Neuropsychological Assessment in Elderly People
José León-Carrión, Margaret J. Giannini in Behavioral Neurology in the Elderly, 2001
A review of the literature specializing in problem solving, planning, prospective, control, and executive functions associates these functions with the frontal lobe because of the way behavior is affected when these areas of the brain, especially the prefrontal areas, are injured.9,78 The classical tests that have been used to assess these functions are classification tasks like the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test,79 category tests like the Category Test,80 or maze tasks like the Porteus Maze Test.81 At present, specialized clinical neuropsychologists agree that very structured tests are not sensitive to the deficits observed when assessing behavior directed toward a goal; they defend the use of less-structured tests in which the subject must work actively to discover the rules and principles that regulate the task.51
Neurological issues
Andrea Utley in Motor Control, Learning and Development, 2018
The cerebral cortex is the executive suite of the nervous system, and it enables us to communicate, perceive and produce voluntary movement. Three types of functional areas can be found in the cerebral cortex: motor areas, sensory motor areas and associated areas. The cerebral cortex is the largest part of the human brain, associated with higher brain functions such as thought and action. The cerebral cortex is divided into two hemispheres which, although they look symmetrical, have somewhat different functions. The left and right hemispheres of the cerebral cortex are connected by the corpus callosum, a large bundle of interconnecting nerve fibers. The cerebral cortex can be divided into four ‘lobes’: the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe and temporal lobe, with each lobe being represented in each hemisphere. Initial learning is dependent on the frontal cerebral cortex, control is ‘passed’ to cerebellum with practice and researchers are interested in how type of practice, context and feedback influence this process (Marsh et al. 2011).
Diminished Decision-Making Capacity
Alexander R. Toftness in Incredible Consequences of Brain Injury, 2023
It is debated what the different executive functions have in common with one another, but they often have to do with the inhibition of behavior and reasoning abilities (Ardila, 2013). Inhibition simply means preventing yourself from doing something, like stopping yourself from drinking an alcoholic beverage even if part of your brain wants to drink it. Reasoning is a bit more difficult to define, but it is essentially following a series of mental steps to a logical conclusion. An example of this is determining that bear tracks in the mud mean that a bear has been in the area recently, and because bears are dangerous, you should leave the area. Damage to the executive functions of the brain may therefore result in disorders where a person has trouble with inhibiting behaviors and completing logical reasoning—which are both important for decision-making (Wood & Worthington, 2017). Other types of frontal lobe damage may result in symptoms that are subtle or difficult to describe, but problems with decision-making tend to be noticeably impactful on a person's life, which is why decision-making has a chapter in this book.
A preliminary study of atypical cortical change ability of dynamic whole-brain functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorder
Published in International Journal of Neuroscience, 2022
The frontal lobe is responsible for a number of higher-order cognitive functions, involving planning, decision making, abstraction, etc. Hence, the frontal lobe is a primary candidate for dysfunction in many neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. One function of the frontal lobe is cognitive control, or the coordination of goal-directed thoughts and actions. In conjunction with previous studies, serotonin acts as a neurotrophic factor early in the life and modulates axonal arborization [69]. Decreased serotonin synthesis capacity in the frontal cortex and abnormal developmental trajectories for whole-brain serotonin synthesis were observed in ASD patients [70]. Certain cognitive and behavioral deficits suggest that the frontal lobe functions abnormally in ASD patients. The abnormal GMV of frontal lobe cortex was discovered in ASD patients by MRI analysis [71]. As white matter organization abnormalities, abnormal frontal fractional anisotropy and apparent diffusion coefficient was reported in ASD patients [72]. Genetic variation at CNTNAP2 predisposes to diseases such as ASD in part through modulation of frontal lobe connectivity [73].
Neuropsychological performance in patients with substance use disorder with and without mood disorders
Published in Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 2020
Irma Höijer, Tuula Ilonen, Eliisa Löyttyniemi, Raimo K. R. Salokangas
Addiction is seen as a chronic brain disorder associated with impaired function of the frontal areas [42]. The frontal lobe functions include executive functions and problem solving. Fernández-Serrano et al. [43] studied the neuropsychological consequences of alcohol and drug abuse on a broad range of executive functions, comprising measures of fluency, working memory, analogical reasoning, interference, cognitive flexibility, decision-making and self-regulation. Decrements were observed in substance-dependent individuals (SDIs) with a median abstinence duration of 8 months regarded as a long-term effect. In addition to alcohol, the main drugs motivating treatment were cannabis, cocaine and heroin. The results revealed that SDIs had significantly poorer performance than the healthy control across all of the executive domains assessed. Severity of alcohol use is associated with verbal fluency and decision-making decrements. Quantity of cannabis and cocaine use have common detrimental effects on verbal working memory, analogical reasoning and decision-making measures. Duration of cocaine and heroin use have common detrimental effects on visual–spatial shifting measures. Fernández Serrano et al. [43] found specific effects of duration of cannabis use on visual–spatial working memory, and of duration of cocaine use on response inhibition. Deficits in working memory, reasoning, fluency and cognitive flexibility may be associated with difficulties in retaining complex instructions, selecting relevant information and generalising specific learning [43].
Empirical Assessment of Typical versus Maximal Responding in Behavior Description Interviews
Published in Human Performance, 2020
Allen I. Huffcutt, Satoris S. Howes, Susan L. Dustin, Ashley N. Chmielewski, Corrie A. Marshall, Rachael L. Metzger, Victoria P. Gioia
There are two potential explanations, both of which are highly speculative but worthy of consideration. One is that memory searching may not be subsumed under the “g” umbrella. It is interesting to note that memory processes reside in the hippocampus (Diana, Yonelinas, & Ranganath, 2007), a structure located in the middle of the temporal lobe of the brain (the “arm” that juts off to the side and is traditionally thought to handle only auditory functions). Conversely, high-level functions such as reasoning, analysis, and planning are primarily associated with the pre-frontal cortex (Diana et al., 2007). The other is that oral presentation skills could exert a stronger influence than has traditionally been recognized. One study referred to this phenomenon as “storytelling” (Bangerter, Corvalan, & Cavin, 2014). Indeed, it is somewhat easy to imagine an individual who is not particularly bright, but who can recall past experiences in vivid detail and describe them in a stimulating and engaging manner.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Cerebral Hemisphere
- Lateral Sulcus
- Motor Cortex
- Parietal Lobe
- Premotor Cortex
- Primary Motor Cortex
- Temporal Lobe
- Central Sulcus
- Lobes of The Brain
- Sulcus