Thursday, January 17, 2008, 6:15-7:45 p.m.
NYNG Colloquium: Emotional Stimuli and Motor Response in Parkinson’s Disease: The Impact of Dopaminergic Medication.
Stephanie Assuras — Clinical Neuropsychology Program, Graduate Center & Queens College, CUNY.
Besides impairing motor functioning, does Parkinson’s disease (PD) impair emotional processing? Preliminary research suggests it does. The research reported here examined how viewing emotional pictures, including pleasant, unpleasant, or arousing content, affected motor responses of patients with PD, and tested whether the effect of emotion interacted with the presence or absence of dopaminergic medication. PD patients had slower than normal reaction times overall, but different types of emotional pictures affected them the same way they affected control subjects, so PD may not be impairing emotional processing specifically, at least in early-to-moderate stages of PD. Motor functions were better with medication, but reaction times were slower, and there were fewer accurate responses in memory testing compared to performance without medication. It may be that slower reactions with medication involve cognitive function, rather than motor function, and further investigation might provide a basis for optimal pharmacological strategies for PD.
NYNG Colloquium: Brain Adaptation and Plasticity in Human Cerebrovascular Disease
Ronald M. Lazar, Ph.D. — Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology in Neurology and Neurological Surgery, Columbia University Medical Center; Director, Levine Cerebral Localization Laboratory Division of Stroke and Critical Care.
The cerebral circulation is a unique network of vessels providing blood flow within the hemispheres. The nature and extent of cognitive and motor dysfunction resulting from abnormalities of the vasculature can be demonstrated via the study of selected brain diseases: Ischemic stroke and brain arteriovenous malformations can cause focal defects; carotid artery disease may produce hemispheral dysfunction; and congestive heart failure can cause global abnormalities. The purpose of this talk is to present methodology and data that support the use of cognition and behavior as a means of shedding light on cerebral localization and plasticity. It will be demonstrated that systematic investigation of hemodynamics, neurotransmitter systems, blood oxygenation levels and perfusion failure in human disease provide unique insight into brain adaptation after vascular injury.
New York Neuropsychology Group Colloquium: What the Speaking Brain Tells Us About Functional Imaging
John J. Sidtis, PhD. — Brain and Behavior Laboratory, Geriatrics Division, Nathan Kline Institute Psychiatry Department, New York University Medical School.
Functional brain imaging has eclipsed traditional lesion studies to become the dominant approach to the study of brain-behavior relationships. Because this technique is not constrained by the need to find subjects with lesions in specific areas, “brain maps” have been created for an incredibly large variety of behaviors. However, the enthusiasm for this new form of map making appears to have overshadowed some basic facts about brain organization derived from over a century of clinical observations. One such fact is that speech and language are strongly lateralized to the left cerebral hemisphere in right-handed individuals. This talk will address some problems with current approaches to functional imaging and describe an approach that yields results consistent with traditional lesion studies.
Bilingual Task Force on Neuropsychology Meeting
Alizah Brozgold, PhD. — Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Saint Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center
After chairing the Bilingual Task Force on Neuropsychology for almost 15 years, Dr. Alizah Brozgold would like to consider 'passing the baton' to someone else. At the next meeting we will talk about the future of the Bilingual Task Force and come up with a plan. All are welcome to attend, so please spread the word to interested parties.
New York Neuropsychology Group Colloquium:
Do neuropsychologists know what they need to know about psychotropic drugs?
Martin Gittelman, Ph.D., MS — Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine. Editor, International Journal of Mental Health Executive Secretary, Psy Sans Frontieres (Not affiliated with MSF)
Luria was among those early neuropsychologists who had an interest in medication effects on brain function, and some current neuropsychologists continue in that tradition, particularly in specialized areas such as epilepsy and Alzheimer's dementia. However, they tend not to look so closely at implications of specific choices of psychotropic drugs used for psychiatric conditions. In this colloquium, one of the men involved in the founding of the International Neuropsychological Society discusses market forces that have increased the use of "newer atypical drugs" that are associated with outcomes such as metabolic syndrome and shorter life-spans.
