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Neurocognitive functions are cognitive functions closely linked to the function of particular areas, neural pathways, or cortical networks in the brain, ultimately served by the substrate of the brain's neurological matrix. Therefore, their understanding is closely linked to the practice of neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience – two disciplines that broadly seek to understand how the structure and function of the brain relate to cognition and behaviour.
Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology focus on how injuries or illnesses of the brain affect cognitive and behavioral functions.
Rehabilitation of sensory and cognitive function typically involves methods for retraining neural pathways or training new neural pathways to regain or improve neurocognitive functioning that have been diminished by disease or trauma. The main objective outcome for rehabilitation is to assist in regaining physical abilities and improving performance. Three common neuropsychological problems treatable with rehabilitation are attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), concussion, and spinal cord injury. Rehabilitation research and practices are a fertile area for clinical neuropsychologists, rehabilitation psychologists, and others.
Neuropsychological tests are specifically designed tasks that are used to measure a psychological function known to be linked to a particular brain structure or pathway. Tests are used for research into brain function and in a clinical setting for the diagnosis of deficits. They usually involve the systematic administration of clearly defined procedures in a formal environment. Neuropsychological tests are typically administered to a single person working with an examiner in a quiet office environment, free from distractions. As such, it can be argued that neuropsychological tests at times offer an estimate of a person's peak level of cognitive performance. Neuropsychological tests are a core component of the process of conducting neuropsychological assessment, along with personal, interpersonal and contextual factors.
Clinical neuropsychology is a sub-field of cognitive science and psychology concerned with the applied science of brain-behaviour relationships. Clinical neuropsychologists use this knowledge in the assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and or rehabilitation of patients across the lifespan with neurological, medical, neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions, as well as other cognitive and learning disorders. The branch of neuropsychology associated with children and young people is called pediatric neuropsychology.
The attempts to derive the links between the damage to specific brain areas and problems in behaviour are known throughout the history for 3 millennia. However, the first systematic neuropsychological assessment and a battery of the behavioural tasks to investigate specific aspects of behavioural regulation was developed by Alexander Luria in 1942-1948. Luria was working with big samples of brain-injured Russian soldiers during and after the second World War. Among many insights from Luria's rehabilitation practice and observations, was the fundamental discovery of the involvement of frontal lobes of the cortex in plasticity, initiation, planning and organization of behaviour. His Go/no-go task, which was one of the tasks screening for the frontal lobe damage, "count by 7", hands-clutching, clock-drawing task, drawing of repeatitive patterns, word associations and categories recall and others became standard components of neuropsychological assessment and mental status screening. Considering the originality and multiplicity of neuropsychological components offered by Alexander Luria, he is recognized as a father of neuropsychological assessment. Alexander Luria's neuropsychological battery was adapted in the United States in the form of Luria-Nebraska neuropsychological battery in 1970s. Then the tasks used in this battery were borrowed in more modern neuropsychological batteries and in the Mini–mental state examination test for screening of demenia.
The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is a neuropsychological test of set-shifting, which is the capability to show flexibility when exposed to changes in reinforcement. The WCST was written by David A. Grant and Esta A. Berg. The Professional Manual for the WCST was written by Robert K. Heaton, Gordon J. Chelune, Jack L. Talley, Gary G. Kay, and Glenn Curtiss.
Nonverbal learning disorder is a proposed category of neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by core deficits in non-verbal skills, especially visual-spatial processing. People with this condition have normal or advanced verbal intelligence and significantly lower nonverbal intelligence. A review of papers found that proposed diagnostic criteria were inconsistent. Proposed additional diagnostic criteria include intact verbal intelligence, and deficits in the following: visuoconstruction abilities, speech prosody, fine motor coordination, mathematical reasoning, visuospatial memory and social skills. NVLD is not recognised by the DSM-5 and is not clinically distinct from learning disorders.
Neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of mental conditions affecting the development of the nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord. According to the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, (DSM-5) published in 2013, these conditions generally appear in early childhood, usually before children start school, and can persist into adulthood. The key characteristic of all these disorders is that they negatively impact a person's functioning in one or more domains of life depending on the disorder and deficits it has caused. All of these disorders and their levels of impairment exist on a spectrum, and affected individuals can experience varying degrees of symptoms and deficits, despite having the same diagnosis.
Edith F. Kaplan was an American psychologist, and a pioneer of neuropsychological tests who did most of her work at the Boston VA Hospital. Kaplan is known for her promotion of clinical neuropsychology as a specialty area in psychology. She examined brain-behavioral relationships in aphasia, apraxia, developmental issues in clinical neuropsychology, as well as normal and abnormal aging. Kaplan helped develop a new method of assessing brain function with neuropsychological assessment, called "The Boston Process Approach."
Muriel Elaine Deutsch Lezak was an American neuropsychologist best known for her book Neuropsychological Assessment, widely accepted as the standard in the field. Her work has centred on the research, assessment, and rehabilitation of brain injury. Lezak was a professor of neurology at the Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine.
Raymond S. Dean was an American psychologist and George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Neuropsychology and Professor of Psychology at Ball State University.
The California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) is one of the most widely used neuropsychological tests in North America. As an instrument, it represents a relatively new approach to clinical psychology and the cognitive science of memory. It measures episodic verbal learning and memory, and demonstrates sensitivity to a range of clinical conditions. The test does this by attempting to link memory deficits with impaired performance on specific tasks. It assesses encoding, recall and recognition in a single modality of item presentation (auditory-verbal). The CVLT is considered to be a more sensitive measure of episodic memory than other verbal learning tests. It was designed to not only measure how much a subject learned, but also reveal strategies employed and the types of errors made. The CVLT indexes free and cued recall, serial position effects, semantic clustering, intrusions, interference and recognition. Delis et al. (1994) released the California Verbal Learning Test for Children (CVLT-C). The California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) is an updated version of the original CVLT, which has been standardized and provides normative data.
The Luria–Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery (LNNB) is a standardized test that identifies neuropsychological deficiencies by measuring functioning on fourteen scales. It evaluates learning, experience, and cognitive skills. The test was created by Charles Golden in 1981 and based on previous work by Alexander Luria that emphasizes a qualitative instead of quantitative approach. The original, adult version is for use with ages fifteen and over, while the Luria–Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery for Children (LNNB-C) can be used with ages eight to twelve; both tests take two to three hours to administer. The LNNB has 269 items divided among fourteen scales, which are motor, rhythm, tactile, visual, receptive speech, expressive speech, writing, reading, arithmetic, memory, intellectual processes, pathognomonic, left hemisphere, and right hemisphere. The test is graded on scales that are correlated to regions of the brain to help identify which region may be damaged. The Luria–Nebraska has been found to be reliable and valid; it is comparable in this sense to other neuropsychological tests in its ability to differentiate between brain damage and mental illness. The test is used to diagnose and determine the nature of cognitive impairment, including the location of the brain damage, to understand the patient's brain structure and abilities, to pinpoint causes of behavior, and to help plan treatment.
The Delis–Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) is a neuropsychological test used to measure a variety of verbal and nonverbal executive functions for both children and adults. This assessment was developed over the span of a decade by Dean Delis, Edith Kaplan, and Joel Kramer, and it was published in 2001. The D-KEFS comprises nine tests that were designed to stand alone. Therefore, there are no aggregate measures or composite scores for an examinee's performance. A vast majority of these tests are modified, pre-existing measures ; however, some of these measures are new indices of executive functions.
Ernest "Mark" Mahone is an American pediatric neuropsychologist.
