The tower of London (tol) in Italy. standardization of the tol test in an Italian population

Deficit in planning and problem-solving, affecting a wide range of neuropsychological patients, has been widely investigated using the Tower of London (ToL) test, as developed by Shallice (Philos Trans R Soc Lond Ser B Biol Sci 298:199-209, 1). The ToL taps on several executive functions (EF), such as planning, time for planning or rule breaks, which may be usefully indexed by different ToL measurements. However, in its original version, the different aspects involved in ToL are not evaluated in a specific way.Here, we report the standardization of the ToL, on 896 individuals aged 15-86 years, taking in account individual factors (i.e. gender, age, years of education) which may affect performances on ToL. We computed several indexes on the ToL including score, planning and execution times, perseverations, rule breaks and self-monitoring. We found that these indexes were affected by individual factors such as gender, age and education. Present results not only provide extensive normative data according to gender, as well as different age and education ranges, but also represent a very useful instrument for a more fine-grained diagnosis of EF deficits in a wide range of neuropsychological patients, including traumatic brain injury and brain-damaged patients, as well as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease patients

Women outperform men in remembering to remember

The study of gender differences in prospective memory (i.e., remembering to remember) has received modest attention in the literature. The few reported studies investigating either subjective or objective evaluations of prospective memory have shown inconsistent data. In this study, we aimed to verify the presence of gender differences during the performance of an objective prospective memory test by considering the weight of specific variables such as length of delay, type of response, and type of cue. We submitted a sample of 100 healthy Italian participants (50 men and 50 women) to a test expressly developed to assess prospective memory: The Memory for Intentions Screening Test. Women performed better than men in remembering to do an event-based task (i.e., prompted by an external event) and when the task required a physical response modality. We discuss the behavioural differences that emerged by considering the possible role of sociological, biological, neuroanatomical, and methodological variables

'Less is more': validation with Rasch analysis of five short-forms for the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust Personality Questionnaires (BIRT-PQs).

Background: Previous analyses demonstrated a lack of unidimensionality, item redundancy, and substantial administrative burden for the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust Personality Questionnaires (BIRT-PQs). Objective: To use Rasch Analysis to calibrate five short-forms of the BIRT-PQs, satisfying the Rasch model requirements. Methods: BIRT-PQs data from 154 patients with severe Acquired Brain Injury (s-ABI) and their caregivers (total sample = 308) underwent Rasch analysis to examine their internal construct validity and reliability according to the Rasch model. Results: The base Rasch analyses did not show sufficient internal construct validity according to the Rasch model for all five BIRT-PQs. After rescoring 18 items, and deleting 75 of 150 items, adequate internal construct validity was achieved for all five BIRT-PQs short forms (model chi-square p-values ranging from 0.0053 to 0.6675), with reliability values compatible with individual measurements. Conclusions: After extensive modifications, including a 48% reduction of the item load, we obtained five short forms of the BIRT-PQs satisfying the strict measurement requirements of the Rasch model. The ordinal-to-interval measurement conversion tables allow measuring on the same metric the perception of the neurobehavioral disability for both patients with s-ABI and their caregivers

Esame del Linguaggio II (scheda descrittiva)

Test psicologico. Scheda descrittiva creata all'interno del progetto Bibliomedi

Neuropsychiatric Disorders in Persons With Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: Prevalence, Phenomenology, and Relationship With Demographic, Clinical, and Functional Features

Objective: To characterize neuropsychiatric symptoms in a large group of individuals with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to correlate these symptoms with demographic, clinical, and functional features. Methods: The Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), a frequently used scale to assess behavioral, emotional, and motivational disorders in persons with neurological diseases, was administered to a sample of 120 persons with severe TBI. Controls were 77 healthy subjects. Results: A wide range of neuropsychiatric symptoms was found in the population with severe TBI: apathy (42%), irritability (37%), dysphoria/depressed mood (29%), disinhibition (28%), eating disturbances (27%), and agitation (24%). A clear relationship was also found with other demographic and clinical variables. Conclusion: Neuropsychiatric disorders constitute an important part of the comorbidity in populations with se- vere TBI. Our study emphasizes the importance of integrating an overall assessment of cognitive disturbances with a specific neuropsychiatric evaluation to improve clinical understanding and treatment of persons with TBI

Persistence of gender related-effects on visuo-spatial and verbal working memory in right brain-damaged patients

The aim of the present study was to verify if gender differences in verbal and visuo-spatial working memory would persist following right cerebral lesions. To pursue our aim we investigated a large sample (n. 346) of right brain-damaged patients and healthy participants (n. 272) for the presence of gender effects in performing Corsi and Digit Test. We also assessed a subgroup of patients (n. 109) for the nature (active vs. passive) of working memory tasks. We tested working memory (WM) administering the Corsi Test (CBT) and the Digit Span (DS) using two different versions: forward (fCBT and fDS), subjects were required to repeat stimuli in the same order that they were presented; and backward (bCBT and bDS), subjects were required to repeat stimuli in the opposite order of presentation. In this way, passive storage and active processing of working memory were assessed. Our results showed the persistence of gender-related effects in spite of the presence of right brain lesions. We found that men outperformed women both in CBT and DS, regardless of active and passive processing of verbal and visuo-spatial stimuli. The presence of visuo-spatial disorders (i.e., hemineglect) can affect the performance on Corsi Test. In our sample, men and women were equally affected by hemineglect, therefore it did not mask the gender effect. Generally speaking, the persistence of the men's superiority in visuo-spatial tasks may be interpreted as a protective factor, at least for men, within other life factors such as level of education or kind of profession before retirement

