BACKGROUND Chronic prenatal alcohol exposure causes a spectrum of deleterious effects in offspring, collectively termed fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), and deficits in executive function are prevalent in FASD. The goal of this research was to test the hypothesis that children with FASD exhibit performance deficits in tasks that assess attention, planning and spatial working memory. M...

Studies have shown that Allium sativum L. (AS) protects amyloid-beta peptide-induced apoptosis, prevents oxidative insults to neurons and synapses, and thus prevent Alzheimer's disease progression in experimental animals. However, there is no experimental evidence in human regarding its putative role in memory and cognition. We have studied the effect of AS consumption by healthy human voluntee...

OBJECTIVE To experimentally examine if adolescents with excess weight are more sensitive to social stress and hence more sensitive to harmful effects of stress in cognition. DESIGN AND METHODS We conducted an experimental study in 84 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years old classified in two groups based on age adjusted Body Mass Index percentile: Normal weight (n=42) and Excess weight (n=42). Bot...

OBJECTIVE An inverse relationship between blood pressure (BP) and cognitive function has been found in adults, but limited data are available in adolescents and young adults. We examined the prospective relation between BP and cognitive function in adolescence. METHODS We examined the association between BP measured at the ages of 12-15 years in school surveys and cognitive endpoints measured...

BACKGROUND Interest in the neuro-cognitive profile of patients with schizophrenia and co-morbid obsessive compulsive disorder (schizo-OCD) is rising in response to reports of high co-morbidity rates. Whereas schizophrenia has been associated with global impairment in a wide range of neuro-cognitive domains, OCD is associated with specific deficits featuring impaired performance on tasks of moto...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of age-related cognitive changes in a visuomotor learning task that depends on strategic control and contrast it with the effect in a task principally depending on visuomotor recalibration. METHODS Participants performed a ball throwing task while donning either a reversing dove prism or a displacement wedge prism, which mainly depend on strategic control or v...

In light of the number of studies conducted to examine the treatment of cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia (CIAS), we critically reviewed recent CIAS trials. Trials were identified through searches of the website "www.clinicaltrials.gov" using the terms "schizophrenia AND cognition," "schizophrenia AND neurocognition," "schizophrenia AND neurocognitive tests," "schizophrenia AND...

BACKGROUND A wide range of evidence supports the methylphenidate (MPH)-induced enhancement of prefrontal cortex (PFC) functioning and improvements in behavioral symptoms in patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Although working memory (WM) has been hypothesized to be impaired in patients with ADHD, no pharmacological studies have examined visuospatial WM (VSWM) with nea...

OBJECTIVES To examine cognitive function in chronic fatigue syndrome. METHODS Twenty patients with chronic fatigue syndrome recruited from primary care and 20 matched normal controls were given CANTAB computerised tests of visuospatial memory, attention, and executive function, and verbal tests of letter and category fluency and word association learning. RESULTS Patients with chronic fatig...