Attention Flexibility Research Articles

Individual obsessive-compulsive traits are associated with poorer adjustment to the easing of COVID-19 restrictions

BackgroundAs COVID-19 restrictions ease, the public are expected to relinquish previously enforced safety behaviors and resume a more normal lifestyle. Despite these aims, our recent survey of 438 adults from the general population, during a temporary release of lockdown in the United Kingdom (July–November 2020), showed that 25% of the public find re-adjustment problematic. This was especially the case in those with a history of mental disorder and obsessive-compulsive (OC) traits and symptoms, including rigidity as measured by a neurocognitive test of attentional flexibility. To aid in identifying those most at risk, we performed a secondary analysis on the data to determine which specific OC traits were related to specific aspects of behavioral adjustment. MethodsCorrelational and multiple regression analyses were performed to determine associations between the eight individual personality traits constituting DSM-5 Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), as measured by the self-rated Compulsive Personality Assessment Scale (CPAS) and a range of self-rated Post-Pandemic Adjustment Questionnaire items. ResultsThree items on the Post-Pandemic Adjustment Questionnaire correlated with individual CPAS items: ‘General difficulties adjusting’ correlated with perfectionism, preoccupation with details, over-conscientiousness and need for control; ‘social avoidance’ correlated with perfectionism and preoccupation with details; and ‘disinfecting behaviors’ correlated with preoccupation with details and miserliness (Pearson's r - all p < .001). Intriguingly, none of the adjustment items correlated significantly with self-rated rigidity. ConclusionsSeveral OCPD traits predict post-pandemic adjustment difficulties, but perfectionism and preoccupation-with-details showed the most robust correlations. These traits constitute a platform for the development of new screening and interventional strategies aimed at restoring public mental health and wellbeing. Cognitive rigidity may be more reliably evaluated using an objective form of assessment.

Children's intentional switching of auditory selective attention in spatial and noisy acoustic environments in comparison to adults.

Children's development and education take place in educational buildings with highly complex acoustic scenes, including spatially distributed target speakers, many surrounding distracting sounds, and general background noises. Auditory selective attention, therefore, is a valuable tool to orient oneself, to focus on specific sound sources, and to extract relevant information. Until now, it is unknown to what extent children have developed the cognitive processes of intentional attention control in spatial situations and how they differ from adults. This work provides a paradigm to examine children's intentional switching of auditory selective attention that also allows to examine effects due to noisy and spatial sound environments presented virtually via headphones. A listening experiment was conducted in Germany with 24 children (6-10 years, 50% female) and 24 young adults (18-26 years, 50% female). First, results revealed higher error rates and lower reaction times in conditions with noise (relative to conditions without noise) for children, but not for adults. This assumes that children are more sensitive to noise and conclude faster with noise trials, taking errors into account. Second, although auditory attention flexibility reflected in attention switch and relevant information selection was comparable between children and adults, it was found that adults benefited from spatial cues when selecting the relevant information. This was not observed to the same extent in children. These results suggest that children's cognitive processes are affected at significantly lower noise levels than adults and that noise effect assessment methods should consider spatial aspects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Attentional control and its relationship to the accuracy of some types of basketball shooting for Iraqi youth club’s players

The importance of this study is reflected in the fact that it is an attempt to identify attentional control and its relationship to the accuracy of some types of basketball shooting for youth players for Iraqi Premier League clubs for youth for the season (2020-2021). The problem of the research is to identify the level of some mental abilities, including attentional control, represented by attentional focus, attentional shift and attentional flexibility and their relationship to the accuracy of some types of basketball shooting for the Iraqi players of youth clubs. The study aimed to identify the relationship between attentional control and the accuracy of the performance of some types of basketball shooting for youth basketball players for the 2020-2021 season. The two researchers adopted the descriptive curriculum in a survey style and correlational relationships. The research community was determined by the Iraqi youth basketball players, who numbered (160) out of (16) clubs and these clubs are (Al-Amarah, Dijlah, Dhi Qar, Samawah, Al-Kut, Al-Sharqiya, Nasiriyah, Baghdad, Al-Mina, Al-Karkh, Al-Ittihad, Al-Naft, Adhamiya, Al-Shurta, Al-Tadamon, Naft Al-Janoub) and then a sample of (50) players selected in a random way and they are club players of (Al-Amarah, Baghdad, Al-Karkh, Al-Naft, Al-Adhamiya) and they were tested on the attentional control scale and after processing the results, it was found that some of the young basketball players have a high level of attentional control and the accuracy of performing some types of shooting in youth basketball. Therefore, the two researchers recommend the necessity of paying attention to mental processes, including (attentional focus, attentional shift, attentional flexibility), as well as adopting the attentional control scale as tools to identify the level of some of the mental abilities that players possess

