Challenges and opportunities for harmonization of cross-cultural neuropsychological data.

Objective: In this position article, we highlight the importance of considering cultural and linguistic variables that influence neuropsychological test performance and the possible moderating impact on our understanding of brain/behavior relationships. Increasingly, neuropsychologists are realizing that cultural and language differences between countries, regions, and ethnic groups influence neuropsychological outcomes, as test scores may not have the same interpretative meaning across cultures. Furthermore, attempts to apply the same norms across diverse populations without accounting for culture and language variations will result in detrimental ethical dilemmas, such as misdiagnosis of clinical conditions and inaccurate interpretations of research outcomes.

The ubiquity of memory retrieval deficits in patients with frontal-striatal dysfunction.

Objective And Background: Previous studies have shown that patients with frontal-striatal dysfunction demonstrate improved performance on tests of recognition memory relative to free recall memory, suggesting deficits in retrieval processes. Not all studies, however, have indicated that all patients with frontal-striatal dysfunction display this profile. In this study, we examined the ubiquity of this "retrieval deficit" profile in a relatively large sample of patients with Parkinson disease (PD) or Huntington disease (HD).