The influence of executive functions on eye-hand span and piano performance during sight-reading.

The ability to perform an unrehearsed piece of music, or sight-read, is a skill required by music performers. In sight-reading, the performer reads and plays the music simultaneously, which requires the coordination of visual, auditory, and motor processing. While performing, they display a characteristic called eye-hand span, in which the part of the score being looked at precedes the part being played.

Teachers' visual processing of children's off-task behaviors in class: A comparison between teachers and student teachers.

As teachers are responsible for responding instantaneously to students' statements and actions, the progress of the class, and their teaching purpose, they need to be able to engage in responsive teaching. Teachers obtain information about students' learning by observing them in the classroom, and subsequently make instructional decisions based on this information. Teachers need to be sensitive to student behaviors and respond accordingly, because there are students who follow the teacher's instructions and those who do not in every classroom.

Less efficient and costly processes of frontal cortex in childhood chronic fatigue syndrome.

The ability to divide one's attention deteriorates in patients with childhood chronic fatigue syndrome (CCFS). We conducted a study using a dual verbal task to assess allocation of attentional resources to two simultaneous activities (picking out vowels and reading for story comprehension) and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Patients exhibited a much larger area of activation, recruiting additional frontal areas.

Divided attention of adolescents related to lifestyles and academic and family conditions.

Background: Development of the ability to divide attention is of crucial importance in the transitional period from elementary to junior high school. The relationship between divided attention and the prevalence of fatigue or low academic motivation is observed in junior high school students. In order to clarify the factors underlying decreased ability to divide attention, we examined the relationships between divided attention, as assessed by the kana pick-out test, lifestyle factors, and academic and family conditions in junior high school students.

Low visual information-processing speed and attention are predictors of fatigue in elementary and junior high school students.

Background: Fatigue is a common complaint among elementary and junior high school students, and is known to be associated with reduced academic performance. Recently, we demonstrated that fatigue was correlated with decreased cognitive function in these students. However, no studies have identified cognitive predictors of fatigue.

Relationship between cognitive function and prevalence of decrease in intrinsic academic motivation in adolescents.

Background: Decrease in intrinsic motivation is a common complaint among elementary and junior high school students, and is related to poor academic performance. Since grade-dependent development of cognitive functions also influences academic performance by these students, we examined whether cognitive functions are related to the prevalence of decrease in intrinsic academic motivation.

Methods: The study group consisted of 134 elementary school students from 4th to 6th grades and 133 junior high school students from 7th to 9th grades.

Relationship between cognitive functions and prevalence of fatigue in elementary and junior high school students.

Background: Fatigue is a common complaint among elementary and junior high school students, and is related to poor academic performance. Since grade-dependent development of cognitive functions also influences academic performance, we attempted to determine whether cognitive functions were associated with the prevalence of fatigue.

Methods: Participants were 148 elementary school students from 4th- to 6th-grades and 152 junior high school students from 7th- to 9th-grades.

Changes in cognitive functions of students in the transitional period from elementary school to junior high school.

Background: When students proceed to junior high school from elementary school, rapid changes in the environment occur, which may cause various behavioral and emotional problems. However, the changes in cognitive functions during this transitional period have rarely been studied.

Methods: In 158 elementary school students from 4th- to 6th-grades and 159 junior high school students from 7th- to 9th-grades, we assessed various cognitive functions, including motor processing, spatial construction ability, semantic fluency, immediate memory, delayed memory, spatial and non-spatial working memory, and selective, alternative, and divided attention.

Effort-reward imbalance for learning is associated with fatigue in school children.

We examined relationships among fatigue, sleep quality, and effort-reward imbalance for learning in school children. We developed an effort-reward for learning scale in school students and examined its reliability and validity. Self-administered surveys, including the effort reward for leaning scale and fatigue scale, were completed by 1,023 elementary school students (grades 4-6) and 1,361 junior high school students (grades 7-9) at the end of 2006.

Temperament and character as predictors of fatigue-induced symptoms among school children in Japan: a 1-year follow-up study.

Objective: This 1-year follow-up study was performed to examine the association of temperament and character dimensions with new onset of fatigue-induced symptoms among school children in Japan, focusing on the transition from childhood to early adolescence.

Method: This study prospectively reviewed data from 1512 school children from four elementary and four junior high schools in Japan. The survey was conducted in 2006 and 2007.

Reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Chalder Fatigue Scale among youth in Japan.

In the present study, the reliability and construct validity of the Japanese version of the Chalder Fatigue Scale was evaluated as a measure of severity of fatigue among young students in Japan. A healthy group comprised 27 Grade 6 primary school students and 28 Grade 1 junior high school students. The severely fatigued group were hospital outpatients with childhood chronic fatigue syndrome (n = 21).

Facial skin temperature decreases in infants with joyful expression.

Studies of infant emotion rely on the assessment of expressive behavior and physiological response because infants cannot tell their feelings. Little is known about the physiological response of infants when they are in a joyful emotion. In this study, we examined changes in facial skin temperature as a physiological response, when infants are laughing, an expressive behavior of joyful emotion.

Attenuated fever in pregnant rats is associated with blunted syntheses of brain cyclooxygenase-2 and PGE2.

Attenuation of fever occurs in pregnant animals. This study examined a hypothesis that brain production of PGE(2), the final mediator of fever, is suppressed in pregnant animals. Near-term pregnant rats and age-matched nonpregnant female rats were injected with lipopolysaccharide (100 microg/kg) intraperitoneally.