The effect of motion games on improving the psychomotor and intellectual performance of children with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disabilities

Introduction. Depressive states and anxiety are common symptoms of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The persons with intellectual disabilities show problems related to the development of basic motor skills, having learning problems compared to normal ones, imbalances between the processes of arousal and inhibition, limited motor ability, difficult understanding of language and motor tasks, difficult concentration, mechanical assimilation etc. Objectives. The study analyzes the effectiveness of structures and motion games, applied in specific activities for children with intellectual disabilities (ID) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Material and Methods. The research involved an experimental group of 5 children with one of these disabilities or their combination (age 10-11 years), included in a training process at the Ion Teodorescu Special Vocational School in Slobozia / Ialomița / Romania and comparing their results with a control group (6 normal children, with an average age of 10 years), between 20.09.2020-10.03.2021. The assessment of the level of psychomotor and intellectual development was made by the Cutout Test, the Cohs Cube Test (light task configurations) and an Attention Flexibility Test (movement to the corners of the room/field depending on the assigned color, counting successful attempts and mistakes). Results and discussion. The obtained results confirm the working hypothesis, so the use of the structures and games proposed in the program contributes to a significant improvement of the psychomotor and intellectual performances of students with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum. Conclusion. espite all these improvements, they cannot approach or equal the reference values of children without problems, falling into the same age category. Keywords: psychomotor skills, adapted physical activities, recovery, children, learning disabilities,

A low-cost open-source 5-choice operant box system optimized for electrophysiology and optophysiology in mice

Operant boxes enable the application of complex behavioural paradigms to support circuit neuroscience and drug discovery research. However, commercial operant box systems are expensive and often not optimised for combining behaviour with neurophysiology. Here we introduce a fully open-source Python-based operant-box system in a 5-choice design (pyOS-5) that enables assessment of multiple cognitive and affective functions. It is optimized for fast turn-over between animals, and for testing of tethered mice for simultaneous physiological recordings or optogenetic manipulation. For reward delivery, we developed peristaltic and syringe pumps based on a stepper motor and 3D-printed parts. Tasks are specified using a Python-based syntax implemented on custom-designed printed circuit boards that are commercially available at low cost. We developed an open-source graphical user interface (GUI) and task definition scripts to conduct assays assessing operant learning, attention, impulsivity, working memory, or cognitive flexibility, alleviating the need for programming skills of the end user. All behavioural events are recorded with millisecond resolution, and TTL-outputs and -inputs allow straightforward integration with physiological recordings and closed-loop manipulations. This combination of features realizes a cost-effective, nose-poke-based operant box system that allows reliable circuit-neuroscience experiments investigating correlates of cognition and emotion in large cohorts of subjects.

Shorter Duration and Lower Quality Sleep Have Widespread Detrimental Effects on Developing Functional Brain Networks in Early Adolescence.

