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Imitation development was studied in a cross‐sectional design involving 174 primary‐school children (aged 6–10), focusing on the effect of actions' complexity and error analysis to infer the underlying cognitive processes. Participants had to imitate the model's actions as if they were in front of a mirror ('specularly'). Complexity varied across three levels: movements of a single limb; arm and leg of the same body side; or arm and leg of opposite body sides. While the overall error rate decreased with age, this was not true of all error categories. The rate of 'side' errors (using a limb of the wrong body side) paradoxically increased with age (from 9 years). However, with increasing age, the error rate also became less sensitive to the complexity of the action. This pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that older children have the working memory (WM) resources and the body knowledge necessary to imitate 'anatomically', which leads to additional side errors. Younger children might be paradoxically free from such interference because their WM and/or body knowledge are insufficient for anatomical imitation. Yet, their limited WM resources would prevent them from successfully managing the conflict between spatial codes involved in complex actions (e.g. moving the left arm and the right leg). We also found evidence that action side and content might be stored in separate short‐term memory (STM) systems: increasing the number of sides to be encoded only affected side retrieval, but not content retrieval; symmetrically, increasing the content (number of movements) of the action only affected content retrieval, but not side retrieval. In conclusion, results suggest that anatomical imitation might interfere with specular imitation at age 9 and that STM storages for side and content of actions are separate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental dyslexia can be viewed as the result of the effects of single deficits or multiple deficits. This study presents a test of the applicability of a multifactor-interactive model (MFi-M) with a preliminary set of five variables corresponding to different neuropsychological functions involved in the reading process. The model has been tested on a sample of 55 school-age children with developmental dyslexia. The results show that the data fit a model in which each variable contributes to the reading ability in a non-additive but rather interactive way. These findings constitute a preliminary validation of the plausibility of the MFi-M, and encourage further research to add relevant factors and specify their relative weights. It is further discussed how subtype-based intervention approaches can be a suitable and advantageous framework for clinical intervention in a MFi-M perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the reading performance of an Italian speaker with egocentric Neglect Dyslexia on sentences with Negative Concord structures, which contain a linguistic cue to the presence of a preceding negative marker and compare it to sentences with no such cue. As predicted, the frequency of reading the whole sentence, including the initial negative marker non, was higher in Negative Concord structures than in sentences which also started with non, but crucially, lacked the medially positioned linguistic cue to the presence of non. These data support the claim that the presence of linguistic cues to sentence structure modulates attention during reading in Neglect Dyslexia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tower of London (ToL) test is traditionally used to assess strategical reasoning, problem-solving, and mental planning in clinical populations. Here, we provide the Italian standardization norms for the original, 12-problem version of the ToL test. The performance of 216 Italian individuals ranging 18 to 89 in age was scored in terms of both Time (Speed) and Accuracy —the time, and the number of attempts, necessary to find a solution. We performed univariate analyses on separate Time and Accuracy scores, using Age in years, Education in years, and Sex (male vs. female) as predictors. z scores and equivalent scores were provided. Moreover, we performed a bivariate analysis for the assessment of individuals' performance in terms of Time and Accuracy simultaneously. This standardization allows clinicians to use the original, most widespread version of ToL with the Italian population, thus optimizing comparability with other clinical and experimental research worldwide. Critically, this article offers a new statistical perspective on how Time and Accuracy scores, which are typically related to each other, can be combined to obtain a single, consistent clinical categorization that captures most of the information contained in the patient's performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: An intronic deletion within intron 2 of the DCDC2 gene encompassing the entire READ1 (hereafter, READ1d) has been associated in both children with developmental dyslexia (DD) and typical readers (TRs), with interindividual variation in reading performance and motion perception as well as with structural and functional brain alterations. Visual motion perception -- specifically processed by the magnocellular (M) stream -- has been reported to be a solid and reliable endophenotype of DD. Hence, we predicted that READ1d should affect neural activations in brain regions sensitive to M stream demands as reading proficiency changes. Methods: We investigated neural activations during two M-eliciting fMRI visual tasks (full-field sinusoidal gratings controlled for spatial and temporal frequencies and luminance contrast, and sensitivity to motion coherence at 6%, 15% and 40% dot coherence