of a novel French-language semantic battery: la Batterie québécoise de la mémoire sémantique (BQMS), the assessment of the BQMS's psychometric properties, and the establishment of normative data for the BQMS...

BACKGROUND: Concerns remain about the neurotoxic properties of the ubiquitous organophosphate esters (OPEs), the replacement of the toxicant polybrominated diphenyl ethers. OBJECTIVES: We examined the associations of prenatal exposure to OPEs and their mixtures with early-life neurodevelopment trajectories. METHODS: Totally 1276 mother-child pairs were recruited from the Shanghai Maternal-Child Pairs Cohort. A high-performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometer was used to measure the levels of 7 OPEs in cord serum...