Sleep is critical for cognitive health, especially during complex developmental periods such as adolescence. However, its effects on maturating brain networks that support cognitive function are only partially understood. We investigated the impact of shorter duration and reduced quality sleep, common stressors during development, on functional network properties in early adolescence—a period of significant neural maturation, using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging from 5566 children (median age = 120.0 months; 52.1% females) in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development cohort. Decreased sleep duration, increased sleep latency, frequent waking up at night, and sleep-disordered breathing symptoms were associated with lower topological efficiency, flexibility, and robustness of visual, sensorimotor, attention, fronto-parietal control, default-mode and/or limbic networks, and with aberrant changes in the thalamus, basal ganglia, hippocampus, and cerebellum (P < 0.05). These widespread effects, many of which were body mass index-independent, suggest that unhealthy sleep in early adolescence may impair neural information processing and integration across incompletely developed networks, potentially leading to deficits in their cognitive correlates, including attention, reward, emotion processing and regulation, memory, and executive control. Shorter sleep duration, frequent snoring, difficulty waking up, and daytime sleepiness had additional detrimental network effects in nonwhite participants, indicating racial disparities in the influence of sleep metrics.

Artists have superior local and global processing abilities but show a preference for initially drawing globally.

The attentional demands of drawing require both local processing of an object’s details and global processing of its overall structure. In this study, we examined the extent to which artists have superior local and global processing skills, how these skills relate to artists’ ability to draw realistically and to autistic-related traits, and whether artists initially take a local or global approach to drawing. Forty first-year college art students and 41 nonart students completed two tasks assessing local processing and two tasks assessing global processing. Participants completed two drawing tasks that assessed their ability to draw realistically, two copying tasks that assessed whether they showed a preference for initially copying the local or global aspects of an object, and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient that assessed autistic-related traits. We found that art students outperformed nonart students on both the local and global processing tasks and that drawing ability was related to performance on these tasks. We also found that art students were more likely than nonart students to initially copy the global features in their drawings. Finally, we found that art students did not exhibit more autistic-related traits than nonart students and that the number of autistic-related traits was unrelated to performance on the local and global processing, drawing, or copying tasks. These results suggest that art students have an attentional flexibility that allows them to process information at a local and global level but that they have a preference for initially drawing globally.

Prefrontal cortex VAMP1 gene network moderates the effect of the early environment on cognitive flexibility in children

During development, genetic and environmental factors interact to modify specific phenotypes. Both in humans and in animal models, early adversities influence cognitive flexibility, an important brain function related to behavioral adaptation to variations in the environment. Abnormalities in cognitive functions are related to changes in synaptic connectivity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and altered levels of synaptic proteins. We investigated if individual variations in the expression of a network of genes co-expressed with the synaptic protein VAMP1 in the prefrontal cortex moderate the effect of early environmental quality on the performance of children in cognitive flexibility tasks. Genes overexpressed in early childhood and co-expressed with the VAMP1 gene in the PFC were selected for study. SNPs from these genes (post-clumping) were compiled in an expression-based polygenic score (PFC-ePRS-VAMP1). We evaluated cognitive performance of the 4 years-old children in two cohorts using similar cognitive flexibility tasks. In the first cohort (MAVAN) we utilized two CANTAB tasks: (a) the Intra-/Extra-dimensional Set Shift (IED) task, and (b) the Spatial Working Memory (SWM) task. In the second cohort, GUSTO, we used the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task. The results show that in 4 years-old children, the PFC-ePRS-VAMP1 network moderates responsiveness to the effects of early adversities on the performance in attentional flexibility tests. The same result was observed for a spatial working memory task. Compared to attentional flexibility, reversal learning showed opposite effects of the environment, as moderated by the ePRS. A parallel ICA analysis was performed to identify relationships between whole-brain voxel based gray matter density and SNPs that comprise the PFC-ePRS-VAMP1. The early environment predicts differences in gray matter content in regions such as prefrontal and temporal cortices, significantly associated with a genetic component related to Wnt signaling pathways. Our data suggest that a network of genes co-expressed with VAMP1 in the PFC moderates the influence of early environment on cognitive function in children.

