To examine the relative influence of speed of information processing versus working memory ability, CFS participants with psychiatric comorbidity (CFS–Psych) and CFS without a psychiatric history (CFS–noPsych) were examined on tests of visual and auditory processing speed and visual and auditory working memory. Compared to healthy controls (HC) and a group of participants with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the CFS–noPsych group displayed significantly reduced performance on tests of information processing speed, but not on tests of working memory. No significant differences were observed between the CFS–Psych group and any other group in the study. The implications of group heterogeneity on the understanding of cognitive impairment in CFS are discussed. (JINS, 2004, 10, 101–109.)

Risk taking in a large cohort of adults (N = 177; ages 17–73) decreased with age, demonstrated by performance on a computer based gambling task, which has previously been shown to be sensitive to certain pharmacological manipulations including tryptophan depletion, lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex and neuropsychiatric disorders such as mania. Aging was also associated with longer deliberation times, poorer decision making, reduced risk taking, but no significant change in delay aversion. Subjects with a higher (NART-estimated) IQ were faster to make decisions and showed a greater modulation of risk-taking. Both sexes showed similar patterns of decision making, although male participants exhibited a greater modulation of risk-taking in response to the probability of winning. The Decision-Gamble task provides a variety of behavioral measures, corresponding to different aspects of impulsivity. Factor analysis of these measures suggested that two independent traits underlies performance on the task in normal individuals: one associated with risk tolerance, and a second associated with delay aversion. Age was related to decreases in the risk tolerance factor, but unrelated to the delay aversion; neither factor was significantly related to verbal IQ. This study thus provides support for the concept that impulsivity can be fractionated into 2 or more components. (JINS, 2004, 10, 590–598.)

Alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) is marked by remote memory impairment together with characteristic profound anterograde memory deficits. Despite previous studies of memory processes in KS, questions remain regarding the nature and severity of these impairments and identification of brain systems that underlie these different memory impairments. This study examined remote and anterograde memory function in 5 KS patients in comparison with 8 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 24 normal control subjects (NC). In addition, relationships between memory performance and regional brain volumes were examined in the KS group. Overall, the KS group showed severe impairment on both remote and anterograde memory measures, performing at the level of the AD group on most measures. Differences were observed on the pattern of temporal gradient for verbal recognition, with KS exhibiting a more steeply graded rate of decline over the most recent period examined. Severity of the remote memory deficit in KS was not associated with severity of anterograde memory deficit. Examination of brain structure–function relationships in the KS subjects revealed that photo naming of remote historical information was related to posterior cortical white matter volumes but not hippocampal volumes; sequencing was related to prefrontal but not hippocampal volumes. By contrast, a measure of anterograde memory for nonverbal visual material showed a relationship to hippocampal but not regional cortical white matter volumes. This set of dissociations, which parallels that observed in our earlier study of AD, is now documented in KS and provides further evidence that these separate cortical and limbic brain systems are principal neural substrates of the remote and anterograde memory and sequencing deficits in KS. (JINS, 2004, 10, 427–441.)

Due to space limitations I have chosen to confine my reply to the comments by Temkin (this issue, pp. 899–901) that touch most directly the concepts of practice effects and reliable change. Temkin seems to portray my adherence to the classic approach as a private affair. However, Temkin herself (Temkin et al., 1999) reported to utilize the most widely applied procedures of Jacobson and Truax and of Chelune et al., which are based on the classic approach. For unexplained reasons they had substituted a different standard error. The unsatisfactory justification later given in their reply to Hinton-Bayre's (2000) letter revealed the presumably actual reason: unfamiliarity with psychometrics including the classical test theory (CTT). Not surprisingly, Temkin ignores this historical aspect in her comment. Nevertheless, the new post-hoc arguments she brings up deserve, of course, a fair evaluation.

Obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) is a well-recognized clinical sleep disorder that results in chronically fragmented sleep and recurrent hypoxemia. The primary daytime sequelae of the disorder include patient reports of excessive daytime sleepiness, depression, and attention and concentration problems. It has been well established that OSAHS negatively impacts certain aspects of cognitive functioning. The primary goals of this article are to (1) clarify the pattern of cognitive deficits that are specific to OSAHS; (2) identify the specific cognitive domains that improve with treatment; and (3) elucidate the possible mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction in OSAHS. At the conclusion of the paper, we propose a potential neurofunctional theory to account for the etiology of cognitive deficits in OSAHS. Thirty-seven peer-reviewed articles were selected for this review. In general, findings were equivocal for most cognitive domains. Treatment, however, was noted to improve attention/vigilance in most studies and consistently did not improve constructional abilities or psychomotor functioning. The results are discussed in the context of a neurofunctional theory for the effects of OSAHS on the brain. (JINS, 2004, 10, 772–785.)

One hundred and ninety-five participants in the Cincinnati Lead Study were neuropsychologically evaluated in mid-adolescence. The neuropsychological measures yielded five factors labeled Memory, Learning/IQ, Attention, Visuoconstruction, and Fine-Motor. Prenatal, Average Childhood, and 78 month blood lead (PbB) levels were used in a series of multiple regression analyses. Following rigorous covariate pretesting and adjustment, a significant main effect of 78 month PbB on the Fine-Motor factor was found (p < .004). Significant interactions were also found between gender and lead exposure parameters for both Attention and Visuoconstruction indicating heightened risk in males. Finally, a trend toward significance was found for the PbB × SES interaction for Learning/IQ, consistent with previous evidence of increased educational and cognitive vulnerability for youth from more disadvantaged backgrounds. These results provide new evidence from the longest continuing prospective study of the remote effects of early lead exposure. They indicate the presence of selective neuropsychological effects in this population, and also that males and females are not uniformly affected. These results also underscore the complexity of models of neurobehavioral development, and the modest predictive power of any single determinant. (JINS, 2004, 10, 261–270.)

In a recent study, we empirically demonstrated limitations in traditional ways that psychologists have used factor analysis to define cognitive constructs (Delis et al., 2003). Our criticism of factor analysis was not directed at this statistical method per se, but rather at how it has often been employed by psychologists to test cognitive constructs. Specifically, we pointed out shortcomings in using this technique with normal or mixed clinical populations. We argued that the factor-analytic studies of memory tests with normal or mixed clinical populations often yielded solutions in which measures of immediate and delayed memory loaded on the same factor. This particular use of factor analysis can mask important distinctions between critical cognitive functions that have been demonstrated using other research methods, such as experimental manipulations or case studies. We then conducted a factor-analytic study that empirically demonstrated that, whereas immediate and delayed memory measures load on the same factor when using normal or mixed clinical samples, these measures load on separate factors when using a homogenous population of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). We drew the conclusion that factor analytic techniques can still be used as one method for exploring conceptual relationships, but only if these methods are used as part of a systematic, programmatic exploration involving separate confirmatory factor analyses using multiple homogenous patient populations. In the first published reply to our study, Larrabee (2003) pointed out other limitations, stating that application of factor-analytic techniques to a single test that yields multiple measures may result in global, simplistic solutions due to method variance, which is the tendency of different variables from the same test to correlate significantly.

Nearly 3,000,000 people in the United States, and over 100,000,000 people worldwide, are infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), with an increasing trajectory for the foreseeable future (Alter et al., 1999). While hepatic encephalopathy has been long recognized as a disorder associated with cerebral structural, metabolic, and cognitive changes (e.g., Tarter et al., 1989), HCV infection itself is increasingly associated with changes in the brain, even in the absence of hyperammonemia. Specifically, HCV-infected individuals may have deficits in cognitive functions such as attention, working memory, and speed of information processing (Forton et al., 2002; Hilsabeck et al., 2002). They may also have abnormalities on magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), a non-invasive method to measure cerebral metabolites. The most reliably measured compounds using a standard 1.5 Tesla MRI scanner are N-acetylaspartate (NAA), a marker of neuronal integrity; choline and choline-containing compounds (Cho), a measure of cell membrane turnover and lipid changes; myo-Inositol (Ins), a possible indicator of glial proliferation and/or osmolar changes; and creatine+phosphocreatine (Cr), an indicator of high energy stores that is often used as a relative standard for other metabolites. In the first studies of HCV using MRS, Forton et al. (2001; 2002) found elevated Cho/Cr in the frontal white matter and basal ganglia in patients with HCV. In addition patients with two or more impaired neuropsychological test performances had higher Cho/Cr compared to those with less than two impaired test performances.Dr. Erin D. Bigler served as Action Editor during the course of this review.

