Brain stimulation in attention deficits after traumatic brain injury: a literature review and feasibility study.

Background: After a traumatic brain injury, disturbances in the attentional processes have a direct negative effect on functional recovery and on return to complex activities. To date, there is no good attention remediation treatment available. The primary objective of this review and pilot study is to provide an overview of the research evidence and to evaluate the feasibility of implementing a tDCS protocol to improve attention disorders in patients with mild complicated to severe subacute TBI, hospitalized in an inpatient rehabilitation facility.

Memory and executive dysfunctions associated with acute posttraumatic stress disorder.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in its chronic form has been associated with a number of neurocognitive impairments involving emotionally neutral stimuli. It remains unknown whether such impairments also characterize acute PTSD. In the present investigation, neurocognitive functions were examined in trauma exposed individuals with (n=21) and without (n=16) acute PTSD, as well as in a group of individuals never exposed to trauma (n=17) using specific and standardized tasks such as the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, the Aggie's Figure Learning Test, the Autobiographical Memory Interview, the D2 test, the Stroop task, the digit and visual span tasks of the Wechsler Memory Scale-III, the Trail Making Test, the Tower of London and the vocabulary subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III.