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Background Few studies looked at the association between gait variability and executive subdomains (ESD). The aim of this study was to examine the association between ESD (i.e., information updating and monitoring) and stride time variability among healthy older adults. Methods Seventy-eight healthy older adults (mean age 69.9 ± 0.9 years, 59% women) were divided into 3 groups according to stride time variability (STV) tertiles while steady state walking. Coefficient of variation of stride time was used as a marker of STV. Scores on cognitive tests evaluating information updating and monitoring (Digit Span test), mental shifting (Trail Making Test part A and part B) and cognitive inhibition (Stroop Color Word test) were used as measures of ESD. Results The full adjusted and the stepwise backward logistic regression models showed that the highest tertile (i.e., the worst performance) of STV was only associated with lower Digit Span performance (Odds ratio = 0.78 with P = 0.020 and Odds ratio = 0.81 with P = 0.019). Conclusions Information updating and monitoring are associated with STV in the sample of studied participants, suggesting that walking may be a complex motor task depending specifically of this subdomain of executive functions.

Many studies have shown that individuals with neurodegenerative diseases are a risk factor for being involved in a traffic accident. However, driving is critical for social integration and independence in daily life. Lack of consensus and standardized assessment of driving abilities in these patients is problematic. This article summarizes the various multidisciplinary evaluations proposed, their limits, and the societal issues raised by such an evaluation. Several neuropsychological theoretical models have attempted to describe the cognitive processes involved in car driving. Moreover, several studies have sought to determine which cognitive functions are impaired in distinct disorders and best explained driving errors. We here describe the relationships between neuropsychological performance and driving abilities for the most frequent neurodegenerative disorders. It appears that a full neuropsychological assessment is necessary to determine accurately which patients are at risk of dangerous driving. In particular, cognitive impairments in attention, visual-spatial abilities, executive functions, and/or information processing speed appear to be the most likely involved in driving errors.

International audience; The current study investigates the specific role of three executive functions in the explanation of performance variability on laboratory and naturalistic time-based prospective memory tasks in aging. Ninety people aged 18 to 80 years performed three executive tasks assessing inhibition, flexibility and updating, one laboratory time-based task and one naturalistic time-based task. The results indicate that age has a negative impact on the laboratory time-based task and a positive impact on the naturalistic task. The mediation analysis shows that inhibition and flexibility operate as a mediator in the negative relationship between age and the laboratory time-based task. Additionally, the hierarchical regression analyses show that, after controlling for age, none of the executive functions evaluated is predictive of performance of the naturalistic time-based task. Overall, these results seem to suggest that different cognitive processes underlie the performance on naturalistic and on laboratory time-based tasks. Future studies should confirm these results.; Cette recherche étudie le rôle spécifique de trois fonctions exécutives dans l’explication des différences de performances à des tâches de mémoire prospective time-based conduites en laboratoire et en milieu naturel au cours du vieillissement. Quatre-vingt-dix adultes âgés de 18 à 80 ans ont effectué trois tâches évaluant l’inhibition, la flexibilité et la mise à jour, une tâche time-based de laboratoire et une tâche time-based naturelle. Les résultats ont montré que l’âge a un effet négatif sur la tâche time-based de laboratoire et un effet positif sur la tâche naturelle. L’inhibition et la flexibilité médiatisent totalement l’effet de l’âge sur la performance à la tâche de laboratoire. Par ailleurs, après contrôle des effets de l’âge, aucune des fonctions exécutives évaluées n’est prédictrice de la performance à la tâche naturelle. Ces résultats semblent suggérer que les performances à des tâches time-based de laboratoire et naturelles pourraient être sous-tendues par des processus cognitifs différents. Des études futures devraient permettre de confirmer ces résultats.

International audience; Until recently, little was known about destination memory, or memory for the destination of outputted information. In the present work, this memory was evaluated in 32 older adults and 36 younger adults, who had to associate proverbs to pictures of famous people and decide, on a subsequent recognition task, whether they had previously told that proverb to that face or not. When deciding about the destination, participants had to provide contextual judgment, that is, whether each picture had been previously exposed in color or in black and white. Participants also performed a neuropsychological battery tapping episodic memory and executive functions. Findings showed poor destination recall in older participants. Destination recall in older adults was reliably predicted by with their context recall. Destination memory seems to be particularly affected by aging, a deterioration that can be related to deficits in processing contextual features during encoding.

Early impairment of the cognitive and behavioral executive processes are found in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) as well as in Alzheimer's disease (AD). These processes are strongly linked to autonomy in daily living because they are involved in our adaptation to many new situations.To evaluate the executive processes and their links with autonomy, we compared 20 control subjects to 20 patients with MCI, and 20 patients with early AD. All participants completed three executive cognitive task, according to the Miyake's model: set-shifting was assessed by the Trail Making Task, inhibition control by the Hayling test, and working memory by the Updating test. They also completed the Lille Apathy Rating Scale (Lars) evaluating four components of apathy. The autonomy, conceptualized as competency in four domains of daily-living, was evaluated by the Patient Competency Rating Scale (PCRS), completed by a close relative.Control subjects showed higher scores than both clinical groups on the TMT time completion. AD group showed a tendency to make more errors than the control subjects on Hayling test, whereas MCI group didn't differ from the other groups. No other group effect was found on the executive dependent variables. Both MCI and Alzheimer groups had higher scores of apathy than the control group on the Lars total score and its three components. Similar results were found on the PCRS and the Lars three subscales. The best predictors of autonomy were the TMT time completion and the total Lars score.Loss of competency is found in MCI as well as in AD and is correlate to set-shifting and apathy.

