Concerning behavioural performance, patients found significantly less targets than healthy controls in both the upper and lower left quadrant. However, when targets were located in the lower left quadrant, GSK J4 ic50 patients needed more visual fixations (and therefore longer search time) to find them, suggesting a time-dependent vertical bias. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“It has been hypothesized that cerebral lateralization of function enhances cognitive performance. Evidence was found in birds and fish. However,

recent research in humans did not support this hypothesis. We aimed to replicate and extend these findings for single- and dual-task performance in\ an ecologically relevant task. We combined a word generation task which is assumed to be primarily processed in the left hemisphere with a driving task which is assumed to be primarily processed in the right hemisphere. For each task the individual strength and direction of hemispheric lateralization was assessed by using functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD). For each subject (36 right-handed, 35 nonright-handed) performance was measured in the two single-tasks and in the dual-task condition. On average, subjects showed a left hemisphere bias for the word generation task, a right hemisphere bias for the driving task and dual-task interference. Within subjects, lateralization of language and driving were statistically independent.

In accordance with

earlier studies, the results show no indication of a positive Tozasertib supplier effect of strength of lateralization on performance in single-tasks or dual-task efficiency. We also found no advantage of a typical compared to an atypical or a contralateral compared to an ipsilateral lateralization pattern. In right-handers, but not in nonright-handers, we even found a negative relationship Cobimetinib clinical trial between strength of lateralization and dual-task efficiency

for atypically lateralized subjects. This further supports the suggestion that lateralization does not enhance cognitive performance in humans. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“The ‘preclinical’ phase of Alzheimer’s disease is a future target for treatment, but additional research is essential to understand the relationship between beta-amyloid burden and cognition during this time. We investigated this relationship using a large sample of apparently healthy older adults (N = 177), which also enabled examination of whether the relationship differed according to age, gender, years of education, apolipoprotein E status, and the presence of subjective memory complaints. In addition to episodic memory, a range of cognitive measures (global cognition, semantic memory, visuospatial performance, and executive function) were examined. Participants were aged over 60 years with no objective cognitive impairment and came from the imaging arm of the Australian Imaging, Biomarkers, and Lifestyle (AIBL) study of ageing.