Female Sex as a Protective Factor in the Effects of Chronic Cannabis Use on Verbal Learning and Memory

AbstractObjective:The variability of findings in studies examining the effects of chronic cannabis use on neuropsychological functioning highlights the importance of examining contributing factors. Few studies examine the role of sex in the relationship between cannabis and neuropsychological functioning, despite known neurobiological structural differences between males and females. This study examined whether males and females experience differential cognitive effects of chronic cannabis use.Method:Chronic cannabis users (3+ days per week for &gt;12 months, n = 110, 72% male) and non-users (n = 71, 39% male) completed a neuropsychological test battery. Two multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVAs) examined for sex differences in performance within users and non-users on neuropsychological tests, controlling for potential confounding variables. Bonferroni corrections were applied to adjust for multiple comparisons.Results:Male and female cannabis users did not differ in cannabis use variables. Female cannabis users performed better than males on multiple subtests of the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II), a verbal learning and memory test. Male cannabis users performed better than female users on Trial 1 of the CVLT-II (p = .002), and Trail Making Test B (p = .001), which measure attention and cognitive flexibility, respectively. Non-user males and females performed comparably, with the exception of Trail Making Test B (p = .001).Conclusions:Results suggest that chronic cannabis use differentially impacts males and females, with females exhibiting better verbal learning and memory despite males demonstrating better attention and cognitive flexibility. Further research is needed to understand the potential protective mechanism of female sex on learning and memory effects of cannabis use.

Iron Status in Early Infancy Is Associated With Attentional Flexibility and Cognitive Achievement in Rural Gambia

ObjectivesTo determine the relationship between iron status in early infancy (1–5 months) and longitudinal trajectories of cognitive development (5–18 months) in a cohort of infants from rural Gambia. MethodsThis study used data from the Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT) study, which recruited pregnant women (n = 223) and followed up mothers and their children to 18 months of age (n = 191). Infant blood samples collected at 1 and 5 months of age were analysed for soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR) and ferritin using a COBAS INTEGRA 400 (Roche). Cognitive development was measured at 5, 8, 12 and 18 months of age using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) and an eye tracking measure of attentional flexibility (disengagement time). For each outcome measure, mixed effects models of individual developmental trajectories from 5–18 months of age were developed. Each model had a different measure of iron status as the primary exposure (ferritin or sTfR at 1 or 5 months of age) and was adjusted for confounding factors. ResultsPrevalence of iron deficiency (ferritin < 12μg/L or < 30 μg/L if CRP > 5mg/L) increased from 0% to 29.5% between 1 and 5 months of age. In mixed effects models, a -1mg/L difference in sTfR (indicating better iron status) at 1 month of age was associated as with a 31.2ms difference in disengagement time (SE = 13.1, p = 0.017) at each time point from 5–18 months of age, but was not associated with MSEL developmental trajectory. A -1mg/L difference in sTfR at 5 months of age associated with a 0.6 point difference in MSEL score from 5–18 months of age (SE = 0.180, p = 0.001) and a 10.6ms difference in disengagement time (SE = 4.8, p = 0.028) across the same period. There was no relationship between ferritin concentration at 1 or 5 months and trajectories of either MSEL or disengagement time (all p > 0.05). ConclusionsInfants under 6 months of age in rural Gambia are at risk of iron deficiency. Poor iron status in early infancy, measured by sTfR but not ferritin, is associated with both global cognition and a specific measure of attentional flexibility, from 5–18 months of age. Maintenance of adequate iron in infants up to 6 months of age may benefit the developing brain. Funding SourcesBill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Medical Research Council (UK).

Stability of Executive Functioning of Moderately-Late Preterm and Full-Term Born Children at Ages 11 and 19: The TRAILS Cohort Study

Moderately-late preterm-born children (MLPs, 32–36 weeks gestational age, GA) have poorer executive functioning (EF) at primary school age than full-term children (FTs). Evidence is lacking on their EF in adolescence, but for early preterm-born children, this has been shown to be much poorer. We, therefore, compared EF of MLPs and FTs at ages 11 and 19 and assessed development between these ages. We obtained data from TRAILS, a community-based prospective cohort study in the northern Netherlands, on 98 MLPs and 1832 FTs. We assessed EF by the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks (ANT) at ages 11 and 19 years and computed gender-specific z-scores on reaction time and accuracy. We compared baseline speed, pattern search, working memory, sustained attention, inhibition, and attentional flexibility of MLPs and FTs crude, and adjusted for small-for-GA status, socioeconomic status, and estimated intelligence. MLPs and FTs performed similarly on all EF components at ages 11 and 19, except for the speed, but not the accuracy measure of attentional flexibility. This was slightly poorer for MLPs than FTs at age 19 (adjusted B 0.25; 95% confidence interval: 0.00 to 0.50; p = 0.047), but not at age 11 (adjusted B −0.02; −0.19 to 0.22; p = 0.87). Differences in EF between MLPs and FTs did not change significantly from age 11 to 19. MLPs had comparable EF on most components as FTs, with only attentional flexibility at age 19 developing slightly poorer for MLPs than for FTs. These findings suggest the effects of MLP birth on long-term EF to be small.

