Clinical neuropsychology and brain injury rehabilitation in Israel: A twenty-year perspective

The development of the field of neuropsychology in Israel is primarily the result of the development of rehabilitation services for traumatic brain-injured patients. The responsibility to care for and help disabled veterans has always been an important motivation for the establishment of rehabilitation services. Israel is probably one of the first countries in the world to develop community-based services specifically designed to address the needs of young patients with severe traumatic brain injury. The fairly extensive therapeutic and community services available today for both military and civilian brain-injured persons in Israel are the result of initiatives and funding by the Israel Ministry of Defense's Department of Rehabilitation. There are two principles that characterize most of the programs in Israel: (1) multidimensional remedial intervention and (2) life-time commitment to provide support. The accessibility of patients in a small country enables professionals to conduct follow-up studies in order to evaluate the long-term effects of brain injury. Current developments in neuropsychology are in three directions. First, formal training programs in neuropsychology are being set up. Second, the involvement of neuropsychologists is being extended beyond the treatment of young patients suffering from traumatic brain injury to include the treatment of different brain pathologies in children and the elderly. Third, sophisticated neuroimaging techniques are being applied to studies in cognitive neuropsychology.     

How much woe when we go: A quantitative method for predicting culture shock

Culture shock is defined as the confusion and discomfort caused by the conflict in perceived motives and expected behaviors between the home culture and the foreign culture. Several quantitative and graphical methods employing techniques of cluster analysis and similarity mapping are offered for predicting the magnitude of culture shock between pairs of countries using data extracted from Hofstede's 1980–83 studies of national cultural values. Implications for business, politics, and personal stress management are discussed.     

Prevalence of traumatic brain injury in an inpatient psychiatric population

This study investigated the prevalence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in an inpatient psychiatric population. We hypothesized increased prevalence of TBI relative to the general population due to a variety of risk factors observed in psychiatric patients. One hundred (mean age = 34) psychiatric inpatients completed the revised Head Injury Questionnaire. Chart review of 17 subjects reporting injuries established whether injuries were documented in medical records. Sixty-eight percent of this psychiatric population reported one or more injuries in which they were unconscious or dazed. This number is higher than the prevalence in the general population. Injuries were generally of mild to moderate severity; multiple injuries were common. Chart review of 17 subjects reporting TBI indicated that histories of TBI had not been noted in the medical record. Finally, 63% of TBI subjects reported that their injury predated the onset of their psychiatric symptoms. These results suggest a possible role of TBI in psychiatric symptomatology and have implications for psychiatric treatment in this population.     

Economic substitutability of electrical brain stimulation, food, and water.

Concurrent variable-ratio schedules of electrical brain stimulation, food, and water were paired in various combinations as reinforcement of rats' lever presses. Relative prices of the concurrent reinforcers were varied by changing the ratio of the response requirements on the two levers. Economic substitutability, measured by the sensitivity of response ratio to changes in relative price, was highest with brain stimulation reinforcement of presses on both levers and lowest with food reinforcement of presses on one lever and water reinforcement of presses on the other. Substitutability with brain stimulation reinforcement of presses on one lever and either food or water reinforcement for presses on the other was about as high as with brain stimulation for presses on both levers. Electrical brain stimulation for rats may thus serve as an economic substitute for two reinforcers, neither of which is substitutable for the other.     

Analysis of the elements of attention: A neuropsychological approach

A model for conceptualizing the components or elements of attention is presented. The model substitutes for the diffuse and global concept of attention a group of four processes and links them to a putative system of cerebral structures. Data in support of the model are presented; they are derived from neuropsychological test scores obtained from two samples, the first consisting of 203 adult neuropsychiatric patients and normal control subjects, and the second, an epidemiologically-based sample of 435 elementary school children. Principal components analyses of test scores from these two populations yielded similar results: a set of independent elements of attention that are assayed by different tests. This work presents a heuristic for clinical research in which the measurement of attention is essential.     

Synapses,Schizophrenia, and Civilization: What Made Homo Sapient?

