Cognitive profiles and subtypes of epilepsy

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Factors affecting the cognitive status of people with epilepsy

Introduction. Epilepsy is a devastating neurological disorder affecting the neuropsychological functioning of the sufferers. Aim and development. This paper reviews the crucial factors associated with the cognitive status of people with epilepsy. These factors include seizure type and other medical variables such as age of onset, seizure frequency, and seizure history. The effect of these factors on the cognttive functioning of people with epilepsy is reviewed and discussed. Future directions of studies on this topic are also discussed.Introducción. La epilepsia es un trastorno devastador, que afecta a la función neuropsicológica de los que lo padecen. Objetivo y desarrollo. Este trabajo revisa los factores cruciales que se asocian con el estado cognitivo de las personas con epilepsia. Estos factores incluyen el tipo de crisis y otras variables médicas tales como la edad de inicio, la frecuencia de las crisis y la historia de las mismas. Se analiza el efecto de estos factores sobre la función cognitiva de los pacientes con epilepsia. También se discuten alternativas futuras a estos estudios.link_to_OA_fulltex

Trail making across languages

The effects of different language backgrounds on trail making tasks were examined in this study. The measures adopted were the Color Trails Test (CTT) and the Trail Making Test (TMT), the former being the culturally fair analogue of the latter. Eighty-four right-handed participants belonging to the Chinese-English Bilingual (CEB) and English Monolingual (EM) groups participated in this study. The results of between-group comparisons revealed no significant differences in performance on the two measures between our Chinese bilingual and English monolingual participants, except on the TMT-A. However, a within-group correlation indicated that performances on the TMT and CTT were highly correlated for the English sample, but not for the Chinese. These observations suggest that trail making tasks like the TMT and CTT are themselves generally fair across Chinese and English, but equivalence between them may be more language-specific. Furthermore, mastery of a language loaded on temporal sequencing like English may give an advantage in the completion of trail making tasks.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Q value of the superallowed decay of Mg-22 and the calibration of the Na-21(p,gamma) experiment

Journals published by the American Physical Society can be found at http://publish.aps.org/The masses of the radioactive nuclei Mg-22 and Na-22 have been measured with the Canadian Penning trap on-line mass spectrometer to a precision of 3x10(-8) and 1x10(-8), respectively. A Q(EC) value of 4124.39(73) keV for the superallowed beta decay of Mg-22 is obtained from the difference of these two masses. With this precise Q value, the Ft value for this decay is determined with improved precision and is found to be consistent with the existing precision data set of superallowed Fermi emitters. This provides an important test of the isospin symmetry-breaking corrections. If the mass of Mg-22 determined here is used in the calibration of a recent Na-21(p,gamma)Mg-22 measurement, part of the discrepancy observed in that measurement is removed