Evaluation of the supervisory system in elderly subjects with and without disinhibition.

Unlabelled: Disinhibition and irritability, defined as loss of behavioral and emotional control, are frequent in the elderly. The working hypothesis for this study was that these disorders are associated with a cognitive alteration of control processes that manifests as non-routine behavior because of the dysfunction of a general executive component known as the supervisory attentional system (SAS).

Methods: A total of 28 elderly subjects with mild cognitive impairment were recruited and divided into two groups using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory.

Clustering and switching strategies in verbal fluency tasks: comparison between schizophrenics and healthy adults.

Verbal fluency tasks are frequently used in clinical neuropsychology. Clustering (the production of words within semantic subcategories) and switching (the ability to shift between clusters) have been described as 2 components underlying fluency performance. We compared the use of clustering and switching in schizophrenic patients and healthy subjects.

Use of a sequencing task designed to stress the supervisory system in schizophrenic subjects.

Background: We investigated whether schizophrenic subjects are impaired in non-routine behaviour because of the dysfunction of a general executive component labelled, in neuropsychological terms, the supervisory system.

Methods: A specific verbal sequencing test was designed for this purpose. Subjects had to perform sequential reasoning with verbal material.