This study investigated two mechanism-based treatments for expressive aprosodia, a disturbance in emotional prosody thought to be governed by the right hemisphere. The 3 participants all suffered right CVA's resulting in expressive aprosodia. Presence of expressive aprosodia was determined by performance on two batteries of emotional communication. A single subject ABAC design was employed in which two treatments, one imitative and one cognitive linguistic, were assigned in random order. All participants in this study were randomly assigned to begin with the cognitive linguistic treatment. Probes of treated and untreated emotions were completed during baseline and therapy phases. Probe items were judged by a reliable, trained rater blind to time of testing. Visual and statistical analyses were completed. These analyses confirmed that both treatments were active. For example, effect size calculations confirmed modest to substantial treatment effects for both treatments in all 3 patients. Replication to increase confidence about treatment effect and enhance understanding of the neuromechanisms underlying aprosodia is underway. (JINS, 2004, 10, 786–793.)

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between the subjective report of feeling foggy at one-week post concussion and acute neuropsychological outcome. The outcome variables were derived from a computerized neuropsychological screening battery, Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT). Participants were 110 high school students who sustained a sports-related concussion and were evaluated 5–10 days post injury (M = 6.8 days). Athletes were divided into two groups on the basis of self-reported fogginess. The first group reported no fogginess (n = 91), whereas the second group reported experiencing some degree of fogginess (n = 19) on a 6-point scale. The athletes with persistent fogginess experienced a large number of other post-concussion symptoms, compared to the athletes with no reported fogginess. In addition, the athletes with persistent fogginess had significantly slower reaction times, reduced memory performance, and slower processing speed. Thus, athletes with any degree of self-reported fogginess at one-week post injury are likely to have adverse effects from their concussions in multiple domains. (JINS, 2004, 10, 904–906.)

Paul Broca's famous case reports of language impairment following left hemisphere lesions were issued in the 1860s. Since that time, much has been written about the assessment, typology, and neural underpinnings of aphasia. The two books we had the pleasure of reading and reviewing, Assessment of Aphasia and Aphasia and its Therapy, present well thought out and thorough reviews of aphasia literature, the first focusing on assessment issues, the latter focusing more on issues of and theoretical approaches to treatment. The books are united in their insistence that the field of aphasia research, from assessment to rehabilitation, be grounded in theory and a defensible conceptual model. This overarching theme presents itself throughout the entire corpus of both texts. Just as the clinician conducts a thorough assessment before initiating treatment, so too will this review begin with the book focused predominantly on aphasia assessment, before moving on to aphasia therapy.

Deficits in attention are a hallmark of the effects of heavy prenatal alcohol exposure but although such deficits have been described in the literature, no attempt to use measures of attention to classify children with such exposure has been described. Thus, the current study attempted to classify children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure (ALC) and non-exposed controls (CON), using four measures of attentional functioning: the Freedom from Distractibility index from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Third Edition (WISC–III), the Attention Problems scale from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), and omission and commission error scores from the Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA). Data from two groups of children were analyzed: children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure and non-exposed controls. Children in the alcohol-exposed group included both children with or without fetal alcohol syndrome. Groups were matched on age, sex, ethnicity, and social class. Data were analyzed using backward logistic regression. The final model included the Freedom from Distractibility index from the WISC–III and the Attention Problems scale from the CBCL. The TOVA variables were not retained in the final model. Classification accuracy was 91.7% overall. Specifically, 93.3% of the alcohol-exposed children and 90% of the control children were accurately classified. These data indicate that children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure can be distinguished from non-exposed controls with a high degree of accuracy using 2 commonly used measures of attention. (JINS, 2004, 10, 271–277.)