Helicobacter pylori UreE, a urease accessory protein: specific Ni2+ and Zn2+ binding properties and interaction with its cognate UreG

none5The persistence of Helicobacter pylori in the hostile environment of the human stomach is ensured by the activity of urease. The essentiality of Ni2+ for this enzyme demands proper intracellular trafficking of this metal ion. The metallo-chaperone UreE promotes Ni2+ insertion into the apo-enzyme in the last step of urease maturation while facilitating concomitant GTP hydrolysis. This study focuses on the metal-binding properties of UreE from Helicobacter pylori (HpUreE) and its interaction with the related accessory protein HpUreG, a GTPase involved in the assembly of the urease active site. Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) showed that HpUreE binds one equivalent of Ni2+ (Kd = 0.15 muM) or Zn2+ (Kd = 0.49 muM) per dimer, without modification of the protein oligomeric state, as indicated by light scattering. Different ligand environments for Zn2+ and Ni2+, which involve crucial histidine residues, were revealed by site-directed mutagenesis, suggesting a mechanism for discriminating metal ion specific binding. The formation of a HpUreE-HpUreG protein complex was revealed by NMR spectroscopy, and the thermodynamics of this interaction were established using ITC. A role for Zn2+, and not for Ni2+, in the stabilization of this complex was demonstrated using size exclusion chromatography, light scattering, and ITC experiments. A calculated viable structure for the complex suggested the presence of a novel binding site for Zn2+, actually detected using ITC and site-directed mutagenesis. The results are discussed in relation to available evidences of a UreE-UreG functional interaction in vivo. A possible role for Zn2+ in the Ni2+-dependent urease system is envisaged.mixedM.Bellucci; B. Zambelli; F. Musiani; P. Turano; S. CiurliM.Bellucci; B. Zambelli; F. Musiani; P. Turano; S. Ciurl

Normative data for the hayling and brixton tests in an italian population

Objective: The Hayling and Brixton tests constitute a short test battery that quickly assesses verbal and spatial inhibition and flexibility. This battery has shown high construct validity and strong reliability in clinical and experimental settings. The aim of this study was to develop an Italian version of the Hayling and Brixton tests and obtain normative values. Method: We collected normative data from 301 healthy Italian participants aged between 16 and 94 years, taking into account all demographics. To maximize the sample size, we used the overlapping interval strategy. Adjusted scores for demographics were obtained by linear regression analysis. Results: The performance on the Hayling and Brixton tests was influenced by age and education. In particular, age affected verbal accuracy and response time on the Hayling Sentence Completion Test, whereas education only affected the former. Differently, the spatial component, as measured by the Brixton Spatial Anticipation Test, was shaped only by age, which decreased the number of correct responses. Conclusions: Our study provides normative data that have been adjusted for relevant demographics and percentile grids in an Italian population. Our data support the use of the Hayling and Brixton tests as a valid instrument for performing neuropsychological evaluations and longitudinal analyses of executive functions in clinical practice and for research purpose

Impact of Traumatic Brain Injury on different formats of topographical representation.

Navigating in the environmental space requires processing and integrating different types of visuospatial information. It depends on activity of a large-scale brain network, which regions play different and complementary contributions. Thus, white matter damage may greatly impact on this complex skill. Here, we aimed to test whether and how diffused axonal damage, proper of traumatic brain injury (TBI), affects spatial navigation. We use the laboratory-based setting (LBS) we recently developed, which allows for testing route learning (RK; route learning task), landmark knowledge (LK; landmark recognition task), survey knowledge (SK; landmark positioning task) and landmark ordering (LO; ordering task). We compared the performance of patients with TBI (N = 18) with that of healthy controls (HC; N = 34) matched for age and gender. The inverse efficiency score index (IES), that balances and integrates accuracy and response time, was computed for each task of the LBS. Then we performed Mann-Whitney U tests to compare indexes of the two groups; in each group, Spearman's correlation coefficient was computed as well. The two groups differed significantly on the second attempt of the RK, but not on the third attempt, suggesting that although it took more time, patients with TBI learned the path similarly to the HC. However, performances differed significantly in LK and SK task, suggesting a deficit in recollecting figurative memory of the landmarks and shifting from an egocentric to an allocentric representation. Performance did not differ significantly in the LO. Consistently with our previous results, performances on LO were associated with SK in HC; instead, they were associated with RK in patients with TBI. Results suggest that HC used SK to perform LO; instead, TBI used the route information they had correctly acquired, suggesting a different strategy in this sample of patients