levels) in four subject groups: children with DD with/without READ1d, and TRs with/without READ1d. Results: At the Bonferroni-corrected level of significance, reading skills showed a significant effect in the right polar frontal cortex during the full-field sinusoidal gratings-M task. Regardless of the presence/absence of the READ1d, subjects with poor reading proficiency showed hyperactivation in this region of interest (ROI) compared to subjects with better reading scores. Moreover, a significant interaction was found between READ1d and reading performance in the left frontal opercular area 4 during the 15% coherent motion sensitivity task. Among subjects with poor reading performance, neural activation in this ROI during this specific task was higher for subjects without READ1d than for READ1d carriers. The difference vanished as reading skills increased. Conclusions: Our findings showed a READ1d-moderated genetic vulnerability to alterations in neural activation in the ventral attentive and salient networks during the processing of relevant stimuli in subjects with poor reading proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective:Unilateral neglect is usually investigated by adminstering stimuli (targets) in different positions, with targets being responded to by the patient (Hit) or omitted. In spite of this homogeneity of data type, neglect indices and diagnostic criteria vary considerably, causing inconsistencies in both clinical and experimental settings. We aimed at deriving a standard analysis which would apply to all tasks sharing this data form.Methods:A-priori theoretical reasoning demonstrated that the mean position of Hits in space (MPH) is an optimal index for correctly diagnosing and quantifying neglect. Crucially MPH eliminates the confounding effects of deficits that are different from neglect (non-lateral) but which decrease Hit rate. We ran a Monte Carlo study to assess MPH’s (so far overlooked) statistical behavior as a function of numbers of targets and Hits.Results:While average MPH was indeed insensitive to non-lateral deficits, MPH’s variance (like that of all other neglect indices) increased dramatically with increasing non-lateral deficits. This instability would lead to alarmingly high false-positive rates (FPRs) when applying a classical diagnostic procedure that compares one patient with a control sample. We solved the problem by developing an equation that takes into account MPH instability and provides correct cut-offs and close-to-nominal FPRs, even without control subjects. We developed a computerized program which, given the raw data, yields the MPH, az-score and ap-value.Conclusions:We provided a standard method that allows clinical and experimental neuropsychologists to diagnose and measure neglect in a consistent way across the vast majority of tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We propose STIMA, a short test for ideo-motor apraxia, allowing us to quantify the apraxic deficit according to action meaning and affected body segment. STIMA is based on a neurocognitive model holding that there are two processes involved in action imitation (i.e., a semantic route for recognizing and imitating known gestures, and a direct route for reproducing new gestures). The test allows to identify which imitative process has been selectively impaired by brain damage (direct vs. semantic route) and possible deficits depending on the body segment involved (hand/limb vs. hand/fingers). N = 111 healthy participants were administered with an imitation task in two separated blocks of known and new gestures. In each block, half of the gestures were performed mainly with the proximal part of the upper limb and the remaining half with the distal one. It resulted in 18 known gestures (nine proximal and nine distal) and 18 new gestures (nine proximal and nine distal) for a total of 36. Each gesture was presented up to a maximum of two times. Detailed criteria are used to assign the final imitation score. Cut offs, equivalent scores and main percentile scores were computed for each subscale. Participants imitated better known than new gestures, and proximal better than distal gestures. Age influenced performance on all subscales, while education only affected one subscale. STIMA is easy and quick to administer, and compared to previous tests, it offers important information for planning adequate rehabilitation programs based on the functional locus of the deficit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The Milner Landmark Task allows the disentanglement of perceptual and response-related components of unilateral neglect. If these two components reflect separate functional systems, then cases should be observed in which the two components evolve differently across time. To test this hypothesis we surveyed a continuous series of 21 right hemisphere stroke patients. Five patients from the sample were affected by unilateral neglect at the outset and could be submitted to repeated administrations of the Landmark task in the first weeks post stroke. Two versions of the task were used, Landmark-Manual and Landmark-Verbal, differing in the type of response required. Two patients showed independent changes in the perceptual and the response-related component of neglect, hence confirming the view of separate functional systems underlying them. Dissociations between the task versions were found, witnessing a role of the type of response. Unexpectedly, one patient showed an initial leftward deviation of the subjective midpoint of the stimulus line, which later reversed to a classical rightward deviation. We interpreted such a pattern in terms of co-existing 'productive' and 'negative' components of perceptual neglect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Neglect