Hair cadmium and lead content were related to intelligence tests, motor impairment assessments, and school achievement scores from 149 children aged 5 to 16 yr enrolled in rural Maryland public school systems. Hair cadmium and lead were significantly correlated with both intelligence scores and school achievement scores, but not motor impairment scores. Significant relations with I.Q. were obtained after regressing out demographic factors and were observed, even in children within a normal I.Q. range. Evidence of different effects of cadmium and lead on cognitive development was obtained. Hierarchical regression analyses suggest that cadmium has a significantly stronger effect on verbal I.Q. than does lead and that lead has a stronger effect on performance I.Q. than does cadmium.
SynopsisThe CAMCOG, the cognitive section of the Cambridge Examination for Mental Disorders of the Elderly (CAMDEX), was administered twice to 53 patients with a clinical diagnosis ranging from no dementia to severe dementia. The stability of the total CAMCOG score was high (0·97). Patients with less than moderate dementia were differentiated well by the total score and by subscales with a range of more than 8 points, except when education was low or age was higher than 78. Because performance on most (sub)scales is modified by age and education level, stratified norms are desirable. Only the Praxis subscale, and specifically performance on drawing tasks, appeared to be influenced by depression.
SUMMARY Patients with multiple sclerosis reported less left ear numbers but more right ear numbers than controls in a dichotic listening test. The multiple sclerosis patients were also relatively impaired on three learning tasks; one ofthese, a test for paired-associate learning ofnames and faces, correlated with left ear findings; the results are interpreted as supporting a hypothesised disconnection mechanism.Two recent studies'2 have demonstrated a lowering of left ear performance in verbal dichotic listening by patients with multiple sclerosis. Rubens et al2 proposed that this effect is caused by destruction of pathways connecting the cerebral hemispheres. Three of the questions which can be raised were addressed in this study. First, is the left ear suppression independent of general factors associated with invalidity? Second, what is the role of attentional strategies in the dichotic listening performance? Third, do the alleged disconnection effects extend to the visual sphere? SubjecbThe subjects were volunteers, recruited in a rehabilitation institute and an institute for chronic invalids. All subjects were right handed and met the audiometric criterion for inclusion (less than 10 dB ear difference at 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 Hz).The experimental group consisted of 26 patients with multiple sclerosis (12 male, 14 female). The mean age was 45-9 years; the mean education level (rated on a 7-point scale) was 4-8. The mean Kurtzke disability score was 5 8, ranging from 1 to 7. The control group consisted of 23 patients (11 male, 12 female) with chronic invalidity due to extracerebral disease (spinal lesions 18, muscular dystrophy 5). The mean age was 45*5, mean education level 4-2.The groups showed no significant differences in composition with regard to sex, age or education. Method Dichotic listening The dichotic listening tape was designed by D J Bakker and A Bouma. The items consisted of four number pairs, presented bilaterally. In Condition 1 (Free Recall) the subject was instructed to report orally as many numbers as possible after each trial. In Condition 2 (Ordered Recall) each trial was preceded by a signal specifying the ear that was to be reported first. Two rehearsal trials and 16 test trials were given in both conditions. Name learning To detect visual disconnection effects, a task for paired-associate learning of names and faces was designed. The subject was shown four pictures of male faces, with a common first name printed underneath. After this, the subject was asked to name the photographs as they were presented in a semi-random order. Errors were corrected by the examiner. The test score was the number of correct responses in 28 trials. 2 Multiple sclerosis patients would show a lower performance than controls on all three learning tasks.
Hair lead content, intelligence tests, school achievement, and motor impairment assessments were obtained from 149 public school children aged 5 to 16. Hair lead concentration significantly discriminated between groups and significantly predicted IQ scores, independent of group classifications. Regression analyses showed a significant negative correlation between lead and intellectual functioning, even in the normal to gifted IQ range. These results demonstrate a continuous inverse relationship between intelligence and relatively low levels of body lead in which the higher levels of cognitive function are affected before any signs of gross motor impairment are seen.
BackgroundIn our aging population, cognitive decline and brain health are critical areas of concern for healthy aging. Evidence has shown that personality factors such as self‐efficacy, one's personal perceived ability to perform a specific task, directly impacts components of healthy aging, including total brain volume. However, it is unknown whether memory self‐efficacy, specifically, might also be associated with brain function and structure.MethodsA cross‐sectional pilot study of community dwelling older women with probable Mild Cognitive Impairment (Montreal Cognitive Assessment score <26) were asked to evaluate their global memory self‐efficacy using two questionnaires: Memory Self‐Efficacy Questionnaire (MSEQ‐4) and the Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire (MMQ). Participants were asked to complete various standardized cognitive tests: Alzheimer's Dementia Assessment Scale – Cognition (ADAS‐cog), Digit Span, Auditory Verbal Learning Test, Stroop and Trail Making Test. Participants also performed an associative memory task during an fMRI scan. High resolution T1 weighted structural imaging was obtained from a 3T SIEMENS scanner. Multivariate linear regression models were constructed for cognitive and brain health measures in relation to the memory self‐efficacy measures. Covariates of the models included age and current physical activity level.ResultsWe report that the MMQ subscale of Mistakes and Ability (MMQ‐A) was the strongest measure in accounting for variance after including covariates. The final model for ADAS‐cog accounted for 65% of the variance, with the MMQ‐A score accounting for 44%. For structural brain measures, total brain volume, white matter and grey matter volumes, the final model accounted for 70%, 98% and 13% for each of the listed measures, with MMQ‐A accounting for 52%, 63% and 9% respectively. Other measures of global memory self‐efficacy, MSEQ‐4 and MMQ subscale of feelings of contentment (MMQ‐C), were also seen to have correlations to ADAS scores and structural brain measures, but could not account for the same level of variance as the MMQ‐A.ConclusionBased on the results collected it appears that one's perceived self‐efficacy of memory mistakes and ability is associated with measures of cognition and brain health. Based on this data our research has the potential to progress into a longitudinal study of observing the relationship between changes in memory self‐efficacy and brain health and cognition, as well as progression to collaborative clinical studies in memory self‐efficacy modification for healthy aging.Support or Funding InformationFunding: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of CanadaThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.
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