Anatomical dissections and prosected cadaveric specimens are currently believed to be the most beneficial delivery method for tertiary anatomy education. However, there is increasing demand within the tertiary medical education community for alternative delivery methods to complement current teaching practices, particularly in the complex field of…

miR-132 and miR-212 are structurally related microRNAs that have been found to exert powerful modulatory effects within the central nervous system (CNS). Notably, these microRNAs are tandomly processed from the same noncoding transcript, and share a common seed sequence: thus it has been difficult to assess the distinct contribution of each…

Selective attention, the ability to enhance the processing of particular input while suppressing the information from other concurrent sources, has been postulated to be a foundational skill for learning and academic achievement. The neural mechanisms of this foundational ability are both vulnerable and enhanceable in children from lower…

Presents Daniel L. Schacter as one of the winners of the American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions (2012). Daniel L. Schacter's major theoretical and empirical contributions include groundbreaking research on the psychological and neural foundations of implicit and explicit memory, memory distortions and…

Previous studies have shown that children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have impaired executive function, disordered neural connectivity, and abnormal immunologic function. The present study examined whether these abnormalities were associated. Seventeen high-functioning (HFA) and 17 low-functioning (LFA) children with ASD, aged 8-17…

The surgical removal of brain tissue for the treatment of temporal lobe epilepsy can be either nonselective, as with an anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL), or selective, as with a selective amygdalohippocampectomy (SAH). Although seizure outcomes are similar with both procedures, cognitive and memory outcomes remain a matter of debate. This study…

Although functional cerebral asymmetries (FCAs) affect all cognitive domains, their modulation of the efficacy of specific executive functions is largely unexplored. In the present study, we used a lateralized version of the task switching paradigm to investigate the relevance of hemispheric asymmetries for cognitive control processes. Words were…

Functional Transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) has been applied to assess peak mean cerebral blood flow velocity (MFV) with a high temporal resolution during cognitive activation. Yet, little attention has been devoted to gender-related alterations of MFV, including spectral analysis. In healthy subjects, fTCD was used to investigate a series…

With the advancement of image acquisition and analysis methods in recent decades, unique opportunities have emerged to study the neuroanatomical correlates of intelligence. Traditional approaches examining global measures have been complemented by insights from more regional analyses based on pre-defined areas. Newer state-of-the-art approaches…

Aim: The aim of this article was to clarify the impact and consequences of very preterm birth (born less than 32wks of gestation) and/or very low birthweight ([VLBW], weighing less than 1500g) on brain volume development throughout childhood and adolescence. Method: The computerized databases PubMed, Web of Knowledge, and EMBASE were searched for…

The fourth edition of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" ("DSM IV") describes ADD as behaviorally observed impairments in attention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Officially known as AD/HD, we use ADD here because we are dealing primarily with attention, organizational, and impulsivity issues. A more…

There are many reports of relations between age and cognitive variables and of relations between age and variables representing different aspects of brain structure and a few reports of relations between brain structure variables and cognitive variables. These findings have sometimes led to inferences that the age-related brain changes cause the…

Executive function (EF) skills are the attention-regulation skills that make it possible to sustain attention, keep goals and information in mind, refrain from responding immediately, resist distraction, tolerate frustration, consider the consequences of different behaviors, reflect on past experiences, and plan for the future. As EF research…

Charitable giving is a common, and easily measurable, form of prosocial behavior. It may also provide a unique cognitive challenge in that it often requires identifying with the needs of distant others. Using a sample of 331 cognitively normal seniors (mean age of 76), this study examined the relationship between charitable giving and scores on 18…

The fourth edition of "Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities" critically examines the breadth of research on this complex and controversial topic, with the principal aim of helping the reader to understand where sex differences are found--and where they are not. Since the publication of the third edition, there have been many exciting and…