Attention is a cognitive process crucial for human performance. It has four components: tonic alertness, phasic alertness, selective attention, and sustained attention. All the components of attention show homeostatic (time awake, sleep deprivation) and circadian (time of day) variations. The time course of the circadian rhythms in attention is important to program work and school-related activities. The components of attention reach their lowest levels during nighttime and early hours in the morning, better levels occur around noon, and even higher levels can be observed during afternoon and evening hours. However, this time course can be modulated by chronotype, sleep deprivation, age, or drugs. Homeostatic and circadian variations have also been found in other basic cognitive processes (working memory and executive functions), with a time course similar to that observed for attention. Data reviewed in this paper suggests the need to consider circadian rhythms, age, and chronotype of the person, when programming schedules for work, study, school start time, school testing, psychological testing, and neuropsychological assessment.
Executive functions are still developing during adolescence. It is important to analyse if juvenile delinquency is related to a delay in the development of these functions. The objective of this study was to analyse cognitive inhibition and flexibility, two components of executive functions, in juvenile delinquents. Participants were 81 males, 17.46 ± 1.60 years old. Three groups were compared: a juvenile delinquent inmate group (IG), an agepaired group (APG), and an age-and education-paired group (AEPG). A modified Stroop task was used to assess cognitive inhibition and flexibility. The IG and the AEPG (low-education adolescents) had significantly more difficulties than the APG on inhibition; the IG and the AEPG had no significant differences. No group differences were found on flexibility. Since all low-education adolescents have difficulties on inhibition, these difficulties are not an exclusive characteristic of juvenile delinquents. Analysis of cognitive processes in juvenile delinquents must control for education to determine how specific are the difficulties found in these adolescents.
Juvenile delinquents are young people who break the law. They are usually males of low socio-economic status and low education, and are more exposed to brain damage risk factors, especially drug use, and have a higher prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These characteristics suggest a delay in the development of the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is related to neuropsychological functions such as language, memory, attention, and executive functions. To assess the evidence of a delay in the development of prefrontal functions, a search was conducted for studies that evaluated neuropsychological functions in inmate juvenile delinquents, comparing them to a control group, and only 14 articles were found with these characteristics. The review showed that, despite methodological issues on task selection and on the composition of control groups, there is evidence that juvenile delinquents have disorders on neuropsychological functions such as language comprehension, visuospatial working memory, selective and sustained attention, and components of executive functions such as cognitive inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and planning. These findings agree with the hypothesis that there is a developmental delay in the prefrontal functions of juvenile delinquents. Understanding the deficits juvenile delinquents have on neuropsychological functions is crucial to design prevention and treatment programs for juvenile delinquency.
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