patients' performance during cancellation tasks is characterized by left sided omissions and, in many cases, by the production of inappropriate material of various kinds in the ipsilesional space, e.g. additional marks over already cancelled targets, marks drawn away from targets, scribbles, irrelevant drawings. It is unclear whether these behaviours, which have collectively been called perseverative, are functionally and anatomically connected and whether they correlate with the severity of neglect. Here we report a retrospective study on 33 right brain damaged patients with neglect after right hemisphere lesions in whom we measured the intensity of perseveration of the three following kinds: (1) ‘additional marks' (AM) perseveration where patients cancelled a target with two or more well separated marks; (2) ‘scribble’ perseveration, where patients, instead of cancelling the target with a single pen stroke as required by the task, performed multiple pen strokes without breaking the pen-to-paper contact, with the final product being a scribble; (3) ‘flying marks’ (FM) perseveration where patients produced cancellation marks well away from the targets. We found that AM and FM perseveration correlated with neglect severity, while ‘scribble’ perseveration did not. The lesion-symptom mapping showed three separate anatomical areas in the right hemisphere: ‘scribble’ perseveration was associated with lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex and caudate nucleus; AM perseveration was associated with damage to the rolandic operculum, superior temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus; FM perseveration was associated with damage to the dorsal premotor cortex and the temporal pole. Neglect severity followed damage to a region which grossly corresponds to the sum of the regions associated with AM and FM perseveration respectively. This complex behavioural and anatomical pattern is interpreted in terms of a three-factor model, in which AM perseveration is caused by a deficit of disengagement of attention from the right side (also causing omissions), FM perseveration is caused by directional hypokinesia (also causing left-side omissions), and ‘scribble’ perseveration is the consequence of a failure to inhibit an initiated motor act, which is completely separate (both anatomically and functionally) from the disorder inducing omissions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This work tackles the problem of whether the dissociation between two performances in a single-case study should be computed as the difference between the raw or between the standardized (e.g. z) scores. A wrong choice can lead to serious inflation of the probability of finding false dissociations and missing true dissociations. Two common misconceptions are that (i) standardized scores are a universally valid choice, or (ii) raw scores can be subtracted when the two performances concern the same "task/test", otherwise standardized scores are better. These and other rules are shown to fail in specific cases and a solution is proposed in terms of in-depth analysis of the meaning of each score. The scores that should be subtracted are those that better reflect "deficit severities" – the latent, unobservable degrees of damage to the cognitive systems that are being compared. Thus explicit theoretical modelling of the investigated cognitive function(s) – the "scenario" – is required. A flowchart is provided that guides such analysis, and shows how a given neuropsychological scenario leads to the selection of an appropriate statistical method for detecting dissociations, introducing the critical concept of "deficit equivalence criterion" – the definition of what exactly a non-dissociation should look like. One further, overlooked problem concerning standardized scores in general (as measures of effect size, of which neuropsychological dissociations are just one example) is that they cannot be meaningfully compared if they have different reliabilities. In conclusion, when studying dissociations, increases in false-positive and false-negative risks are likely to occur when no explicit neuropsychological theory is offered that justifies the definition of what are to be considered as equivalent deficit severities in both performances, and which would lead to appropriate selection of raw, standardized, or any other type of score. More generally, the choice of any measure in any research context needs explicit theoretical modelling, without which statistical risks cannot be controlled. [Display omitted] • Dissociations in single-case studies involve comparing raw or standardized (z) scores. • A bad choice between raw and z scores leads to detection of false dissociations. • Explicit theoretical modelling is needed to choose correctly between raw and z scores. • Standardization is not a universally valid method for comparing scores between tasks. • A dissociation between z scores is problematic if their reliabilities differ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Visual-motor skills are the basis for a great number of daily activities. To define a correct rehabilitation program for neurological patients who have impairment in these skills, there is a need for simple and cost-effective tools to determine which of the visual-motor system levels of organization are compromised by neurological lesions. In their 1995 book, The Visual Brain in Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press), AD Milner and MA Goodale proposed the existence of two pathways for the processing of visual information, the "ventral stream" and "dorsal stream," that interact in movement planning and programming. Beginning with this model, our study aimed to validate a method to quantify the role of the ventral and dorsal streams in perceptual