Spinal Versus General Anesthesia for Lumbar Decompression or Sequestrectomy in Patients Over 75 Years.

Background Context: Decompression or sequestrectomy in the lumbar spine can be performed under general (GA) or regional anesthesia. In elderly patients, it is still not clear, which procedure should be chosen.

Objective: To demonstrate that spinal anesthesia (SA) is a safe choice for lumbar decompression or sequestrectomy in elderly patients.

Erratum to: Working memory training in children: Effectiveness depends on temperament.

Erratum to: Mem Cogn DOI: 10.3758/s13421-015-0548-9. Note that the captions provided for Figs.

Working memory training in children: Effectiveness depends on temperament.

Studies revealing transfer effects of working memory (WM) training on non-trained cognitive performance of children hold promising implications for scholastic learning. However, the results of existing training studies are not consistent and provoke debates about the potential and limitations of cognitive enhancement. To examine the influence of individual differences on training outcomes is a promising approach for finding causes for such inconsistencies.

Outcomes after combined use of intraoperative MRI and 5-aminolevulinic acid in high-grade glioma surgery.

Background: Previous studies have shown the individual benefits of 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) and intraoperative (i)MRI in enhancing survival for patients with high-grade glioma. In this retrospective study, we compare rates of progression-free and overall survival between patients who underwent surgical resection with the combination of 5-ALA and iMRI and a control group without iMRI.

Methods: In 200 consecutive patients with high-grade gliomas, we recorded age, sex, World Health Organization tumor grade, and pre- and postoperative Karnofsky performance status (good ≥80 and poor <80).

The neuropsychological assessment of cognitive deficits considering measures of performance variability.

Neuropsychologists often face interpretational difficulties when assessing cognitive deficits, particularly in cases of unclear cerebral etiology. How can we be sure whether a single test score below the population average is indicative of a pathological brain condition or normal? In the past few years, the topic of intra-individual performance variability has gained great interest. On the basis of a large normative sample, two measures of performance variability and their importance for neuropsychological interpretation will be presented in this paper: the number of low scores and the level of dispersion.

Non-instrumented extradural lumbar spine surgery under low-dose acetylsalicylic acid: a comparative risk analysis study.

Purpose: Coronary artery disease (CAD) affects over one-third of adults and is the leading cause of overall mortality and morbidity. Acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) is widely used in the prevention of CAD. As the population continues to mature, the number of patients presenting for spinal surgery that are under ASA treatment is rising.

Is excessive electroencephalography beta activity associated with delinquent behavior in men with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder symptomatology?

Background/aims: The attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) shows an increased prevalence in delinquents compared to the normal population. In recent studies, a subgroup of subjects with ADHD as well as a subgroup of delinquents displayed excessive electroencephalography (EEG) beta activity, which has been associated with antisocial behavior in ADHD children. We investigated whether delinquent behavior in adults with ADHD symptomatology is related to excessive beta activity.

Delayed development of neural language organization in very preterm born children.

This study investigates neural language organization in very preterm born children compared to control children and examines the relationship between language organization, age, and language performance. Fifty-six preterms and 38 controls (7-12 y) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging language task. Lateralization and signal change were computed for language-relevant brain regions.

Impairments in an early stage of the decision-making process in patients with ventromedial prefrontal damage: preliminary results.

Lesions of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex can result in a deficient decision-making behavior. So far, most experimental results in the neuropsychological decision-making research have been obtained with gambling tasks. Due to their high complexity, it is difficult to evaluate the underlying processes of the decision-making deficits.

Delay of cortical thinning in very preterm born children.

Background: Cortical gray matter thinning occurs during childhood due to pruning of inefficient synaptic connections and an increase in myelination. Preterms show alterations in brain structure, with prolonged maturation of the frontal lobes, smaller cortical volumes and reduced white matter volume. These findings give rise to the question if there is a differential influence of age on cortical thinning in preterms compared to controls.

Accuracy of pedicle screw placement in the thoracic and lumbosacral spine using a conventional intraoperative fluoroscopy-guided technique: a national neurosurgical education and training center analysis of 1236 consecutive screws.

Objective: Pedicle screw placement is a very common procedure used to stabilize all three columns of the thoracic and lumbar spine. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the incidence of screw misplacement and related complications in patients who underwent fluoroscopy-guided transpedicular screw fixation at a neurosurgical teaching institution.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed consecutive patients who underwent fluoroscopy-guided transpedicular screw fixation from January 2007 to May 2011 in the Department of Neurosurgery, Kantonsspital Aarau, a certified Swiss National Neurosurgical Education and Training Center.

