Incontinência do choro e infarto protuberancial unilateral Incontinence of crying and unilateral pontine infarct

O presente estudo trata do caso de um paciente que apresentou incontinência do choro e hemiplegia direita por infarto ventroprotuberancial paramediano detectado pela RNM. O caráter circunscrito da lesão foi endossado pela normalidade dos potenciais evocados sômato-sensitivos e auditivos de curta-latência. Os episódios de choro desapareceram poucos dias depois do início do tratamento com doses baixas de imipramina. Discutimos o choro e riso patológicos como forma de incontinência da mímica resultante de desconexão límbico-motora, enfatizando a impropriedade de incluí-los na síndrome pseudobulbar, uma vez que dependem de correlatos anatômicos e funcionais distintos.<br>A 64-year-old man presented with pathologic crying and right hemiplegia due to a unilateral pontine infarct from probable branch disease of the basilar artery. The circumscribed nature of the lesion was supported by MRI and short-latency evoked potentials. The weeping spells ceased after a few days of imipramine in low doses. Pathologic laughing and crying can be viewed as a limbic-motor disconnection syndrome, in which the faciovocal motor system is released from forebrain afferents carrying information of emotional content. The inclusion of pathologic laughing and crying in the syndrome pseudobulbar palsy is inaccurate and misleading, since each is related to distinct functional and anatomic systems intrinsic to the human brainstem

Measuring working memory capacity in children using adaptive tasks: Example validation of an adaptive complex span

International audienceWorking memory tasks designed for children usually present trials in order of ascending difficulty, with testing discontinued when the child fails a particular level. Unfortunately, this procedure comes with a number of issues, such as limited psychometric qualities for working memory scores, decreased engagement from high-ability children, and large between-subjects variations in number of trials and testing time. To circumvent these problems, the goal of the present study was to demonstrate the feasibility of assessing working memory in children using an adaptive testing procedure. The principle of adaptive testing is to dynamically adjust the level of difficulty as the task progresses to match the participant's ability. We used this method to develop an adaptive complex span task (the ACCES) comprising verbal and visuo-spatial subtests. The task presents a fixed number of trials to all participants, allows for partial credit scoring and can be used with children regardless of ability level. The ACCES demonstrated satisfying psychometric properties in a sample of 268 children aged 8 to 13 years, confirming the feasibility of using adaptive tasks to measure working memory capacity in children. A free-to-use implementation of the ACCES is provided