The current study presents both longitudinal behavioral data and functional activation data documenting the effects of early focal brain injury on the development of spatial analytic processing in two children, one with prenatal left hemisphere (LH) injury and one with right hemisphere (RH) injury. A substantial body of evidence has shown that adults and children with early, lateralized brain injury show evidence of spatial analytic deficits. LH injury compromises the ability to encode the parts of a spatial pattern, while RH injury impairs pattern integration. The two children described in this report show patterns of deficit consistent with the site of their injury. In the current study, their longitudinal behavioral data spanning the age range from preschool to adolescence are presented in conjunction with data from a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of spatial processing. The activation results provide evidence that alternative profiles of neural organization can arise following early focal brain injury, and document where in the brain spatial functions are carried out when regions that normally mediate them are damaged. In addition, the coupling of the activation with the behavioral data allows us to go beyond the simple mapping of functional sites, to ask questions about how those sites may have come to mediate the spatial functions. (JINS, 2003, 9, 604–622.)

Patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder (BPD), by definition, have problems with emotional regulation. However, it remains uncertain whether these patients are also deficient at processing other people's emotions, particularly while manic. The present study examined the ability of 25 manic bipolar patients and 25 healthy participants on tasks of facial recognition and facial affect recognition at three different presentation durations: 500 ms, 750 ms, and 1000 ms. The groups did not differ in terms of age, education, sex, ethnicity, or estimated IQ. The groups did not differ significantly on either a novel computerized facial recognition task or the Benton Facial Recognition Test. In contrast, the bipolar group performed significantly more poorly than did the comparison group on a novel facial affect labeling task. Although the patient group had slower reaction times on all 3 computerized tasks, the presentation duration did not have an effect on performance in the patients. This study suggests that patients with bipolar disorder are able to recognize faces, but have difficulty processing facial affective cues. (JINS, 2003, 9, 623–632.)

While the Kaufman Hand Movements Test (KHMT) is argued to be sensitive to cognitive impairment secondary to various forms of brain dysfunction in adults, it is unknown which cognitive processes it addresses. Dual-task research has employed tasks similar to the KHMT to determine whether such tasks assess (1) verbal or visuospatial memory, or (2) a proposed additional short-term memory component, movement memory. However findings consistent with both hypotheses have been reported. Experiment 1 involved 24 participants completing a hand movement task and a letter span task under articulatory suppression, finger movement and no interference conditions. Performance on both the hand movement task and letter span task was significantly reduced by articulatory suppression. In Experiment 2, 16 participants were administered the hand movement task and a Corsi span task under articulatory suppression, finger movement, spatial tapping, and no interference. Again, hand movement span was most reduced by articulatory suppression, in contrast to Corsi span which was most reduced by spatial tapping. Hand movement task performance was therefore assumed to rely upon verbal recoding strategies and thus the proposition of an additional component of movement memory was not supported. (JINS, 2003, 9, 633–641.)

Myelomeningocele is a common developmental malformation of the central nervous system that usually results in motor deficits. Previous studies of myelomeningocele have not examined motor adaptation, which involves changes in the control of movements that occur as a result of repeated task exposure but do not depend on conscious recall of the exposure. We studied motor adaptation in 17 children with myelomeningocele and shunted hydrocephalus, 19 children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and 20 healthy siblings. All children were 8 to 15 years of age. They were administered 2 measures of motor adaptation known to be sensitive to subcortical abnormalities in adult neurological disorders. One task assessed the biasing in weight judgments that occurs after exposure to heavy versus light weights, and the other assessed the adaptation in reaching movements that occurs when vision is laterally displaced by prisms. Contrary to expectations, the groups did not differ in motor adaptation. Children in all 3 groups displayed significant biasing in their weight judgments and improvement in the accuracy of pointing during prism adaptation trials. Performance on the 2 motor adaptation tasks was not related to age or IQ. Weight biasing was positively related to a measure of response disinhibition. The findings suggest that myelomeningocele does not result in global impairment of motor skills, but instead in a profile of intact and impaired motor functions that potentially may be decomposed in accordance with the neuroscience of motor skills. (JINS, 2003, 9, 642–652.)

As a group, children with myelomeningocele (MM) and early-onset hydrocephalus demonstrate many of the features of the syndrome of nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD). However, the frequency with which individual children display a pattern of neuropsychological functioning consistent with the NLD syndrome is unknown. We addressed this question by comparing the prevalence of NLD in 32 children with MM and shunted hydrocephalus to that in a group of 27 healthy siblings. Participants, who were between 8 and 15 years of age, completed a neuropsychological test battery that included 11 measures of possible assets and 17 measures of possible deficits that define the NLD syndrome. As a group, children with MM and shunted hydrocephalus displayed many of the specific assets and deficits. However, they also displayed significantly more variability in their patterns of assets and deficits than siblings, reflecting the substantial individual differences that characterize children with MM. About 50% of the children with myelomeningocele displayed a pattern of assets and deficits consistent with the NLD syndrome. Classification as NLD was weakly related to cumulative medical risk, as well as to left-handedness. The findings suggest a need for caution in making generalizations regarding the applicability of the NLD model to children with MM and early-onset hydrocephalus. (JINS, 2003, 9, 653–662.)

The coexistence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic head or brain injury (TBI) in the same individual has been proposed to be paradoxical. It has been argued that individuals who sustain a TBI and have no conscious memory of their trauma will not experience fear, helplessness and horror during the trauma, nor will they develop reexperiencing symptoms or establish the negative associations that underlie avoidance symptoms. However, single case reports and incidence studies suggest that PTSD can be diagnosed following TBI. We highlight critical issues in assessment, definitions, and research methods, and propose two possible resolutions of the paradox. One resolution focuses on ambiguity in the criteria for diagnosing PTSD. The other involves accepting that TBI patients do experience similar symptoms to other PTSD patients, but that there are crucial differences in symptom content. (JINS, 2003, 9, 663–676.)