Visuospatial working memory in very preterm and term born children--impact of age and performance.

Working memory is crucial for meeting the challenges of daily life and performing academic tasks, such as reading or arithmetic. Very preterm born children are at risk of low working memory capacity. The aim of this study was to examine the visuospatial working memory network of school-aged preterm children and to determine the effect of age and performance on the neural working memory network.

Sustained and transient attentional processes modulate neural predictors of memory encoding in consecutive time periods.

Memory formation is commonly thought to rely on brain activity following an event. Yet, recent research has shown that even brain activity previous to an event can predict later recollection (subsequent memory effect, SME). In order to investigate the attentional sources of the SME, event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by task cues preceding target words were recorded in a switched task paradigm that was followed by a surprise recognition test.

Increased parietal activity after training of interference control.

Recent studies suggest that computerized cognitive training leads to improved performance in related but untrained tasks (i.e. transfer effects).

Cognitive and behavioral aspects of executive functions in children born very preterm.

This study investigated whether children aged between 8 and 12 years born very preterm (VPT) and/or at very low birth weight (VLBW) performed lower than same-aged term-born controls in cognitive and behavioral aspects of three executive functions: inhibition, working memory, and shifting. Special attention was given to sex differences. Fifty-two VPT/VLBW children (26 girls, 50%) born in the cohort of 1998-2003 and 36 same-aged term-born children (18 girls, 50%) were recruited.

Executive functions of children born very preterm--deficit or delay?

Unlabelled: This cross-sectional study examined the performance of children born very preterm and/or at very low birth weight (VPT/VLBW) and same-aged term-born controls in three core executive functions: inhibition, working memory, and shifting. Children were divided into two age groups according to the median (young, 8.00-9.

Non-conscious word processing in a mirror-masking paradigm causing attentional distraction: an ERP-study.

In this event-related potential (ERP) study a masking technique that prevents conscious perception of words and non-words through attentional distraction was used to reveal the temporal dynamics of word processing under non-conscious and conscious conditions. In the non-conscious condition, ERP responses differed between masked words and non-words from 112 to 160 ms after stimulus-onset over posterior brain areas. The early onset of the word-non-word differences was compatible with previous studies that reported non-conscious access to orthographic information within this time period.

Neurophysiological correlates of delinquent behaviour in adult subjects with ADHD.

The attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) shows an increased prevalence in arrested offenders compared to the normal population. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether ADHD symptoms are a major risk factor for criminal behaviour, or whether further deficits, mainly abnormalities in emotion-processing, have to be considered as important additional factors that promote delinquency in the presence of ADHD symptomatology. Event related potentials (ERPs) of 13 non-delinquent and 13 delinquent subjects with ADHD and 13 controls were compared using a modified visual Go/Nogo continuous performance task (VCPT) and a newly developed version of the visual CPT that additionally requires emotional evaluation (ECPT).

Different brain activities predict retrieval success during emotional and semantic encoding.

There is an increasing line of evidence supporting the idea that the formation of lasting memories involves neural activity preceding stimulus presentation. Following this line, we presented words in an incidental learning setting and manipulated the prestimulus state by asking the participants to perform either an emotional (neutral or emotional) or a semantic (animate or inanimate) decision task. Later, we tested the retrieval of each previously presented word with a recognition memory test.

Visible homonyms are ambiguous, subliminal homonyms are not: a close look at priming.

Homonyms, i.e. ambiguous words like 'score', have different meanings in different contexts.

Working memory training improves reading processes in typically developing children.

The goal of this study was to investigate whether a brief cognitive training intervention results in a specific performance increase in the trained task, and whether there are transfer effects to other nontrained measures. A computerized, adaptive working memory intervention was conducted with 9- to 11-year-old typically developing children. The children considerably improved their performance in the trained working memory task.

The concurrent validity of the N-back task as a working memory measure.

The N-back task is used extensively in literature as a working memory (WM) paradigm and it is increasingly used as a measure of individual differences. However, not much is known about the psychometric properties of this task and the current study aims to shed more light on this issue. We first review the current literature on the psychometric properties of the N-back task.

Lateralization of cognitive functions after stroke in childhood.

Rationale: A child's brain shows a remarkable ability to recover from adverse events such as stroke. Language functions recover particularly well, while visuo-spatial skills are more affected by brain damage, regardless of its localization. This study investigated the lateralization of language and visual search after childhood stroke.