Search results for "Executive Function"

Peripheral Maintenance of the Axis SIRT1-SIRT3 at Youth Level May Contribute to Brain Resilience in Middle-Aged Amateur Rugby Players

2019

Physical exercise performed regularly is known to improve health and to reduce the risk of age-related diseases. Furthermore, there is some evidence of cognitive improvement in physically active middle-aged and older adults. We hypothesized that long-term physically active middle-aged men may have developed brain resilience that can be detected with the analysis of peripheral blood markers. We aimed to analyze the activation of pathways potentially modulated by physical activity in a cohort of healthy amateur rugby players (n = 24) and control subjects with low physical activity (n = 25) aged 45¿65 years. We had previously reported neuropsychological improvement in immediate memory response…

120 min/week of neuromotor multicomponent training are enough to improve executive function and functional fitness in older women.

2021

Purpose: The study aimed at comparing the effects of a neuromotor multicomponent training program (MCTP) on executive function, functional fitness, blood pressure, body composition and health-related quality of life (HRQOL), compared with a concurrent strength and endurance exercise training program (CONTROL-EXE) and a cognitive training program (CONTROL-COG). Methods: 56 older women (73 ± 6 years) completed the 30-weeks intervention. The three groups attended two 60-min sessions per week and they were assessed before and after the intervention. Results: MCTP showed a moderate improvement in Stroop C condition (28 ± 7 vs 32 ± 8 correct items; p = 0.001; d = 0.53) and Stroop interference sco…

The Early Indicators of Functional Decrease in Mild Cognitive Impairment

2016

OBJECTIVES: Motor deficiency is associated with cognitive frailty in patients with Mild Cognitive Impairments (MCI). In this study we aimed to test the integrity of the muscle synergy involved in an arm-pointing movement in MCI patients, non-impaired functionally. Thus, we were able to test the hypothesis that early motor indicators exist in this population at a preclinical level. METHODS: The electromyographic signals were collected for 11 muscles in 3 groups: Young Adults (YA), Aged Adults (AA), and MCI patients. The AA and MCI groups presented the same functional status. Each subject performed twenty arm-pointing movements from a standing position. RESULTS: The main differences were (1) …

Domain-specific characterisation of early cognitive impairment following spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage.

2018

Cognitive deficits after spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) are common and result in functional impairment, but few studies have examined deficits across cognitive domains in the subacute phase. This study aims to describe the cognitive profile following acute ICH and explore how cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) may impact performance. We retrospectively reviewed 187 consecutive patients with ICH (mean age 58.9 years, 55.6% male) with available imaging and neuropsychological data (median 12 days after stroke). In our cohort, 84% (n = 158) were impaired in at least one cognitive domain and 65% (n = 122) in two or more domains. Deficits in non-verbal IQ (76.6%), information processi…

Short telomere length is associated with impaired cognitive performance in European ancestry cohorts

2017

AbstractThe association between telomere length (TL) dynamics on cognitive performance over the life-course is not well understood. This study meta-analyses observational and causal associations between TL and six cognitive traits, with stratifications on APOE genotype, in a Mendelian Randomization (MR) framework. Twelve European cohorts (N=17 052; mean age=59.2±8.8 years) provided results for associations between qPCR-measured TL (T/S-ratio scale) and general cognitive function, mini-mental state exam (MMSE), processing speed by digit symbol substitution test (DSST), visuospatial functioning, memory and executive functioning (STROOP). In addition, a genetic risk score (GRS) for TL includin…

Neither Cathodal nor Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on the Left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex alone or Applied During Moderate Aerob…

2020

There is converging evidence that both aerobic exercise (AE) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can acutely modulate executive functions (EF). In addition, recent studies have proposed the beneficial effects of applying tDCS during AE on physical performance. This study aimed to investigate whether tDCS applied during an AE session additionally or differently effects EF. Therefore, five experiments were conducted in a counterbalanced pre-post-retention crossover design to explore the acute effects of tDCS and AE on EF (inhibition and updating) once in isolation (i.e., either cathodal, anodal tDCS or AE alone as controls) and once in a combined application (i.e., anodal and c…

Did you hear? Auditory prospective memory cues are more beneficial for autistic than for non-autistic children and adolescents

2021

Item does not contain fulltext Background: The transition from primary to secondary school is particularly difficult for autistic children, a transition underpinned by an increase in prospective memory (PM) demands. Aims: To better understand PM in autistic children of the relevant age range and its underlying processes, the current study investigated the impact of cue salience (distinctiveness) on PM in autistic and non-autistic children and adolescents. The study was unique in manipulating the visual and auditory salience of PM cues. Salient cues are assumed to put lower demands on executive control resources as compared to cues that blend in with the ongoing activity. Methods and procedu…

2017

Children’s improved performance with age in analogy tasks has been explained by an increase in semantic knowledge of the items and the relations between them or by the development of an increased ability to inhibit irrelevant information. We tested the so-called "unbalanced attentional focus hypothesis" that claims that a failure to choose the "analogical" match can be the result of a difficulty to focus on all the relevant information available. Previous eye-tracking research has suggested, in analogies of the A:B::C:D format, that 5-6 year-olds organize their search around the C item. They focused significantly less than adults on the A:B pair, thereby hindering their discovering the rela…

A computational approach for the assessment of executive functions in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

2019

Previous studies on obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) showed impairments in executive domains, particularly in cognitive inhibition. In this perspective, the use of virtual reality showed huge potential in the assessment of executive functions; however, unfortunately, to date, no study on the assessment of these patients took advantage of the use of virtual environments. One of the main problems faced within assessment protocols is the use of a limited number of variables and tools when tailoring a personalized program. The main aim of this study was to provide a heuristic decision tree for the future development of tailored assessment protocols. To this purpose, we conducted a study that…

2016

The negative interpretation of body sensations (e.g., as sign of a severe illness) is a crucial cognitive process in pathological health anxiety (HA). However, little is known about the nature and the degree of automaticity of this interpretation bias. We applied an implicit association test (IAT) in 20 subjects during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate behavioral and neural correlates of implicit attitudes towards symptom words. On the behavioral level, body symptom words elicited strong negative implicit association effects, as indexed by slowed reaction times when symptom words were paired with the attribute “harmless” (incongruent condition) relative to a contro…