and visual-motor skills. Subjects and methods: Nineteen right-handed healthy subjects (mean age 22.8 years ± 3.18) with normal or corrected-to-normal vision were recruited. We proposed that a delayed pointing task, a distance reproduction task, and a delayed anti-pointing task could be used to assess the ventral stream, while the dorsal stream could be evaluated with a grasping task and an immediate pointing task. Performance was recorded and processed with the video-analysis software Dartfish ProSuite. Results: Results showed the expected pattern of predominance of attention for the superior left visual field, predominance of the flexor tone in proximal peri-personal space arm movements, tendency toward overestimation of short distances, and underestimation of long distances. Conclusion: We believe that our method is advantageous as it is simple and easily transported, but needs further testing in neurologically compromised patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background : This study aimed (i) to verify whether the classical word‐naming models developed for English‐speaking participants also account for the performance of patients who speak a shallow‐orthography language such as Italian, and (ii) to study the effects of word frequency, concreteness, and grammatical class on word naming. Methods & Procedures : A total of 90 Italian aphasic patients participated in two reading tasks. The first task contained four sets of items: (i) concrete nouns (natural objects and artefacts), (ii) abstract nouns, (iii) function words, (iv) morphologically simple legal nonwords. The second task (trisyllabic words with unpredictable stress position) was designed to test reading ability along the lexical route (the position of the major word stress is the only opaque variable in the Italian reading system). The patients' performances on the two tasks were analysed for strong dissociations, and to test the effect of grammatical class, concreteness, word frequency, and item length. The effect of age of acquisition was tested in a subsequent analysis. Outcomes & Results : Reading scores were pathological for all patients. The present sample reflected the entire spectrum of reading impairments: phonological (49), surface (4), undifferentiated (32), and letter‐by‐letter (5) dyslexia, which is in line with data reported for English‐speaking aphasic patients. Only one of the phonological dyslexic patients made semantic errors (a reading impairment compatible with the diagnosis of deep dyslexia). The vast majority of Broca's aphasic patients suffered from phonological dyslexia (76%), while fluent aphasic patients were distributed more evenly across dyslexia types; all four surface dyslexic patients belonged to the fluent aphasia group. Overall, grammatical class (concrete nouns vs function words) had a significant effect on 14 patients (15.6%), concreteness (concrete vs abstract nouns) on 15 (16.7%), and word frequency on 5 (5.6%). Grammatical class and concreteness affected the performance of phonological and undifferentiated dyslexic patients, and seemed not to influence the scores of the surface dyslexic patients. Age of acquisition turned out to have a highly significant effect and may account for most of the lexical effects emerging from the first analysis. Conclusions : The entire spectrum of reading impairments was observed in this group of Italian aphasic patients, thus confirming the validity of contemporary reading models also for shallow‐orthography languages. Concreteness and grammatical class effects, present in deep dyslexia, also affected the performance of patients suffering from other types of dyslexia, although both phenomena might derive from a confounding effect of age of acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Neglect patients typically show motor perseveration while canceling targets on the ipsilesional side. This behavior can be influenced by the presence vs. absence of targets on the (neglected) contralesional side (). As alternative explanations, the authors proposed (i) directional hypokinesia—the patient cannot perform reaching movements towards detected left-sided targets, and thus carries on canceling on the right side, and (ii) allochiria—the patient misperceives left-sided targets as located on the right side, and cancels them there. We report here data from a patient (EZ) that might confirm the second hypothesis. EZ was presented with 19 displays in which the number and position of cancellation targets on both sides were varied systematically. EZ showed motor perseveration while canceling, but this tendency did not vary across conditions. Interestingly though, EZ also drew cancellation marks in the empty space between the ipsilesional targets, and this phenomenon was significantly more intense when there were more targets on the neglected side. As EZ’s comments suggested, such a behavior might reflect the attempt to cancel out delusional targets. Our speculation is that those objects were generated by allochiria. