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The Argentine neuropsychological school is born of the hand of the European school and is part of the beginning of the Experimental Psychology. In 1896 Horacio Pinero creates the first Department of Psychology at the University of Buenos Aires and in 1898 the first laboratory of Experimental Psychology is annexed. Jose Ingeniero, psychiatrist, neurologist, politician and above all sociologist publishes in France his work about the musical aphasia, the first neuropsychological work with international significance. In the same redeems to Charcot instead of to Knoblauch like the first one to describe the amusias, it speaks of an intelligence instead of a musical language and proposes a new classification and a methodology of assessment with a neurological-psychiatric integrative perspective. This article gave rise to this book in French on the musical language and its hysterical alterations awarded by the Academy of Medicine of Paris.

Introduction: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) represents a clinical syndrome linked to multiple degenerative diseases. The diagnosis of PPA is made when language is the only area of salient and progressive dysfunction for at least the first two years of the disease., Aim: To evaluate the neuropsychological, neuropsychiatric and language characteristics of the PPA., Patients and Methods: 15 patients with PPA underwent language, neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric evaluation, magnetic resonance imaging, computerized tomography and single photon emission computerized tomography., Results: We observed a clear distinction between the oral expression patterns; the patients were classificated by type of aphasia. The most common sign of PPA was a word finding deficit, also known as anomia. Seven aphasia type Broca, four sensorial transcortical aphasia, two aphasia type Wernicke and two anomic aphasia were found in our patients. Depression, apathy, anxiety and irritability were the most prevalent neuropsychiatric sign., Conclusions: PPA is a language-based syndrome, that include fluent (normal articulation, flow and number of words per utterance) and nonfluent form of aphasia. It has been considered a cognitive term, however, PPA is associated with high prevalence of psychiatric manifestations. More research it will be necessary to evaluate the prognostic value of them. The slow and progressive deterioration of language provides an interesting model to understand the mechanisms and biological bases involved in the linguistic process.

Introduction: The cerebellum has been traditionally associated with motor control learning and performance. However, since 1970 a growing body of clinical and experimental evidences has suggested that the cerebellum may be involved in nonmotor cognitive functions as well., Objective: To explore the presence of eventual cognitive impairment in non-demented patients with isolated degenerative cerebellar diseases., Patients and Methods: Twelve patients with the diagnosis of selective degenerative cerebellar disorders, either inherited or sporadic, were selected (mean age: 40.42 +/- 13.49 years; mean education level: 9.92 +/- 3.99 years; duration of illness: 12.13 +/- 11.27 years, MMSE: 26.75 +/- 1.5) and evaluated through a standardized neuropsychological tests battery. Normalized Z scores were estimated and compared against 0, employing the t test for one sample., Results: Significant cognitive deficits were found in the following domains: executive, visuo-spatial, memory and attention functions. Performance on the Wisconsin test showed a significative number of perseverative errors. Memory deficits included verbal learning and free recall difficulties, with good recognition of the material presented., Conclusions: The findings of this study are consistent with the role of the cerebellum as modulator of mental functions. The cognitive deficits resulting from cerebellar pathology may be related with the disruption of cerebello-cortical connexions involving a complex network which includes the prefrontal region, suggesting that the cerebellum may process cortical information coming from different areas linked with the control of cognition.

Introduction: In amnesic syndromes, it's usually to see dissociation between episodic, semantic and procedural memory. However, a few reports have been found about musical memory's processing and the relation with classic memory systems., Aim: To describe the musical's abilities preserved in a patient with amnesic syndrome and discuss possible neuropsychological and neurobiological bases implicated., Case Report: A 28-years-old woman presenting with amnesic syndrome is reported. Following a carbon monoxide encephalophaty and subsequent hypoxia she remained in coma for 10 days with evidence of bilateral temporal changes, mainly affecting basal ganglia areas. The patient showed anterograde amnesia and semantic memory impairment, with disproportionately spared musical abilities' performance, either music perception (discrimination and recognition of tonal melodies, musical sight-reading) or music production (song and instrumental performance) or musical memory., Conclusions: This case suggests that the music require elaborate bihemispheric processing and may implicate different forms of information processing. The neural network involved in musical memory can be different that the declarative memory systems (episodic and semantic).

Introduction: The Boston Naming Test (BNT) is the most frequently used test of confrontation naming. Due to its length, several abbreviated forms have been proposed., Objective: The aim of the study was to develop a short form for the Spanish version of the BNT that could detect early semantic changes in Alzheimer s disease (AD)., Patients and Methods: One hundred and three patients with diagnosis of probable AD (NINCDS ADRDA criteria), with GDS< 5 and 143 normal subjects, matched for age and education, were studied. Subjects with <4 years of education were excluded. No subject had any history of neurological of psychiatric disorders or alcohol abuse. All participants underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment which included the 60 item Spanish version of the BNT. The sensibility and specificity of each item and demographic effect s variability were calculated (ANOVA). Those 12 figures with the highest sensibility and specificity which showed no significant educational or age variation were administered to all participants. The Spearman correlation coefficient was used., Results: Mean score for the control group was 11 (standard deviation: 1.16). No significant effects for age (r= 0.14574) or education (r= 0.101293) were found. The sensibility and specificity for correctly diagnosing AD was 85% and 94% respectively, similar to the longest version., Conclusion: This 12 item version of the BNT can be a useful instrument for a rapid screening of AD, as it is as sensible and specific as the 60 item version, and it is not influenced by age or education.

