Aging has been associated with several brain changes that often affect the cognitive functioning of adults, but changes in executive functions, particularly in the field of decision making, have not been fully investigated. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is a widely used tool to evaluate decision making, but little is known about the effect of age on its results. This study used the IGT and compared healthy young (n= 40) and elderly (n = 40) adults to evaluate their decision making processes. There were significant differences in the learning curve of the two age groups, but no difference in overall IGT performance. The results for the first IGT block were different from those of the rest of the task, and the group of elderly adults had a better performance in this block. Elderly adults also showed a preference for deck A, the one that resulted in greater losses. Findings confirmed the results of other studies, which reported that the IGT block score is the variable with the greatest sensitivity to age in this instrument.

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Este estudo avaliou a capacidade discriminante de indicadores psicológicos e comportamentais frequentemente associados ao abuso sexual infantil. A amostra foi constituída por 79 crianças, de ambos os sexos, sendo 63,3% do sexo feminino (n = 50), com idades entre oito e 12 anos (M = 9,92; DP = 1,45). Os participantes foram distribuídos em três grupos: Abuso sexual (n = 34), Maus-tratos sem histórico de abuso sexual (n = 14) e Sintomas clínicos sem histórico de maus-tratos (n = 31). Foram administrados instrumentos com os responsáveis e com as crianças. Para identifi car os fatores que diferenciavam os grupos, foi realizada a Análise de regressão logística multinominal. A variável Preocupações sexuais foi signifi cativa para diferenciar o grupo Abuso sexual dos outros dois grupos. O modelo apresentou capacidade preditiva geral de classifi car corretamente 69,6% dos casos. Sugere-se que a investigação dessa variável seja incluída, entre outros indicadores, nos procedimentos periciais de crianças com suspeita de abuso sexual. Com base nos resultados obtidos, fi ca evidente que é necessário cautela no estabelecimento de associações causais entre manifestações comportamentais ou psicológicas e a hipótese de abuso sexual em crianças.

The impact of childhood maltreatment has been studied in the last decades in several countries. This study aims to provide a review of systematic reviews about the relationship between neurobiological and cognitive impairments, psychiatric disorders and child maltreatment. PsycInfo, Pubmed and Scielo databases were searched to include reviews published from 2004 to 2014. Fifteen reviews about the impact of child maltreatment were analysed. Four of them deal with the neurobiological effects, two with the cognitive damages, and nine of them with the development of psychiatric disorders throughout the victim's lifetime. The association between childhood maltreatment and the development of psychiatric disorders is the one that has received the most attention in the last few decades. The impact of maltreatment in cognition, above all in childhood, has been the least studied area; few studies, presenting conflicting results, were found.

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