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The method of error analysis has been fruitfully applied to the performance of brain-damaged patients in a number of different domains. This approach has also been used for investigating the visuo-constructional abilities of neurological patients, but only in a limited fashion. In the present work we applied error analysis to the performance of three patients, each showing a different pattern of errors, and 12 controls on a modified version of the WAIS Block Design task. Data were collected about the single moves made by the subjects to arrive at a copy of the model, and errors were classified using 14 categories. The error patterns of the three patients were found to be reliably different and so putatively suggest different processing impairments. Patient BV showed errors possibly reflecting the lack, or absence, of a plan during the reproduction attempt. Patient GP mainly showed errors reflecting impairment in the processing of metric spatial relations, while patient VQ's errors were those predicted by impaired mental rotation ability. Overall, we showed that Block Design performance can be used productively in the investigation of spatial processing by means of the single-case approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been suggested that neglect patients misrepresent the metric spatial relations along the horizontal axis (anisometry). The “fabric” of their internal spatial medium would be distorted in such a way that physically equal distances appear relatively shorter on the contralesional side (canonical anisometry). The case of GL, a 76-year-old lady with left neglect on visual search tasks, is presented. GL showed severe relative overestimation on the left (contralesional) side on two independent tasks evaluating the metrics of her internal representation. A qualitatively similar pattern was found in two out of 10 other neglect patients who performed the second task. This behavior cannot be accounted for by the canonical anisometry hypothesis. Nevertheless, GL produced a relative left overextension (underestimation) when trying to set the endpoints of a virtual line given its midpoint (Endpoints Task). An interpretation of these results is offered in terms of a misprojection of relevant landmarks onto the internal representation without assuming distortion of its “fabric.” [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the last decade a number of theories have been formulated hypothesizing a "distortion" of representational space in neglect patients, in order to explain their impairment on tasks investigating the perception of horizontal extents. Trying to compensate for the relative lack of formalization in this field of research, a mathematical model of what a spatial distortion should be is formulated on the basis of theoretical considerations and of some neurophysiological evidence; furthermore, a psychophysical task is proposed that estimates the amount of distortion and is able to overcome some of the limits in the currently used methods. On this task, 32 normal subjects showed two different kinds of deviation from the ideal performance, neither of which is attributable to perceptual factors. Out of five neglect patients, two showed reliable distortion, another two showed a trend towards distortion (but in opposite directions with respect to one another), and one showed no sign of distortion. In conclusion, a new method for estimating distortion suggested that the explorative impairment--neglect--can dissociate from the metric one--distortion, as one would expect on grounds of a (evolutionarily plausible) separation between the two operations of exploring and measuring space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deficits in the mental rotation of body parts and of external objects can be doubly dissociated (; ; ). The aim of this study was to replicate this finding and to then investigate the relevance of the specific hemispheres in these deficits. Nine patients with unilateral lesions (five in the Left Hemisphere and four in the Right) and 20 control subjects, performed a single task requiring mental rotation of hands, and two tasks requiring mental rotation of external objects. RH patients were impaired in the rotation of external objects, but showed intact performance on the rotation of hands; the opposite pattern was found for LH patients. These results support the view that the LH contributes to the mental rotation of hands, recruiting processes specific to motor preparation, while the RH is specialized for mental rotation of external objects. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Agrammatism is a language disorder characterised by a morphological and/or syntactic deficit in spontaneous speech. Such deficits are usually associated with comprehension disorders - though it is said that this is not always the case - which result in a certain degree of variability in syntactic, lexical, and morpholexical performance. The purpose of this study is to reconsider the nature of comprehension disorders in agrammatism, to test whether Grodzinsky's Trace Deletion Hypothesis (TDH) can be generalised to all agrammatic patients, and to ascertain whether the pattern of impairment observed in agrammatism differs from that present in fluent aphasic patients. Eleven agrammatic patients were tested by means of a sentence comprehension task comprising simple active and passive reversible sentences. The performance of the agrammatic patients was compared to that of 16 fluent aphasic (10 Wernicke's and 6 conduction) and 10 control subjects. The deficits observed in the agrammatic subjects were compatible with the TDH, but there was also impaired processing of pronouns (elements that are also subject to movement) and a mild deficit on the processing of simple active sentences. The fluent aphasic patients showed a similar pattern of impairment. A logistic regression analysis was then applied to each single case separately, in order to study the homogeneity of the patients' performance within each aphasic subgroup. Of the 11 agrammatic patients, 3 did not show comprehension disorders, 5 had a specific deficit for passive movement, 1 a lexical deficit for pronouns only, and 1 a pattern of impairment compatible with Linebarger et al.'s trade-off theory. The last patient showed a deficit for simple active reversible sentences compatible with damage to the mapping of grammatical functions to thematic roles. Similar patterns of impairment were also found in the fluent aphasic sample. Overall, the