Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the working memory (WM) performance pre- and post-concussion, and investigate the relationships between performance changes and characteristics such as self-reported symptom scores, number of days post-injury and age at injury in 10-14-year-old youth.
Methods: Twenty-one youth (17 males) aged 10-14 years recruited from the community completed verbal and non-verbal WM tasks pre- and post-concussion. Performance was measured using accuracy and performance errors (false alarms and misses).
While generalized cerebral atrophy and neurodegenerative change following traumatic brain injury (TBI) is well recognized in adults, it remains comparatively understudied in the pediatric population, suggesting that research should address the potential for neurodegenerative change in children and youth following TBI. This focused review examines original research findings documenting evidence for neurodegenerative change following TBI of all severities in children and youth. Our relevant inclusion and exclusion criteria identified a total of 16 articles for review.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To synthesize the best available evidence regarding psychosocial consequences of mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) in children.
Data Sources: MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and SPORTDiscus were searched (2001-2012). Inclusion criteria included published peer-reviewed reports in English, French, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, and Danish.
Abstract In children, the importance of detecting deficits after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) or concussion has grown with the increasing popularity of leisure physical activities and contact sports. Whereas most postconcussive symptoms (PCS) are similar for children and adults, the breadth of consequences to children remains largely unknown. To investigate the effect of mTBI on brain function, we compared working memory performance and related brain activity using blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 15 concussed youths and 15 healthy age-matched control subjects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTraumatic brain injury often results in physical, behavioral, and cognitive impairments perceived by health care practitioners to limit or exclude clients' full participation in treatment decision making. We used qualitative methods to evaluate the short- and long-term impact of "After the Crash: A Play About Brain Injury," a research-based drama designed to teach client-centered care principles to brain injury rehabilitation staff. We conducted interviews and observations with staff of two inpatient neurorehabilitation units in Ontario, Canada.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is a lack of knowledge about how cultural ideas affect First Nations peoples' perception of rehabilitation needs and the ability to access services.
Purpose: The study explored the perceptions of treating and healing brain injury from First Nations elders and traditional healers in the communities served by Wassay-Gezhig-Na-Nahn-Dah-We-lgamig (Kenora Area Health Access Centre).
Methods: A participatory action approach was used, leading to a focus group with elders and traditional healers.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci
January 2011
We examined the influence of emotional valence and type of item to be remembered on brain activity during recognition, using faces and scenes. We used multivariate analyses of event-related fMRI data to identify whole-brain patterns, or networks of activity. Participants demonstrated better recognition for scenes vs faces and for negative vs neutral and positive items.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSports-related concussion or mild-traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is common in children who participate in organised sports. We describe two case studies involving 14-year-old girls who each sustained a mTBI during ice hockey competition. Neurocognitive functioning post-injury is compared to baseline pre-injury assessment on the same measures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrimary Objective: To explore the experiences of health care practitioners working with Aboriginal clients recovering from acquired brain injury (ABI).
Research Design: Participatory research design using qualitative methods.
Methods: Fourteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci
December 2007
We used fMRI to explore brain activity in young and old adults, while they viewed and labeled faces expressing different emotions as well as neutral expressions. Older adults had significantly greater difficulty identifying expressions of sadness, anger and disgust than young adults. Both groups performed at ceiling for happy expressions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Contin Educ Health Prof
November 2008
Introduction: The aim of this project was to develop and evaluate a research-based dramatic production for the purpose of transferring knowledge about traumatic brain injury (TBI) to health care professionals, managers, and decision makers.
Methods: Using results drawn from six focus group discussions with key stakeholders (consumers, informal caregivers, and health care practitioners experienced in the field of TBI) and relevant scientific literature, a 50-minute play was produced for the purpose of conveying the experiences of TBI survivors, informal care providers, and health practitioners and best practice for TBI care. A self-administered postperformance survey was distributed to audience members at the end of four performances in Ontario, Canada, to evaluate the play's efficacy.
The authors administered social cognition tasks to younger and older adults to investigate age-related differences in social and emotional processing. Although slower, older adults were as accurate as younger adults in identifying the emotional valence (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWords processed with reference to the self are generally better remembered than words processed in semantic terms. An account of this phenomenon, labeled the Self Reference Effect (SRE), is that the self promotes elaboration and organization of encoded information. Although a few neuroimaging studies associated self-referential encoding with activations of the medial prefrontal cortex, no previous study has investigated the neural correlates of remembering emotional words encoded in an SRE paradigm.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current study examined limbic-cortical activation under transient emotional stress as a function of personality style. A ventral cingulate (Cg25)-centred limbic-cortical network was identified using positron emission tomography (PET) measures of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) during a sad mood challenge that demonstrated differences for individuals selected for specific patterns of Negative and Positive emotional traits, indexed by the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised. Healthy subjects scoring both low on the dispositional Depression facet of Neuroticism (N3) and high on the Positive Emotions facet of Extraversion (E6) were compared to those scoring high on the Depression facet (N3) and low on Positive Emotions (E6), a combination of traits previously linked to normal variations in mood reactivity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to define the neural regions mediating self-referential processing of emotional stimuli and to explore how these regions are influenced by the emotional valence of the stimulus.
Method: Ten healthy subjects were presented with words describing positive and negative personality traits during fMRI scanning in three different conditions. In the self-referential processing condition, subjects judged whether they thought each trait described them.
Previous experiments have found that individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show increased activity in prefrontal regions compared with healthy age-matched controls during cognitive tasks. This has been interpreted as compensatory reallocation of cognitive resources, but direct evidence for a facilitating effect on performance has been lacking. To address this we measured neural activity during semantic and episodic memory tasks in mildly demented AD patients and healthy elderly controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBrain regions modulated by cognitive tasks during emotional processing were investigated using fMRI. Participants performed indirect and direct emotional processing tasks on positive and negative faces and pictures. We used a multivariate technique, partial least squares (PLS) to determine spatially distributed patterns of brain activity associated with different tasks and stimulus conditions, as well as the interaction between the two.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this paper, we review studies using functional neuroimaging to examine cognition in neuropsychiatric disorders. The focus is on social cognition, which is a topic that has received increasing attention over the past few years. A network of brain regions is proposed for social cognition that includes regions involved in processes relevant to social functioning (for example, self reference and emotion).
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