Introduction: The role of the prefrontal cortex still remains poorly understood. Only after 1970, the functions of the frontal lobes have been conceptualized from different points of view (behaviorism, cognitivism)., Development: Recently,different parallel circuits connecting discrete cortical and subcortical regions of the frontal lobes have been described. Three of these circuits are the most relevant to understanding of behavior: the dorsolateral prefrontal circuit, that mediates executive behavior; the orbitofrontal prefrontal circuit, mediating social behavior, and the medial frontal circuit, involved in motivation. Damage to the frontal cortex impairs planning, problem solving, reasoning, concept formation, temporal ordering of stimuli, estimation, attention, memory search, maintaining information in working memory, associative learning,certain forms of skilled motor activities, image generation and manipulation of the spatial properties of a stimulus, metacognitive thinking, and social cognition. Several theories have been proposed to explain the functions of the prefrontal cortex. Currently,the most influential cognitive models are: the Norman and Shallice supervisory attentional system, involved in non-routine selection; the Baddeley working memory model with the central executive as a supervisory controlling system, in which impairment leads to a 'dysexecutive syndrome'; and the Grafman's model of managerial knowledge units, stored as macrostructured information in the frontal cortex., Conclusion: The prefrontal cortex is essential for attentional control, manipulation of stored knowledge and modulation of complex actions, cognition, emotion and behavior.

Objective: Attention phenomenology is a wide subject, in this revision we will explain attention and its relationship with behavioral neglect., Development: Selective attention is the ability to throw the focus of awareness toward behaviorally relevant events in the personal and extrapersonal space. Severe alteration of these mechanisms constitutes unilateral neglect in patients with contralateral brain damage. Unilateral neglect is one of the most behaviorally devastating syndrome. There are different behavioral neglect: attentional (perceptual), intentional (motor), motivational and representational aspects of unilateral neglect. Left side neglect after right hemisphere lesions is more common (31 to 46%) than right sided neglect following lesions in the left hemisphere (2 to 12%)., Conclusion: One year after a cerebrovascular accident only 1/3 of the patients with unilateral neglect persist with this handicap.

Introduction: Cognitive dysfunction in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is still a controversial subject. Since refractory MTLE is considered a surgically remediable syndrome, the neuropsychological assessment to establish the presence of cognitive impairment in the surgical candidate became an important issue, given its possible relevance in predicting outcome after surgery., Objective: Our aim was to study the cognitive profile of MTLE patients and to correlate the cognitive status with the presence or absence of hippocampal sclerosis., Patients and Methods: Fifty patients with MTLE and 20 control subjects were matched by age and educational level. All subjects were studied with EEG, MRI scan, SPECT, and a comprehensive neuropsychological battery that included measures of language (naming and verbal fluency), visuospatial function (Block Design Test), memory (Signoret Battery), attention (Digit Span and Trail Making Test A) and executive abilities (Trail Making Test B and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test)., Results: MTLE patients, particularly those with hippocampal sclerosis, were found to have a considerable lower performance in learning (p < 0.01), naming (p < 0.05), attention (p < 0.05) and executive functions (p < 0.001). Among the MTLE patients a considerable number of subjects showed results within the normal range (n = 27) while others evidenced laterality specific cognitive impairments (n = 13). Material specific memory effects were seen in some patients but not all., Conclusions: Our results showed the neuropsychological heterogeneity of temporal lobe epilepsy, thus ruling out the existence of a single specific cognitive pattern of impairment in all MTLE patients, and suggesting the need of a thorough pre-surgical neuropsychological evaluation to be used with post-surgical prognosis purposes.

Introduction and Objective: When the clinical picture consists of prominent cognitive impairments (e.g. amnesia) with relatively mild behavioral symptoms, it can be very difficult to distinguish frontal lobe dementia (FLD) from Alzheimer disease (AD). However, these conditions may have distinct cognitive profiles that could be detected by means of neuropsychological testing. The objective was to examine the early differential cognitive feature between FLD and AD., Patients and Methods: Twelve patients with FLD, 20 patients with AD, and 20 normal subjects matched for age and educational level were evaluated with the Folstein Mini Mental State Examination, the Signoret Memory Battery, the Boston Naming Test, Verbal Fluency (FAS), the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, and the Trail Making Test. The FLD patients met the Lund and Manchester criteria, and the AD patients met the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke-Alzheimer Disease and Related Disorders Association (NINDS-ADRDA) criteria for clinically probable AD., Results: FLD and AD patients were matched for the severity of dementia using the Global Deterioration Scale (3.8 +/- 0.3 versus 3.9 +/- 0.5 respectively). Mean Z scores were calculated in order to facilitate the comparison between the neuropsychological profiles obtained. FLD patients scored significantly better than AD patients in memory test, calculation, visuospatial abilities, and the naming test. AD patients performed better on executive tasks., Conclusion: These findings suggest that neuropsychological examination may be useful in differential diagnosis between FLD and AD