Trastornos de memoria y de atención en disfunciones cerebrales del niño

For conscious behaviours to continue, attention and working memory must be brought into play in order to match the data from the current reality with those in the long-term memory and to the sequential plans for adaptive action. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We present the preliminary findings of our study of 50 patients between 7 and 16 years of age, who were divided into three groups according to their dominant neurocognitive disorder: a 'pure' ADHD group, an ADHD/LD group (with comorbid learning disorder) and an RMEM (risk of memory disorder due to bilateral temporomesial damage) group. All of them were administered a battery of tests designed to evaluate attentional control and short and long-term memory. RESULTS: Verbal IQ was above 80 in all the participants, with no differences among the three groups. The ADHD/LD group had a manipulative IQ and level of sustained attention below those of the ADHD group, but no long-term memory deficit was observed in either of these two groups. In contrast, the RMEM group's performance was poorer in verbal memory tasks, although their behaviour is more attentive and stable compared to that of the other two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Neuropsychological analysis of these dissociations allows adjustments to be made in the strategies for therapeutic interventions. Performance in long-term learning in children with ADHD and ADHD/LD can be improved with psychostimulants owing to the activating effect they have on working memor

Amnesias del desarrollo

Objective. The literature on clinical and physiophatologic characteristics of the spectrum of memory disorders in childhood is reviewed in this article. Development. There are only a few detailed reports of permanent specific memory disorders in children. Early anoxo-ischaemic bihippocampal injuries can cause a selective permanent impairment of episodic daily-life memory with preservation of semantic learning and general intelligence; this dissociation has been related to partial hippocampal damage whilst the entorhinal, parahippocampal and prefrontal cortices, wich are critical to systematized memorizing and work memory, keep normal. Biological psychiatry research has shown that early childhood amnesias after psychological maltreatment or abuse could be related to damage in neuronal systems wich support memory, caused by glutamatergic cascade. Both severe bilateral hippocampal sclerosis (also mediated by toxic neurotransmitters) in early malignant epilepsies, and massive bilateral damage of mesial temporal lobes due to herpex virus encephalitis or Reye’s syndrome, cause severe amnesic deficits, frequently accompanied by absence of any language development and autism with features of Klüver-Bucy syndrome. There are also on record some examples of Korsakoff’s syndrome in children with midfossa tumors. Conclusions. All types of classical amnesias described in adults have been observed in children. Developmental amnesias are probably more frequent than currently presumed. It must be paid special attention to selective autobiographical memory impairments in individuals who underwent a partial bihippocampal damage in perinatal or early postnatal periods; they are to be distinguished from, although it may coexist with, other clinical situations such as attention deficit disorder or semantic-pragmatic disorder