This study highlights the incongruence of geriatric institutions to set up activities for elderly people without taking into account the circadian fluctuations of cognitive processes related to circadian rhythms. By example, rehabilitation for falls is based on the indication given by the therapist (instruction), its integration and assimilation by the patient (comprehension), and the resulting action (execution). However, the recorded information and the execution may present a shift of phase and even an opposition of phase. The Test of Folding a Rhombus (TFR) was conceived to assess the fluctuation and articulation of these processes. It was proposed to 60 elderly individuals divided into 2 groups (30 subjects with cognitive disorders - case group - and 30 subjects without cognitive disturbance - control group -), and was applied at different time schedules of the day (8:00, 11:00, 15:00 and 18:00 h) once a week during 4 weeks. Its purpose was to quantify the relationship between automatic and controlled processes. Statistical analysis indicates significant circadian differences during the evolution of the two processes between the case and control groups. Simple, fast and easy to use, the TFR can also help professionals to choose the best automatic or controlled processes activity according to the need of patients.

We have examined and diagnosed confabulation in a 20-year-old woman who had suffered severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) when she was 12. Spontaneous confabulations were associated with dysexecutive behavior involving perseveration and impulsiveness. The patient was amnesic during neuropsychological tests but did not present intrusion, confabulation or false recognition. She could evoke self-constitutive autobiographical events accurately and without fantasizing. The only difference between her false and true recollections is that the patient could never envision herself as an actor in a scene involving confabulation. She succeeded, albeit slowly, in carrying out the classic executive tests: Stroop, Trail Making A and B and Wisconsin Card Sorting (WCST). She showed particularly slow reaction time and was impulsive and hurried in her performance of the D2 attention test, the errands (Martin) test and the chocolate cake test. Her working memory was significantly impaired. A peculiar inability to inhibit the generation of fictional constructions may reflect a problem in control of short-term memory. Diagnosis of the confabulation phenomenon has had three clinical consequences: 1) information has been given to the patient, her family and other people close to her; 2) reeducation by means of voluntary memory control prior to speaking has been proposed; 3) reporting on the case has been improved.

Resume Introduction Nombre d’enfants nes prematurement ont des difficultes attentionnelles et des comportements d’hyperactivite qui sembleraient lies aux deficits des fonctions executives. Objectif Examiner si le suivi propose au niveau national en Suisse aux enfants nes prematurement permet la detection des problemes executifs. Methodes Quarante-neuf enfants nes avant 29 semaines de gestation et examines entre 5 et 6 ans dans le cadre du suivi neurodeveloppemental standard comprenant l’evaluation cognitive avec les trois echelles du K-ABC (Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children), les processus mentaux composites (PMC), sequentiels et simultanes, et l’evaluation du comportement (SDQ pour Strenghts and Difficulties Questionnaire). Les fonctions executives ont ete evaluees par des epreuves neuropsychologiques supplementaires testant l’attention, l’inhibition, la memoire de travail et par un questionnaire parental (BRIEF pour Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function). La valeur discriminative des epreuves standard (K-ABC et SDQ) pour les troubles executifs a ete examinee. Resultats Si l’echelle PMC discriminait peu les resultats obtenus aux tests neuropsychologiques, un score inferieur a 85 aux processus sequentiels etait associe a une diminution significative des capacites attentionnelles. Le questionnaire SDQ permettait egalement une bonne discrimination des enfants presentant des difficultes explorees par le BRIEF. Conclusion Une analyse fine des resultats obtenus lors du suivi standard permet de cerner les difficultes des enfants nes prematurement : un resultat faible au niveau des processus sequentiels semble predicteur de performances attentionnelles deficitaires. Les difficultes comportementales en lien avec les troubles executifs semblent bien depistees par le SDQ. Il est important de detecter ces enfants, de les suivre avec des epreuves specifiques si necessaire et de favoriser des mesures de soutien.

The rate of children born prematurely has increased considerably in the last few decades, and their developmental outcome remains of great concern. The literature on the impact of prematurity has reported a wide range of cognitive and behavioral problems that may be related to deficits in executive function (EF) skills. EF refers to a series of high-level processes (selective attention, inhibition, set shifting, working memory, planning, goal setting) that develop throughout childhood and adolescence and play an important role in cognitive and social development as well as in school achievement. EF skills have been linked to the prefrontal cortex, as well as to other neural networks and brain regions including the basal ganglia and cerebellum. This paper focuses on studies related to the development of EF and social behavior in children born preterm. The preschool period is a critical time to perform neuropsychological assessment in addition to IQ testing, and to detect the child's specific needs in order to adapt effective intervention to enhance the development of executive processes in these high-risk children.