Thirty studies published between 1977 and 2001 that focus on outcome following unruptured intracranial aneurysm (UIA) treatment are reviewed. Although findings from these studies suggest outcome from UIA treatment is reasonably good (between 5% and 25% morbidity and between 0–7% mortality), many of the complex issues associated with the treatment of UIAs remain controversial. Most of the studies reviewed address outcome in terms of mortality and neurological morbidity. Very few studies exist which include measures of outcome such as cognitive status, psychosocial functioning and quality of life. Given that patients facing treatment tend to be healthy middle-aged adults with many years of active working and social life ahead of them, it is important to take into account the long-term consequences of either harboring an UIA, or having it treated. The small number of studies that include cognitive, psychosocial and quality of life outcomes are reviewed in some detail and suggestions made for improving future UIA outcome research. (JINS, 2004, 10, 114–134.)

We examined change in neuropsychological test performance related to type 2 diabetes mellitus across a 6-year interval. A population-based sample of 274 elderly participants (36 with diabetes and 238 without diabetes) was examined at four occasions at a 2-year interval. The participants were 80–93 years of age (M = 82.8 years) and without dementia at baseline. The test battery included tests of speed, visuospatial ability, short-term memory, semantic memory, episodic memory, and the Mini Mental Status Examination. Several models, taking into account diabetes and demographic data, were analyzed using SAS Proc Mixed multilevel modeling. At baseline, there were no significant differences in the neuropsychological tests related to diabetes. The longitudinal analyses, however, showed that diabetes was a significant predictor of decline for many of the tests. These findings points to the conclusion that type 2 diabetes is associated with accelerated cognitive decline in old age that may result in dementia. (JINS, 2004, 10, 599–607.)

There are several magnetic resonance (MR) imaging methods to measure brain volume and cerebral atrophy; however, the best measure for examining potential relationships between such measures and neuropsychological performance has not been established. Relationships between seven measures of MR derived brain volume or indices of atrophy and neuropsychological performance in the elderly subjects of the population-based Cache County, Utah Study of Aging and Memory (n = 195) were evaluated. The seven MR measures included uncorrected total brain volume (TBV), TBV corrected by total intracranial volume (TICV), TBV corrected by the ratio of the individuals TICV by group TICV (TBVC), a ventricle-to-brain ratio (VBR), total ventricular volume (TVV), TVV corrected by TICV, and a measure of parenchymal volume loss. The cases from the Cache County Study were comprised of elderly individuals classified into one of four subject groups based on a consensus diagnostic process, independent of quantitative MR imaging findings. The groups included subjects with Alzheimer's disease (AD, n = 85), no dementia but mild/ambiguous (M/A) deficits (n = 30), a group of subjects with non-AD dementia or neuropsychiatric disorder including vascular dementia (n = 60), and control subjects (n = 20). Neuropsychological performance was based on the Mini-Mental Status Exam (MMSE) and an expanded neuropsychological test battery (consortium to establish a registry for Alzheimer's disease (CERAD). The results demonstrated that the various quantitative MR measures were highly interrelated and no single measure was statistically superior. However, TBVC, TBV/TICV and VBR consistently exhibited the more robust relationships with neuropsychological performance. These results suggest that a single corrected brain volume measure or index is sufficient in studies examining global MR indicators of cerebral atrophy in relation to cognitive function and recommends use of either TBVC, TBV/TICV, or VBR. (JINS, 2004, 10, 442–452.)

Studies have found that infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) leads to cognitive dysfunction. In fact, attention problems have been reported to be the most frequent cognitive symptom in HIV-infected adults. One question is how early in the course of information processing can attention impairment be detected? To address this issue, performance on a perceptual span task was examined in 54 HIV-infected adults and 19 seronegative controls. In this task a target had to be identified in a briefly presented (50 ms) array of 1, 4, or 12 letter-characters. Response accuracy was differentially worse in the HIV+ group relative to seronegative controls in the most difficult condition, the 12-item array, but not in the easier conditions. There was no evidence of a group difference in response strategy due to disinhibition or in psychomotor speed. These data suggest that HIV infection leads to a reduction in early visual processing capacity (or span of apprehension). The present results illustrate a new type of attentional deficit in HIV and show the impact of HIV on cognition at an earlier point in information processing than has been previously reported. (JINS, 2004, 10, 135–140.)