MAGNITIVE: Effectiveness and Feasibility of a Cognitive Training Program Through Magic Tricks for Children With Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. A Second Clinical Trial in Community Settings.

Previous studies have explored the impact of magic tricks on different basic cognitive processes yet there is a need of examining effectiveness of a cognitive training program through magic tricks for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The present study examines the effectiveness and feasibility of the MAGNITIVE program, a manualized intervention for cognitive training through the learning of magic tricks. A total of 11 children with ADHD (from 8 to 12 years) participated in separated groups of two different community settings (hospital center and school), and were assessed at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and a 3-month later follow-up in different tasks involving processing speed, sustained attention, selective attention, and mental flexibility. Using non parametric statistical analyses and Reliable Change Index, the results showed that these children receiving MAGNITIVE particularly improved their performance in sustained attention, shifting attention, and mental flexibility, changes were also observed in processing speed performance yet further research is needed in terms of selective attention and inhibition, given the great individual differences within this sample. Changes were maintained when the program was finished. In terms of viability, the study proved a good treatment integrity in different contexts (hospital and school setting), adherence to the curriculum (attendance and some practice at home), and high levels of engagement satisfaction. In this second clinical trial, MAGNITIVE program appears to be a feasible training program for children with ADHD, as an alternative for medication when possible.

Effects of methylphenidate on executive functioning in children and adolescents with ADHD after long-term use: a randomized, placebo-controlled discontinuation study.

BackgroundMethylphenidate may improve executive functioning in children with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, it is unclear if there are still acute effects of methylphenidate on executive functioning after long‐term use.MethodsIn a randomized double‐blind, placebo‐controlled discontinuation study, 94 children and adolescents (ages 8–18 years) who used methylphenidate beyond two years were either assigned to seven weeks of continued treatment with 36 or 54 mg of extended‐release methylphenidate or to gradual withdrawal over three weeks to placebo for four weeks. Performance on neuropsychological tasks, measuring working memory, response inhibition, attentional flexibility and psychomotor speed was compared between both groups using mixed models for repeated measures. Additionally, we investigated within the discontinuation group if a deterioration on the investigator‐rated Clinical Global Impressions Improvement scale after withdrawing to placebo was related to a worse performance on the neuropsychological tasks. This study was registered in the Netherlands Trial Register (www. Trialregister.nl) with identifier 5252.ResultsAfter withdrawal of methylphenidate, the discontinuation group made more errors on working memory (β = −1.62, SD = 0.56, t = −2.88, p = .01, Cohen’s f2 = .14), independent from reaction time compared to baseline, in contrast to the continuation group. We did not find differences in changes in response inhibition, attentional flexibility and psychomotor speed between the two groups. Also, there were no significant differences in task measures between the participants who deteriorated clinically and those who did not.ConclusionsOur study shows that methylphenidate has a beneficial effect on working memory after two years of use. Future studies should explore whether cognitive outcomes may aid clinical decision‐making on the continued use of methylphenidate, given dissociation between cognitive and behavioural effects of stimulant medication.

Spatio-Temporal Flexibility of Attention Inferred from Drivers’ Steering Movements

Participants attempted to center a cursor on a video display of a winding roadway with a rate control system. Fourier analysis of their steering movements in response to sinusoidal perturbations of the roadway revealed how much attention they allocated to different roadway preview locations. We compared a full 1.0 s of preview with preview restricted to a narrow slit around 0.3 s or 0.6 s. Participants were able to flexibly shift their attention to either slit. However, they performed better in terms of root-mean-squared error, velocity error, and acceleration error with the fuller view. They concentrated their attention over a range from 0.1 s to 0.3 s of preview in a manner qualitatively consistent with Miller’s optimal control model.