Ralph M. Reitan was an American neuropsychologist and one of the founding fathers of American clinical neuropsychology having brought the notion of brain-behavior relationships to the forefront of the field. He is best known for his role in developing the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Battery and his strong belief in empiricism and evidence-based practice. He was a strong advocate of use of a fixed battery in neuropsychological assessment, published prolifically, and mentored many students who also became prominent in the field. As an author, he has been collected by libraries.
K. Drorit "Dee" Gaines is a neuropsychologist specializing in diagnostic evaluations, brain injury, trauma, and public education. She is most known for her work with United States veterans, and serves as an authority on the physical brain's effects on behavior and cognitive functioning.
Paul Satz was an American psychologist, and one of the founders of the discipline neuropsychology. His research on the relationship between the brain and human behavior spanned diverse topics including laterality, handedness, and developmental disorders. He published over 300 publications, received numerous grants and awards, and established the first neuropsychology lab. Towards the latter part of his career, Satz's research interests focused more on the cognitive deficits associated with head injury, dementia, and ageing.
Developmental neuropsychology combines the fields of neuroscience and developmental psychology, while drawing from various other related disciplines. It examines the relationship of behavior and brain function throughout the course of an individual's lifespan, though often emphasis is put on childhood and adolescence when the majority of brain development occurs. Research tends to focus on development of important behavioral functions like perception, language, and other cognitive processes. Studies in this field are often centered around children or other individuals with developmental disorders or various kinds of brain related trauma or injury. A key concept of this field is that looks at and attempts to relate the psychological aspects of development, such as behavior, comprehension, cognition, etc., to the specific neural structures; it draws parallels between behavior and mechanism in the brain. Research in this field involves various cognitive tasks and tests as well as neuroimaging. Some of the many conditions studied by developmental neuropsychologists include congenital or acquired brain damage, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder, executive dysfunction, seizures, intellectual disabilities, obsessive compulsive disorder, stuttering, schizophrenia, developmental aphasia, and other learning delays such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyspraxia.
References
- ↑ Robert J. Ivnik , Kathleen Y. Haaland & Linas A. Bieliauskas (2000): AMERICAN BOARD OF CLINICAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY SPECIAL PRESENTATION The American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology (ABCN), 2000 Update, The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 14:3, 261-268
- ↑ Shea, SE; Gordon, K; Hawkins, A; Kawchuk, J; Smith, D (12 December 2000). "Pathology in the Hundred Acre Wood: a neurodevelopmental perspective on A.A. Milne". CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal. 163 (12): 1557–9. PMC 80580 . PMID 11153486.
- ↑ "International Child Neurology Association Newsletter: Excerpts". Pediatric Neurology. 17 (1): 92–93. July 1997. doi:10.1016/S0887-8994(97)90006-0.
- ↑ ALARCÓN, RENATO D. (June 2005). "Psychiatry, 2nd ed". American Journal of Psychiatry. 162 (6): 1234–1236. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.162.6.1234.
- ↑ Yeates, K. O., Ris, M. D., Taylor, H. G., & Pennington, B. F. (2010). Pediatric neuropsychology research, theory and practice. (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 475-483). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
- ↑ Silver, C. H., Blackburn, L. B., Arffa, S., Barth, J. T., Bush, S. S., Koffler, S. P., Pliskin, N. H., & Reynolds, C. R. (2006). The importance of neuropsychological assessment for the evaluation of childhood learning disorders. NAN policy and planning committee. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, (21), 741-744.
- ↑ Gouvier, W. M. D., Baumeister, A., & Ijaola, K., (2009). Neuropsychological disorders of children. In J. L. Matson, F. Andrasik, & M. L. Matson (Eds.), Assessing childhood psychopathology and developmental disabilities (pp. 151–182). New York, NY: Springer.
- ↑ Baron, I. S. & Rey-Casserley, C. (2013). Pediatric neuropsychology: A lifespan approach. Oxford.
- ↑ Baron, I.S., et al. (2012). Pediatric neuropsychology:Toward subspecialty designation. Clin Neuropsychol. 2011 Aug;25(6):1075-86