This is an edited collection of papers that focuses on various aspects of the most recent revision of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS–III) and Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS–III). The papers in this volume fall into three broad areas. The first section of the book (and part of one of the subsequent chapters) provides an overview of the history of the development of measures of memory and intelligence, with particular emphasis on the Wechsler scales. These chapters are thoroughly delightful, and the only shortcoming is that they are too brief. Indeed, though over 100 pages are devoted to this topic, there are a number of questions about the measures which could have been answered but weren't. (For example, given the cost and time pressures on psychological assessment, why were the tests—particularly the WMS–III—lengthened? Why, for example, include a measure of list learning when Psychological Corporation already published the California Verbal Learning Test? Why, after all these years, hasn't the WAIS Information subtest been dropped or the content made less specific to the United States? What led to the decision to include a verbally mediated measure of visual memory on the WMS–III, a decision which can make it harder to evaluate visual memory in aphasics?) Given how involved they were in the revisions of the WAIS and WMS, the editors would appear to have been uniquely positioned to provide a more in-depth discussion of the issues that arose during this process and how these issues were resolved.

Autopsy studies were undertaken in a 47-year-old college-educated male patient who, 7 months prior to an unexpected death, had sustained a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) as manifested by brief loss of consciousness and an initial Glasgow Coma Scale score of 14. The patient died from cardiac arrest secondary to an undiagnosed and unknown arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease as assessed by the coroner's office at the time of autopsy. Gross inspection of the brain at autopsy was normal; however, microscopic analysis demonstrated what were considered trauma findings of hemosiderin-laden macrophages in the perivascular space and macrophages in the white matter, particularly the section taken from the frontal lobe. The patient had partially returned to work at the time of death, but had encountered problems with diminished cognitive performance in his work as an appraiser. Neuropsychological studies were generally within normal limits although several tests of either speed of processing or short-term memory showed lower than expected performance. This case demonstrates the presence of subtle neuropathological changes in the brain of a patient who sustained a mild TBI and was still symptomatic for the residual effects of the injury 7 months post injury when he unexpectedly died. (JINS, 2004, 10, 794–806.)

A meta-analysis of 68 studies with a total of 4644 participants was conducted to investigate the sensitivity of tests of verbal fluency to the presence of Parkinson's disease (PD) relative to healthy controls. Both phonemic and semantic fluency were moderately impaired but neither deficit qualified as a differential deficit relative to verbal intelligence or psychomotor speed. However, PD patients were significantly more impaired on semantic relative to phonemic fluency (rs = .37 vs. .33, respectively), and confrontation naming, a test of semantic memory that imposes only minimal demands upon cognitive speed and effortful retrieval, was associated with a deficit that was of a comparable magnitude to the deficits upon each of these types of fluency. Thus, the disorder appears to be associated with particular problems with semantic memory. Tests that impose heavy demands upon switching may also be disproportionately affected. Demented and non-demented PD patients differ quantitatively but not qualitatively in terms of the relative prominence of deficits on tests of phonemic and semantic fluency. However, patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type and demented PD patients can be differentiated from one another by the relative magnitude of deficits upon these two measures. (JINS, 2004, 10, 608–622.)

The degree of neuropsychological dysfunction across multiple domains was examined in individuals suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). In this descriptive study, a similar series of neuropsychological tests was administered to a group of CFS patients and healthy participants. More specifically, CFS patients (n = 141) who met the 1994 Case Definition criteria were compared to 76 healthy control participants on tests of memory, attention (concentration), speed of information processing, motor speed, and executive functioning. On the 18 measures administered, CFS patients scored 1 standard deviation below the healthy mean on nine measures and scored 2 standard deviations below the healthy mean on four of the measures. Moreover, results indicated that CFS patients were more likely than healthy controls to fail (1.6 SD below the healthy mean) at least one test in each of the following domains: attention, speed of information processing, and motor speed, but not on measures of memory and executive functioning. Finally, CFS patients demonstrated a greater total number of tests failed across domains. (JINS, 2004, 10, 278–285.)