results lead to the conclusion that the TDH cannot be generalised to all agrammatic patients, that the mechanism it invokes is not the only source responsible for agrammatic comprehension disorders and also contributes to comprehension disorders in fluent aphasic patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Drai and Grodzinsky provide a valuable analysis that offers a way of disentangling the effects of Movement and Mood in agrammatic comprehension. However, their mathematical implementation (Beta model) hides theoretically relevant information, i.e., qualitative heterogeneities of performance within the patient sample. This heterogeneity is crucial in the variability debate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objective: The COVID‐19 pandemic had a profound negative impact on the psychological wellbeing of healthcare providers (HPs), but little is known about the factors that positively predict mental health of primary care staff during these dire situations. Methods: We conducted an online questionnaire survey among 702 emergency department workers across 10 hospitals in Switzerland and Belgium following the first COVID‐19 wave in 2020, to explore their psychological vulnerability, perceived concerns, self‐reported impact and level of pandemic workplace preparedness. Participants included physicians, nurses, psychologists and nondirect care employees (administrative staff). We tested for predictors of psychological vulnerability through both an exploratory cross‐correlation with rigorous correction for multiple comparisons and model‐based path modelling. Results: Findings showed that the self‐reported impact of COVID‐19 at work, concerns about contracting COVID‐19 at work, and a lack of personal protective equipment were strong positive predictors of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress, and low Resilience. Instead, knowledge of the degree of preparedness of the hospital/department, especially in the presence of a predetermined contingency plan for an epidemic and training sessions about protective measures, showed the opposite effect, and were associated with lower psychological vulnerability. All effects were confirmed after accounting for confounding factors related to gender, age, geographical location and the role played by HPs in the hospital/department. Conclusions: Difficult working conditions during the pandemic had a major impact on the psychological wellbeing of emergency department HPs, but this effect might have been lessened if they had been informed about adequate measures for minimizing the risk of exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuropsychological assessment is critical in both diagnosis and prognosis of patients with epilepsy. Beyond electrophysiological and anatomical alterations, other factors including different ethnic-cultural and linguistic backgrounds might affect neuropsychological performance. Only a few studies considered migration and acculturation effects and they typically concerned nonclinical samples. The current study aimed at investigating the influence of ethnic background and time spent in Italy on a full neuropsychological battery administered to both Italian and foreign-born patients and at providing a brief interview for obtaining relevant information on each patient's transcultural and language-related history. Clinical reports from 43 foreign-born patients with drug-resistant epilepsy were collected from the archives of Milan Niguarda Hospital. Epileptogenic zone, age, education, profession, illness duration, seizure frequency, handedness, and gender were considered in selecting 43 Italian controls. Ethnicity (Italian/foreign-born) and years spent in Italy were analyzed as main predictors on 21 neuropsychological scales by means of General(ized) Linear Models. An additional analysis studied two composite scores of overall verbal and nonverbal abilities. Ethnicity significantly affected the following: the verbal overall score, Verbal Fluency, Naming, Token-test, Digit Span, Attentional Matrices, Trail-Making-Test, Line-Orientation-Test, and Raven matrices; no effects were found on the nonverbal overall score, Word Pairs Learning, Episodic Memory, reading accuracy, visual span, Bells test, Rey Figure, and face memory and recognition. No significant effects of years spent in Italy emerged. While years spent in Italy does not predict neuropsychological performance, linguistic background had a strong impact on it. With respect to Italian-speaking patients, those who were foreign-born showed large task-related variability, with an especially low performance on language-related tests. Hence, language tests should not be considered as valid measures of neuropsychological impairment in this population, not even in foreign-born patients with good Italian fluency. Clinicians should consider such asymmetries in order to improve the accuracy of neuropsychological assessment of foreign-born patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVES: Prism Adaptation (PA) is a technique used in the rehabilitation of unilateral spatial neglect. Several researchers have reported positive results on a number of tasks, but negative outcomes have also been reported. These conflicting results could be due to the use of prisms of different power. The aim of this study was to investigate the amplitude and duration of the aftereffect induced by prisms of different power by different measures in a series of single cases of neglect. METHODS: Five neglect patients and ten control subjects participated in the study. Prism adaptation was evaluated with Subjective Straight Ahead (SSA), Open-Loop Pointing (OLP) and Line Bisection (LB) tasks, immediately before prism adaptation, immediately after, and 10/60 minutes after prism