29th Annual Conference of the New York Neuropsychology Group;
Joint Meeting with the Psychology Section of the New York Academy of Sciences
Neural and Neuropsychological Correlates of Language
The 29th annual NYNG conference is the first to explore the neuropsychological aspects of language development and impairment. Speakers will focus on cutting edge methodologies rooted in cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology to illuminate the structural and functional neuroanatomy underlying language development and dysfunction. For example, presentations on language development will address how other aspects of cognition impact the emergence of language and on important dissociations in brain-behavior relationships. Talks addressing issues among adults will examine how functional magnetic resonance imaging can be used to address the question of hemispheric specialization in aphasia and on how mapping language among patients with epilepsy can reveal important regions involved in naming. This exciting conference will give us all the opportunity to see the convergence of clinical and experimental approaches to language — arguably the highest achievement of the human brain and the most devastating to lose.
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Marla Hamberger, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology Columbia University Department of Neurology |
Finding word finding in the Brain: Insights from Epilepsy on the Cortical representation of Naming |
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April Benasich, Ph.D. Professor of Neuroscience and Director of Infancy Studies Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience Carter Center for Neurocognitive Research Rutgers University |
Timing, Information Processing, and Prediction: Infant Rapid Auditory Processing Abilities Impact Emerging Language |
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Bruce McCandliss, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology Weill Medical College of Cornell University |
Correlational Double Dissociations in Language and Attention Revealed by Individual Differences in White Matter Tract Micro Structure |
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Bruce Crosson, Ph.D., ABPP-CN Professor of Clinical, Health Psychology, and Neurology University of Florida |
Left-Right Confusion in Aphasia Research: Which Hemisphere Supports Language in Aphasia? |
New York Neuropsychology Group Colloquium:
Aging does not affect brain patterns of repetition effects associated with perceptual priming of novel objects
Anja Soldan, Ph.D. — Taub Institute, Cognitive Neuroscience Division, Columbia University
Behaviorally, repetition priming is shown by a change in the speed, accuracy, or bias of processing a stimulus due to prior exposure to it, even when conscious memory for it is lacking — a form of “implicit” memory. What changes in brain activity develop with priming? Do young adults and elderly adults differ in behavioral or brain-function responses to repeated presentations of stimuli in a priming paradigm?
Dr. Soldan and colleagues presented unfamiliar visual objects (some structurally possible, some impossible) four times to healthy young and elderly adults while scanning their brains. Behaviorally, although explicit recognition memory for the figures was reduced in the elder subjects, they did not differ from younger subjects in repetition priming. BOLD fMRI revealed spatial networks of brain regions that demonstrated repetition-related increases and decreases in activity that were identical in both age groups. Results suggest that as task performance became easier or more automatic with repetition (as evidenced by reductions in response time), task-specific processing decreased (as evidenced by decreases in neural activity), and task-non-specific activity increased (as evidenced by greater default network activity).
The present findings extend prior studies using verbal and semantic picture priming tasks and support the view that perceptual repetition priming remains intact in later adulthood because the same spatial networks of regions continue to show repetition-related neural plasticity across the adult life span. Importantly, these networks support the learning of novel information, which opens potential avenues for developing learning strategies that remediate age-related memory deficits.
Columbia University One-day Course:
"Cognitive Remediation in Psychiatry"
This conference is designed for Mental Health Professionals involved in the research and treatment of people with psychiatric conditions who have cognitive deficits.
We at Columbia University Medical Center are determined to continue our commitment to understand the causes of mental illness, and to find a cure for them. This course is designed to present information on the understanding and treatment of the cognitive deficits that commonly occur in many psychiatric conditions.
Course participants will acquire knowledge about different approaches to treating cognitive deficits, how cognitive deficits can impact everyday functioning, the factors that influence a positive response to cognitive remediation and how to provide cognitive remediation to different psychiatric populations. Participants will be able to attend all plenary presentations and to choose among a research symposium or several small group workshops led by the faculty members. Each workshop will focus on a specific topic in greater depth and allow for questions and discussion.
At the conclusion of the program, mental health professionals will be better able to treat the cognitive disorders associated with psychiatric illness. Researchers will have learned about studies investigating the efficacy of cognitive remediation with different populations, using a variety of remediation techniques.
Conference Director:
Alice Medalia, Ph.D.
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Director of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services
Department of Psychiatry
Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, New York, New York
Bilingual Task Force on Neuropsychology Meeting