Looking for carrots, watching out for sticks: A gaze-contingent approach towards training contextual goal-dependent affective attention flexibility

The ability to flexibly shift between changing goals is crucial to develop an adaptive response to life stressors. Accordingly, lower affective attention flexibility, i.e. the ability to shift attention flexibly between goals, is associated with low reappraisal ability, high levels of rumination, and lower levels of resilience. However, attempts to manipulate affective attention flexibility with current attention training procedures have seen limited success. In the current study, we tested a novel attention flexibility training paradigm using eye-tracking, wherein dysphoric participants had to switch between different context-dependent goals. Attention towards goal-relevant emotional stimuli was reinforced using music and harsh sound. We found that participants in the training condition became significantly faster in switching attention from negative to positive goal-related stimuli pre-to post-training on an attention flexibility task, compared to the control condition. On a transfer task where participants had to give a presentation to an audience, we found that participants in the training condition displayed a more flexible pattern of attending to emotional faces during their presentation, depending upon which goal was activated. Comparatively, participants in the control condition remained rigidly attentive towards negative faces despite the goal activated. Our findings provide preliminary evidence for the role of context-based attention flexibility in dysphoria, and support scope for future clinical applications.

Contextual goal-dependent attention flexibility or rule-based learning? An investigation of a new attention flexibility paradigm

Background & objectivesDeficits in the ability to process contextual changes have been proposed to be crucial for emotion dysregulation. A recent study found evidence for the role of contextual changes in exacerbating attention switching towards valence-specific goals using a novel attention flexibility paradigm. Despite the task indicating good reliability, the role of rule-based learning has not been clarified in this paradigm. Therefore, we examined whether the novel attention flexibility task is an index of context-based attention switching or does it reflect impact of rule-based learning on attention. MethodWe employed a neutral version of the attention flexibility task. A sample of dysphoric and non-dysphoric participants were introduced to neutral contexts which required them to shift between neutral categories of pictures depending upon the cueing shape. ResultsThere was an existence of a switch cost for shifting between different rules owing to the features of the rules. Further, non-dysphorics were faster at set-shifting between different rules as compared to dysphoric individuals. However, unlike in the affective version of the attention flexibility task, we found no significant differences between dysphoric and non-dysphoric individuals in attention switching patterns owing to switching between different rules. LimitationsAlthough the current study aimed to replicate the design of the previous study, a depressed patient sample must be employed to further clarify the different aspects of the attention flexibility paradigm. ConclusionOur findings were able to clarify the non-existent role of rule-based learning in the attention flexibility paradigm.

Impaired mechanism of visual focal attention in posterior cortical atrophy.

Objective: Simultanagnosia, a deficit in holistic visual perception, is among the most prominent features of posterior cortical atrophy (PCA). Deficits in visuoperceptual and attentional mechanisms could contribute to simultanagnosia. In the present study, we explored the impaired visual perception of global configuration with two main hypotheses: (a) It is due to a deficit in processing low-spatial frequency stimuli, and (b) it arises from deficits in adjusting attentional focus. Method: The visuoperceptual mechanism was explored by asking participants (5 PCA patients and 20 age- and education-matched healthy controls) to report the local and global elements of incongruent hierarchical letters. Stimuli were unbiased (black letters/white background) and parvocellular biased (red letters/green background). A cued T-detection task, where the stimulus onset asynchrony and the cues' features varied, was used to explore focal attention. Results: PCA patients systematically failed in reporting the global but not the local element. The parvocellular-biased condition partially improved the performance in only 1 patient. In the T-detection task, controls responded faster to targets cued by red dots and small cues as compared to no cues. Conversely, the cue's features did not affect patients' performance. Conclusions: Results only partially support the hypothesis according to which simultanagnosia is driven by an impairment in processing low-spatial frequencies. Data indicate a deficit in the flexibility of focal attention that prevents PCA patients from adapting the attentional window to the stimulus features. Simultanagnosia in PCA can be conceptualized as a complex result of a deficit involving visuoperceptual and exogenous attentional mechanisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Cognitive Function and Affected Arm Function in Individuals with Ischemic Stroke