adaptation. The procedure was repeated with prisms of 5, 10 and 20 prismatic diopters (Δ). RESULTS: The OLP task provided the most sensitive measures for the size of the aftereffect. The 20Δ prism proved to be most effective in inducing an immediate aftereffect, while the aftereffect of the 5Δ prism seemed to last longer. CONCLUSION: We showed that the prism power and the task used for assessing PA effect are relevant variables to be consider in clinical practice of neglect rehabilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Twelve children with developmental dyslexia underwent a four-month treatment with tachistoscopic presentation of words, according to Bakker’s methodology. One group received standard lateral presentation of words on a PC screen, while the other group received the same stimuli in random lateral position. The spatial distribution of visual attention was measured by means of the Form-Resolving Field (FRF; ), which was administered along with reading tests, before and after treatment. The FRF of children who received random presentation widened at −12.5° on the left side, while the FRF in the group that received standard lateral presentation narrowed at that position. Both groups significantly improved in reading accuracy for both words and nonwords. Some hypotheses are proposed concerning the mechanisms responsible for the changes in the FRF and their correlation with improvements in word and nonword reading. The results of the present study are also compared with data suggesting a left “minineglect” in dyslexia. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Both real action control and execution and motor imagery abilities require knowledge of the spatial location of body parts, in other words efference copy information and feedbacks from the sensory system (Frith et al., 2000, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. Biol. Sci., 355, 1771). Spinal cord injuries induce severe motor disability, due to a damage of the descending motor pathways (Cramer et al., 2007, Exp. Brain. Res., 177, 233). Patients' motor imagery competences are variably reported as either normal or defective (Decety & Boisson, 1990, Eur. Arch. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci., 240, 39; Lacourse et al., 1999, Behav. Brain Sci., 104, 73). We explored biomechanical constraint effects in Spinal Cord Injury ( SCI) patients, as they are considered the most reliable indexes of motor imagery abilities (Parsons, 1987b, Cogn. Psychol., 19, 178). Sixteen spinal cord injuries patients and 16 neurologically unimpaired subjects have been administered with (1) the Hand Laterality Task (HLT), in which subjects were asked to judge the laterality of a rotated hand; and (2) the Mirror Letter Discrimination Task (MLD), in which subjects were asked to judge if a rotated character was in its correct upright position or mirror-reversed form. Our patients did not present the effect of stimulus orientation, neither did they show any effect related to biomechanical constraints. Based on these data, the hypothesis is that SCI patients' performance may be ascribed to the use of a different strategy to solve the tasks, based on memory rather than on mental rotation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To clarify the role of epilepsy and genetic background in determining the cognitive outcome of patients with Dravet syndrome. In this retrospective study, we reviewed the clinical history and cognitive development of 26 patients who had been followed with standardized evaluations since seizure onset. The cognitive outcome was quantified as differential general quotient (dGQ) between ages 12 and 60 months. Statistical analysis correlated the dGQ with genotype and epilepsy course. Epilepsy started at the mean age of 5.6 months. All patients experienced prolonged convulsive seizures, whereas absences and myoclonus were reported in 17. Cognitive outcome was poor in almost all patients; the mean dGQ was 33 points, varying from 6-77 points. The analysis of individual cognitive profiles identified seven patients in whom the dGQ was <20 points; the main clinical characteristic in this subset of patients was lack of early absences and myoclonus. The statistical analysis of the whole series failed to reveal significant differences in cognitive outcome with regard to the presence of SCN1A mutations and their type. In particular, mutation-carrier patients with the best cognitive outcome harbored either missense or truncating mutations. Dravet syndrome encompasses different epileptic and cognitive phenotypes that probably result from both genetic and epigenetic factors. In this series, early appearance of myoclonus and absences was associated with the worst cognitive outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deficits in the mental rotation of body parts and of external objects can be doubly dissociated (Rumiati, Tomasino, Vorano, Umiltà, & De Luce, 2001; Sirigu & Duhamel, 2001; Tomasino, Rumiati, & Umità, in press). The aim of this study was to replicate this finding and to then investigate the relevance of the specific hemispheres in these deficits. Nine patients with unilateral lesions (five in the Left Hemisphere and four in the Right) and 20 control subjects, performed a single task requiring mental rotation of hands, and two tasks requiring mental rotation of external objects. RH patients were impaired in the rotation of external objects, but showed intact performance on the rotation of hands; the opposite pattern was found for LH patients. These results support the view that the LH contributes to the mental rotation of hands, recruiting processes specific to motor preparation, while the RH is specialized for mental rotation of external objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]