10 research outputs found
Assessing Executive Dysfunction in Neurodegenerative Disorders: A Critical Review of Brief Neuropsychological Tools
Executive function (EF) has been defined as a multifaceted construct that involves a variety of high-level cognitive abilities such as planning, working memory, mental flexibility, and inhibition. Being able to identify deficits in EF is important for the diagnosis and monitoring of several neurodegenerative disorders, and thus their assessment is a topic of much debate. In particular, there has been a growing interest in the development of neuropsychological screening tools that can potentially provide a reliable quick measure of EF. In this review, we critically discuss the four screening tools of EF currently available in the literature: Executive Interview-25 (EXIT 25), Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), INECO Frontal Screening (IFS), and FRONTIER Executive Screen (FES). We first describe their features, and then evaluate their psychometric properties, the existing evidence on their neural correlates, and the empirical work that has been conducted in clinical populations. We conclude that the four screening tools generally present appropriate psychometric properties, and are sensitive to impairments in EF in several neurodegenerative conditions. However, more research will be needed mostly with respect to normative data and neural correlates, and to determine the extent to which these tools add specific information to the one provided by global cognition screening tests. More research directly comparing the available tools with each other will also be important to establish in which conditions each of them can be most useful.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Surface-PIV measurements on shallow compound channel flows: coherent flow structures, horizontal mixing and dispersion
Updating the taxonomy and distribution of the European Osmoderma, and strategies for their conservation (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Cetoniinae)
Results of a molecular analysis on the European hermit beetles (the Osmoderma
eremita species-complex), recently published in a companion paper, are shortly discussed
and commented. These results indicate a clear-cut distinction between two
clades. The first one includes the W-European O. eremita Scopoli, 1763, and the two
Italian endemic taxa O. italicum Sparacio, 2000 and O. cristinae Sparacio, 1994, from
southern peninsular Italy and Sicily, respectively. The second one includes the widespread
E-European O. barnabita Motschulsky, 1845 (nom. resurr.), and the southern
Balcanic O. lassallei Baraud & Tauzin, 1991 from Greece and European Turkey. Within
the two clades, molecular data well support a specific rank for O. lassallei and O. barnabita
on one side, and of O. eremita and O. cristinae on the other side, while the taxo-nomic position of O. italicum, more closely related with O. eremita, is still uncertain,
waiting for analysis of additional specimens of this very rare taxon. Current geographical
distribution, interspecific genetic diversification, and relatively low levels of intraspecific
genetic divergence in O. eremita sensu stricto, are hypothesized to be the result
of multiple speciation events (mainly occurred in refugial forest areas of the Italian
and Balkan peninsulas and Sicily before and during the Pleistocene glacial peaks), followed
by fast post-glacial northward and westward expansion of some species. The
need of further genetic data on the rare and threatened hermit beetle species and the
importance of more detailed information on their distribution ranges are emphasized
and discussed, in order to plan conservation strategies in the near future. An updated
worldwide checklist of the species of the genus Osmoderma is finally presented