Omega-3 Fatty Acids from Fish Oil Lower Anxiety, Improve Cognitive Functions and Reduce Spontaneous Locomotor Activity in a Non-Human Primate

Omega-3 (ω3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are major components of brain cells membranes. ω3 PUFA-deficient rodents exhibit severe cognitive impairments (learning, memory) that have been linked to alteration of brain glucose utilization or to changes in neurotransmission processes. ω3 PUFA supplementation has been shown to lower anxiety and to improve several cognitive parameters in rodents, while very few data are available in primates. In humans, little is known about the association between anxiety and ω3 fatty acids supplementation and data are divergent about their impact on cognitive functions. Therefore, the development of nutritional studies in non-human primates is needed to disclose whether a long-term supplementation with long-chain ω3 PUFA has an impact on behavioural and cognitive parameters, differently or not from rodents. We address the hypothesis that ω3 PUFA supplementation could lower anxiety and improve cognitive performances of the Grey Mouse Lemur (Microcebus murinus), a nocturnal Malagasy prosimian primate. Adult male mouse lemurs were fed for 5 months on a control diet or on a diet supplemented with long-chain ω3 PUFA (n = 6 per group). Behavioural, cognitive and motor performances were measured using an open field test to evaluate anxiety, a circular platform test to evaluate reference spatial memory, a spontaneous locomotor activity monitoring and a sensory-motor test. ω3-supplemented animals exhibited lower anxiety level compared to control animals, what was accompanied by better performances in a reference spatial memory task (80% of successful trials vs 35% in controls, p<0.05), while the spontaneous locomotor activity was reduced by 31% in ω3-supplemented animals (p<0.001), a parameter that can be linked with lowered anxiety. The long-term dietary ω3 PUFA supplementation positively impacts on anxiety and cognitive performances in the adult mouse lemur. The supplementation of human food with ω3 fatty acids may represent a valuable dietary strategy to improve behavioural and cognitive functions

Phonological coding in reading of deaf children: pseudohomophone effects in lexical decision

The purpose of this study was to find new evidence for phonological coding in written word recognition among deaf Dutch children. A lexical decision task was presented to 48 severely and profoundly deaf children aged from 6 years 8 months to 13 years 5 months, and a control group of Grade I hearing children matched on written word recognition. Sixteen pseudohomophones were introduced, closely matched on orthographic similarity with 16 control pseudo-words. Both hearing children and deaf children made significantly more mistakes on pseudohomophones than on control pseudo-words. Although pseudohomophony effects were smaller for deaf than for hearing participants, the findings were taken as evidence that deaf children also used phonological coding during written word recognition. © 2005 The British Psychological Society

Adapting a cognitive test for a different culture: An illustration of qualitative procedures

We describe and apply a judgmental (qualitative) procedure for cognitive test adaptations. The procedure consists of iterations of translating, piloting, and modifying the instrument. We distinguish five types of adaptations for cognitive instruments, based on the underlying source (construct, language, culture, theory, and familiarity, respectively). The proposed procedure is applied to adapt the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, second edition (KABC-II) for 6 to 10 year-old Kannada-speaking children of low socioeconomic status in Bangalore, India. Each subtest needed extensive adaptations, illustrating that the transfer of Western cognitive instruments to a non-Westernized context requires a careful analysis of their appropriateness. Adaptations of test instructions, item content of both verbal and non-verbal tests, and item order were needed. It is concluded that the qualitative approach adopted here was found adequate to identify various problems with the application of the KABC-II in our sam-ple which would have remained unnoticed with a straightforward translation of the original instrument

Multiple micronutrient supplementation for improving cognitive performance in children: systematic review of randomized controlled trials

Background: Although multiple micronutrient interventions have been shown to benefit children's intellectual development, a thorough evaluation of the totality of evidence is currently lacking to direct public health policy. Objective: This study aimed to systematically review the present literature and to quantify the effect of multiple micronutrients on cognitive performance in schoolchildren. Methods: The Institute for Scientific Information Web of Knowledge and local medical databases were searched for trials published from 1970 to 2008. Randomized controlled trials that investigated the effect of =3 micronutrients compared with placebo on cognition in healthy children aged 0–18 y were included following protocol. Data were extracted by 2 independent researchers. The cognitive tests used in the trials were grouped into several cognitive domains (eg, fluid and crystallized intelligence), and pooled effect size estimates were calculated per domain. Heterogeneity was explored through sensitivity and meta-regression techniques. Results: Three trials were retrieved in children age

Phonological Activation During Visual Word Recognition in Deaf and Hearing Children

Contains fulltext : 85928.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Purpose: Phonological activation during visual word recognition was studied in deaf and hearing children under two circumstances: (a) when the use of phonology was not required for task performance and might even hinder it and (b) when the use of phonology was critical for task performance. Method: Deaf children mastering written Dutch and Sign Language of the Netherlands were compared with hearing children. Two word-picture verification experiments were conducted, both of which included pseudohomophones. In Experiment 1, the task was to indicate whether the word was spelled correctly and whether it corresponded to the picture. The presence of pseudohomophones was expected to hinder performance only when phonological recoding occurred. In Experiment 2, the task was to indicate whether the word sounded like the picture, which now made phonological recoding essential in order to enable the acceptance of pseudohomophones. Results: The hearing children showed automatic activation of phonology during visual word recognition, regardless of whether they were instructed to focus on orthographic information (Experiment 1) or phonological information (Experiment 2). The deaf children showed little automatic phonological activation in either experiment. Conclusion: Deaf children do not use phonological information during word reading

Relation between deaf children's phonological skills in kindergarten and word recognition performance in first grade

Background: The aim of the present study was twofold: 1) to determine whether phonological skills measured in deaf prereaders predict their later phonological and reading skills after one year of reading instruction as is the case for hearing children; 2) to examine whether the age of exposure to a fully specified phonological input such as Cued Speech may explain the inter-individual differences observed in deaf children’s phonological and word recognition levels. Method: Twenty-one 6-year-old deaf pre- readers and 21 hearing children of the same chronological age performed two phonological tasks (rhyme decision and generation tasks); they were re-assessed 12 months later and presented with other phonological tasks (rhyme decision and common unit identification tasks) and a written word choice test. Results: Phonological skills measured before learning to read predicted the written word recog- nition score the following year, both for hearing and for deaf participants. Age of onset of exposure to Cued Speech was also a strong predictor of phonological and written word recognition scores in beginning deaf readers. Conclusions: The evidence broadly supports the idea of a capacity for acquiring phonological skills in deaf children. Deaf children who are able to develop an implicitly structured phonological knowledge before learning to read will be better readers when this knowledge becomes explicit under the pressure of reading instruction. Keywords: Deafness, phonological skills, cued speech, reading development, longitudinal study.FLWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe