Previous data have demonstrated that administration of inflammatory cytokines or their inducers leads to altered basal ganglia function associated with reduced psychomotor speed. Decreased psychomotor speed, referred to clinically as psychomotor retardation, is a cardinal symptom of major depressive disorder (MDD) and has been associated with poor antidepressant treatment response. We therefore...

Cognitive and psychomotor impairment are important considerations in the treatment of depression in the elderly due to both the underlying slowing of cognitive and psychomotor processes as a normal function of aging and the superimposed deficits associated with the disease itself. Only the latter are reversible with effective antidepressant therapy. Yet certain antidepressant drugs possess seda...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Children with specific learning disabilities (SpLD) have an unexplained difficulty in acquiring basic academic skills resulting in a significant discrepancy between their academic potential and achievements. This study was undertaken to compare the performance on a battery of six psychomotor tests of children with SpLD and those without any learning disabilities (control...

In healthy individuals and those with insomnia, poor sleep quality is associated with decrements in performance on tests of cognition, especially executive function. Sleep disturbances and cognitive deficits are both prevalent in Parkinson's disease (PD). Sleep problems occur in over 75% of patients, with sleep fragmentation and decreased sleep efficiency being the most common sleep complaints,...

BACKGROUND Elevated plasma total homocysteine (tHcy) concentrations are associated with AD and vascular dementia, but the relation with cognitive performance in nondemented elderly people is not known. OBJECTIVE To examine the association of tHcy and cognitive function in the elderly, and assess whether this may be mediated by structural brain changes on MRI. METHODS The Rotterdam Scan Stud...

BACKGROUND Although tests of psychomotor function indicate that drug effects after ambulatory anesthesia are short-lived, patients often feel washed out for long periods of time. Among the psychomotor tests that measure different motor and cognitive functions, none directly measures sleepiness or alertness. The authors hypothesized that sleepiness, measured by a sleep latency test, would be a m...

Environmental noise causes cognitive impairment, particularly in executive function and episodic memory domains, in healthy populations. However, the possible moderating influences on this relationship are less clear. This study assessed 54 healthy participants (24 men) on a cognitive battery (measuring psychomotor speed, attention, executive function, working memory, and verbal learning and me...

The purpose of the present study was to comparatively evaluate the effect of newer antihistamines on psychomotor functions in Indian population. Seventy five patient volunteers were included in the study. Volunteers were put into 5 groups based on the type of antihistamine prescribed. Group-1 volunteers included those who were prescribed no antihistamine, group-2 were prescribed first generatio...