The purpose of this study was to further analyze the effects of education across different age ranges on neuropsychological test performance. Two different analyses were performed. The first analysis was conducted in order to pinpoint the impact of school attendance on neuropsychological testing. A group of 64 illiterate normal subjects was selected in the Mexican Republic. Their performance wa...

The abbreviated Barcelona Test (a-BT) is an instrument widely used in Spain and Latin American countries for general neuropsychological assessment. The purpose of the present study was to provide new norms for the a-BT as part of the Neuronorma project. The sample consisted of 346 healthy controls. Overlapping cell procedure and midpoint techniques were applied to develop the normative data. Ag...

In order to define the factor structure of nonverbal cognitive processes, 156 twenty to sixty year-old participants were selected in Medellin (Colombia). A neuropsychological test battery for assessing different nonverbal cognitive domains (attention, memory, visuoperceptual and visuoconstructive abilities. executive functions, praxis abilities, and written calculation abilities) was administer...

During the past two decades clinical and research efforts have led to increasingly sophisticated and effective methods and instruments designed to detect exaggeration or fabrication of neuropsychological dysfunction, as well as somatic and psychological symptom complaints. A vast literature based on relevant research has emerged and substantial portions of professional meetings attended by clin...

Estimates of controlled and automatic processes hypothesized to underlie performance in a memory task and in an attention task were derived for 115 participants from 18 to 78 years of age using the process-dissociation procedure. Participants also performed speed and neuropsychological tests that were suspected to be negatively related to age. Process estimates showed good reliability (from .76...

This study sought to determine whether cannabis users demonstrate differential effort during neuropsychological assessment compared to nonusers, and whether better performance can be induced in participants with a motivational statement prior to testing. For two groups of participants, cannabis users and nonusers, either a motivational or a neutral statement was administered prior to neuropsych...

Recently, much research has focused on the development and utilization of various motivational assessment techniques designed to identify malingered neuropsychological test performance. Other findings have suggested a strong link between the motivation of the subject and the degree to which the neuropsychological test results validly represent the individual's true level of functioning. However...

Two groups of 20 head-injured subjects were studied. One group was involved in litigation related to the head injury and the other group was not involved in litigation. Every subject had been tested twice, with the intertest mean interval for the two groups ranging from 12.00 to 14.45 months, a statistically insignificant difference. Two indexes of consistency of test-retest performance, which ...

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is highly expressed in the hippocampus of many species, including humans. The single-nucleotide polymorphism rs6265 on the BDNF gene is thought to alter activity-dependent secretion of the protein, and previous research suggests that the Met allele is associated with smaller hippocampal volumes and poorer memory performance in human populations. For this...

Conation, which involves the ability to apply oneself diligently and productively to the completion of a task over time, was compared in groups with and without evidence of brain damage. Both groups were administered tests that ranged from tasks that were presented by an examiner one item at a time (minimal conation), to a task that required the subject to work independently for 30 minutes, wit...