Progress in technology has allowed dynamic research on the development of the human brain that has revolutionized concepts. Particularly, the notions of plasticity, neuronal selection, and the effects of afferent stimuli have entered into thinking about brain development. Here I focus on development from the age of four years to early adulthood, during which a 30 percent reduction in some brain synapses occurs that is out of proportion to changes in neuronal numbers. This corresponds temporally with changes in normal child behavior from the loose‐associative, almost schizoid, thinking and art of the four‐year‐old to the more trained, or disciplined, or acculturated—and restrained—personality of the young adult. I propose that the synaptic changes can best be thought of as a winnowing process likely subject to environmental influences. Acquisition of language and the ability to link linguistic cognition to the plastic development of the brain provide a potentially powerful means of explaining the evolutionally explosive development of human cognition and culture. Schizophrenia, a disease that can be envisioned as representing a derangement of synaptic maturation, may provide an entry into the search for genes controlling the processes mediating the unprecedented development of Homo sapiens over the past 40,000 to 70,000 years. The recently completed mapping of the genome of the chimpanzee provides a new frame of reference that may speed the search.     

Electrophysiological analysis of stimulus variables in equivalence relations

Recently, electrophysiological measures have been used to evaluate the functional overlap between semantic relations and laboratory-defined equivalence relations with abstract stimuli. Several studies using semantic judgment procedures have shown that accompanying EEG-measured neural activity for stimulus pairs from equivalence classes is very similar to that of word pairs from participants' native language. However, those studies often included pronounceable elements (e.g., written nonsense syllables) as at least one member of the experimentally defined classes. The present study conducted EEG studies that contrasted classes with and without such elements. Two groups of undergraduate students completed a matching-to-sample procedure to establish 3 4-member equivalence classes. For Group 1, samples and comparisons were pronounceable pseudowords and abstract figures. For Group 2, the matching-to-sample stimuli were abstract figures only. EEG data recorded during the semantic judgment tasks showed waveform patterns compatible with prior studies of semantic relations in Group 1 but not in Group 2.     

Tapping into the interplay of lexical and number knowledge using fast mapping: A longitudinal eye-tracking study with two-year-olds

Language skills and mathematical competencies are argued to influence each other during development. While a relation between the development of vocabulary size and mathematical skills is already documented in the literature, this study further examines how children’s ability to map a novel word to an unknown object as well as their ability to retain this word from memory may be related to their knowledge of number words. Twenty-five children were tested longitudinally (at 30 and at 36 months of age) using an eye-tracking-based fast mapping task, the Give-a-Number task, and standardized measures of vocabulary. The results reveal that children’s ability to create and retain a mental representation of a novel word was related to number knowledge at 30 months, but not at 36 months while vocabulary size correlated with number knowledge only at 36 months. These results show that even specific mapping processes are initially related to the acquisition of number words and they speak for a parallelism between the development of lexical and number-concept knowledge despite their semantic and syntactic differences.     

长期高策略性技能训练对运动员大脑白质结构的影响：一项DTI研究

目前关于运动员经验优势的脑机制还存在争议, 尤其对于涉及较多认知过程参与的高策略性技能项目运动员, 其大脑白质结构可塑性变化还需进一步探究。研究横向对比了乒乓球运动员和非运动员大脑白质纤维束的弥散张量成像数据。结果发现, 相比于非运动员, 乒乓球运动员在连接背侧和腹侧通路脑区的双侧皮质脊髓束、左侧上纵束、左侧下纵束和双侧额枕下束的各向异性值(FA)更大, 进一步分析发现, 部分腹侧通路白质纤维束FA增加的原因是径向扩散系数(RD)下降。研究结果支持了动作双通路模型。提示经过长期高策略性技能训练, 乒乓球运动员在背侧和腹侧通路上的白质纤维束结构完整性增强。     

自发性知觉经络反应中产生刺麻感和积极情绪的原因

自发性知觉经络反应(autonomous sensory meridian response,ASMR)是指在特定的视听刺激下,某些个体(ASMR敏感个体)在头皮后部、颈部乃至全身体验到一种令人极度愉快和放松的刺麻感的现象。其中,刺麻感的产生可能是个体大脑中负责感觉和肌肉运动的脑区高度激活引起的; 而与情绪和奖赏有关脑区的高度激活以及心率和呼吸频率的下降可能是产生愉快和放松感的重要原因。相比普通个体,ASMR敏感个体具有较高的神经质、共情特质、感觉受暗示性和特质正念。这可能说明ASMR敏感个体的感觉敏感性较高,情绪稳定性较弱,且比较关注自己身体的内外感受。这些个性特质可能导致ASMR敏感个体对某些视听刺激中所包含的一些感觉和情绪信息更加敏感,对其反应也更加强烈。目前,ASMR已经被用于抑郁,压力,失眠和慢性疼痛等的临床治疗以及商业广告之中。但ASMR可能会干扰个体的执行功能,在认知控制需求较高的情景下应尽量避免接触ASMR刺激。