Normative Data Collection and Comparison of Performance on the Poreh Naming Test to the Boston Naming Test

Although word-finding difficulty is commonly self-reported by older adults, there are no clinical instruments able to reliably distinguish normal age-related effects from pathology in word-finding impairments. The purpose of this study is two-fold: (1) design and evaluate the validity of the Poreh Naming Test, a novel electronic confrontation naming test used to evaluate naming difficulties in demented populations and (2) to investigate the effect of normal aging word-finding abilities on confrontation naming tests, using both accuracy and response latency as performance indices. A community sample was used with each participant being administered the Boston Naming Test, the Poreh Naming Test, semantic verbal fluency and phonemic verbal fluency tasks. Each participant over the age of 65 or younger participants reporting health problems shown to interfere with confrontation naming test performance also received the St. Louis University Mental Status Exam. The 57-item Poreh Naming Test used in this study was analyzed and refined to a 30-item test. Items were defined as easy, medium, or hard based on latency and proportion of the sample that correctly named the item. The Poreh Naming Test was found to be a valid measure of word-finding abilities and was shown to better distinguish between mental status exam groups than the Boston Naming Test. However, the findings of this study do not support the hypotheses that normal aging has a negative impact on word-finding skills. Cognitive status was the best predictor for accuracy and latency on the confrontation naming tasks and no effect of age was found on accuracy or latency in either confrontation naming tes

Normative Data Collection and Comparison of Performance on the Poreh Naming Test to the Boston Naming Test

Although word-finding difficulty is commonly self-reported by older adults, there are no clinical instruments able to reliably distinguish normal age-related effects from pathology in word-finding impairments. The purpose of this study is two-fold: (1) design and evaluate the validity of the Poreh Naming Test, a novel electronic confrontation naming test used to evaluate naming difficulties in demented populations and (2) to investigate the effect of normal aging word-finding abilities on confrontation naming tests, using both accuracy and response latency as performance indices. A community sample was used with each participant being administered the Boston Naming Test, the Poreh Naming Test, semantic verbal fluency and phonemic verbal fluency tasks. Each participant over the age of 65 or younger participants reporting health problems shown to interfere with confrontation naming test performance also received the St. Louis University Mental Status Exam. The 57-item Poreh Naming Test used in this study was analyzed and refined to a 30-item test. Items were defined as easy, medium, or hard based on latency and proportion of the sample that correctly named the item. The Poreh Naming Test was found to be a valid measure of word-finding abilities and was shown to better distinguish between mental status exam groups than the Boston Naming Test. However, the findings of this study do not support the hypotheses that normal aging has a negative impact on word-finding skills. Cognitive status was the best predictor for accuracy and latency on the confrontation naming tasks and no effect of age was found on accuracy or latency in either confrontation naming tes

Baclofen alters gustatory discrimination capabilities and induces a conditioned taste aversion (CTA)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Studies intending to measure drug-induced changes in learning and memory are challenged to parse out the effects of drugs on sensory, motor, and associative systems in the brain. In the context of conditioned taste aversion (CTA), drugs that alter the sensorium of subjects and affect their ability to taste and/or feel malaise may limit the ability of investigators to make conclusions about associative effects of these substances. Since the GABAergic system is implicated in inhibition, the authors were hopeful to use the GABA agonist, baclofen (BAC), to enhance extinction of a CTA, but first a preliminary evaluation of BAC's peripheral effects on animals' sensorium had to be completed due to a lack of published literature in this area.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Our first experiment aimed to evaluate the extent to which the GABA_Bagonist, BAC, altered the ability of rats to differentiate between 0.3% and 0.6% saccharin (SAC) in a two bottle preference test. Here we report that 2 or 3 mg/kg (i.p.) BAC, but not 1 mg/kg BAC, impaired animals' gustatory discrimination abilities in this task. Furthermore, when SAC consumption was preceded by 2 or 3 mg/kg (i.p.) BAC, rats depressed their subsequent SAC drinking.</p> <p>A second experiment evaluated if the suppression of SAC and water drinking (revealed in Experiment 1) was mediated by amnesiac effects of BAC or whether BAC possessed US properties in the context of the CTA paradigm. The time necessary to reach an asymptotic level of CTA extinction was not significantly different in those animals that received the 3 mg/kg dose of BAC compared to more conventionally SAC + lithium chloride (LiCl, 81 mg/kg) conditioned animals.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings were not consistent with a simple amnesia-of-neophobia explanation. Instead, results indicated that 2 and 3 mg/kg (i.p.) BAC were capable of inducing a CTA, which was extinguishable via repeated presentations of SAC only. Our data indicate that, depending on the dose, BAC can alter SAC taste discrimination and act as a potent US in the context of a CTA paradigm.</p

Normative Data Collection and Comparison of Performance on the Poreh Naming Test to the Boston Naming Test

Although word-finding difficulty is commonly self-reported by older adults, there are no clinical instruments able to reliably distinguish normal age-related effects from pathology in word-finding impairments. The purpose of this study is two-fold: (1) design and evaluate the validity of the Poreh Naming Test, a novel electronic confrontation naming test used to evaluate naming difficulties in demented populations and (2) to investigate the effect of normal aging word-finding abilities on confrontation naming tests, using both accuracy and response latency as performance indices. A community sample was used with each participant being administered the Boston Naming Test, the Poreh Naming Test, semantic verbal fluency and phonemic verbal fluency tasks. Each participant over the age of 65 or younger participants reporting health problems shown to interfere with confrontation naming test performance also received the St. Louis University Mental Status Exam. The 57-item Poreh Naming Test used in this study was analyzed and refined to a 30-item test. Items were defined as easy, medium, or hard based on latency and proportion of the sample that correctly named the item. The Poreh Naming Test was found to be a valid measure of word-finding abilities and was shown to better distinguish between mental status exam groups than the Boston Naming Test. However, the findings of this study do not support the hypotheses that normal aging has a negative impact on word-finding skills. Cognitive status was the best predictor for accuracy and latency on the confrontation naming tasks and no effect of age was found on accuracy or latency in either confrontation naming tes