Background. Aerobic exercise has been successfully applied for cognitive and motor function improvement; however, its effects on the affected arm function in individuals with stroke remains equivocal.Research aim. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of aerobic exercise on cognitive function and affected arm function in individuals with ischemic stroke.Methods. The study included 16 subjects with ischemic stroke. They were randomly assigned to control (30 min of usual physiotherapy) and experimental (30 min of usual physiotherapy plus 20 min of aerobic exercise) groups. The interventions were performed five times a week, for 8 weeks. Cognitive performance and the affected arm function were evaluated before and after interventions.Results. In the experimental group, improvement (p &lt; 0.05) in the affected arm function and attention were observed. Both interventions significantly improved (p &lt; 0.05) cognitive flexibility; however, greater improvement (p &lt; 0.05) was observed after experimental intervention compared with control intervention. No differences in intervention effects on working memory were observed.Conclusions. Aerobic exercise, which is performed immediately after physiotherapy, improves recovery of impaired arm function, attention, and cognitive flexibility in individuals with ischemic stroke.Keywords: endurance exercises, motor function, aerobic exercise, cognitive flexibility.

Variables influencing executive functioning in preschool hearing-impaired children implanted within 24\xa0months of age: an observational cohort study

PurposeExecutive Functions (EFs) are fundamental to every aspect of life. The present study was implemented to evaluate factors influencing their development in a group of preschools orally educated profoundly deaf children of hearing parents, who received CI within 2 years of age.MethodsTwenty-five preschool CI children were tested using the Battery for Assessment of Executive Functions (BAFE) to assess their flexibility, inhibition, and non-verbal visuo-spatial working memory skills. The percentage of children performing in normal range was reported for each of the EF subtests. Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis were performed to assess differences between gender, listening mode, and degree of parents’ education subgroups. The Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient was calculated to investigate the relationship between EF scores of audiological and linguistic variables.ResultsPercentages ranging from 76 to 92% of the children reached adequate EF scores at BAFE. Significant relations (p < 0.05) were found between EFs and early intervention, listening, and linguistic skills. Furthermore, CI children from families with higher education level performed better at the response shifting, inhibitory control, and attention flexibility tasks. Economic income correlated significantly with flexibility and inhibitory skills. Females performed better than males only in the attention flexibility task.ConclusionsThe present study is one of the first to focus attention on the development of EFs in preschool CI children, providing an initial understanding of the characteristics of EFs at the age when these skills emerge. Clinical practice must pay increasing attention to these aspects which are becoming the new emerging challenge of rehabilitation programs.

Age differences in foraging and executive functions: A cross-sectional study

Visual foraging tasks require participants to search for multiple targets among numerous distractors. Foraging paradigms enable insights into the function of visual attention above what has been learned from traditional single-target search paradigms. These include attentional orienting over time and search strategies involving target selection from different target types. To date, only a handful of studies have been conducted on the development of foraging abilities. Here, the foraging of five age groups—children aged 6, 9, 12, and 15 years and adults—was measured, as was their performance on various tasks assessing four subdomains of executive functions: inhibition, attentional flexibility, working memory, and problem solving. Executive functions consist of a complex network of independent but interconnected cognitive processes that regulate action-orienting and goal-directed behavior and have been shown to be connected to visual attention and attentional orienting. Our results show that foraging abilities improve dramatically from 6 to 12 years of age, when adult levels of foraging have been reached. This is evident from reduced foraging times, increasingly frequent switches between target types, lower switch costs, and reduced error rates. In addition, partial least squares structural equation modeling reveals that the age differences on the foraging tasks are predominantly indirect effects through executive functions. In other words, the development of successful foraging abilities is highly correlated with the maturation of executive functions.