Male vulnerability to neurodevelopmental disorders remains controversial. For one disorder, reading disability, this sex bias has been interpreted as an artifact of referral bias. We investigated sex differences for the incidence of reading disability within a large prospective sample of White (N = 16,910) and Black (N = 15,313) children derived from the National Collaborative Perinatal Project (NCPP). Children were classified as having either moderate or severe reading disability when they had reading scores lower than 1.5 or 2.0 standard errors of prediction, respectively, given their age and intelligence. Reading disability was about twice as common in boys than girls (p < .001), irrespective of race, severity of disability, or exclusion of children with attentional disturbances or high activity levels. We conclude that there is a clear sex bias toward males for the incidence of reading disabilities. (JINS, 2000, 6, 433–442.)

Attentional functioning was examined in three groups of 7- to 19-year-old male participants with hemophilia: (1) HIV seronegative controls (HIV−, N = 66), (2) HIV seropositive participants with CD4+ lymphocyte counts greater than or equal to 200 (HIV+ CD4+ ≥200, N = 79), and (3) severely immune suppressed HIV seropositive participants (HIV+ CD4+ <200, N = 28). Two measures sensitive to attention deficits were used: the Continuous Performance Test (CPT) and the Span of Apprehension (Span). On the CPT, there was a decrement in attention in both HIV+ groups, as indexed by an increase in false alarm rate from Block 1 to Block 3, that was not present in the HIV− group. The longer the HIV+ children were required to sustain attention to the CPT, the more they responded to the incorrect stimulus. This effect decreased as age increased. Span percent correct and latency to correct were associated with the presence of a premorbid history of intracerebral hemorrhage, but were not sensitive to HIV status or degree of immune suppression in the HIV+ children, suggesting morbidity related to hemophilia. The remaining CPT and Span variables—hit rate, sensitivity, latency, percent correct, and latency to correct—showed the expected associations with age, but none showed conclusive associations with HIV status or immune suppression in the HIV+ participants. (JINS, 2000, 6, 443–454.)

Whereas the ventral cortical visual stream is important in object recognition, the dorsal stream is specialized for spatial localization. In humans there are also right and left hemisphere asymmetries in visual processing: the left hemisphere being more important in object recognition and the right in specifying spatial locations. Based on these dorsal–ventral and right–left where–what dichotomies, one would expect that the dorsal right hemisphere systems would be most activated during spatial localization tasks, and this activation may induce a leftward spatial bias in lower space. To determine if visual stimuli in upper and lower body space evoke different hemispheric activation, we had 12 normal participants bisect horizontal lines above and below eye level. Participants erred leftward in lower body space relative to upper body space (M = 1.3345 mm and 0.4225 mm, respectively; p = .011). In upper body space, bisection errors did not differ from zero, but in lower body space, errors tended to deviate leftward (M = 1.3345 mm, differs from null hypotheses at p = .0755). Our results are consistent with dorsal stream/right hemisphere activation when performing a spatial localization task in lower versus upper body space. (JINS, 2000, 6, 455–459.)

A personality and behavioral disorder is an important and defining feature of frontal lobe dementia (FLD) or frontotemporal degeneration (FTD). The diagnosis usually depends on the progressive development of various behavioral symptoms rather than a set of neuropsychological measures. Quantification of the personality–behavior disorder is important for standardizing the diagnosis. An inventory was constructed to capture the major positive and negative behaviors and personality change, and it was administered prospectively to caregivers of 108 patients in a cognitive neurology clinic, at the time of first diagnostic assessment. The prevalence and extent of behavioral abnormality was quantitated in the clinic population of FLD, vascular dementia (VaD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), primary progressive aphasia (PPA), and depressive disorder (DD) patients. The mean scores of FLD patients were significantly above all other groups. Scores in VaD were also higher than in AD, PPA, and DD. Interrater reliability (Cohen's kappa of .90) and item consistency (a Cronbach alpha of .89) were both high. Perseveration, indifference, inattention, inappropriateness, and loss of insight rated highest in FLD, significantly different from all other groups. Apathy, aspontaneity, inflexibility, disorganization, impulsivity, personal neglect, and poor judgment were also significantly higher in FLD. Discriminant function correctly classified 92.7% versus all other patients (NON-FLD) in the study. A total of 18.8% of VaD patients were misclassified as FLD. Indifference, alien hand, and inappropriateness were the highest discriminant functions. Perseveration and verbal apraxia were important discriminatory items for FLD and PPA, respectively. The FBI is a standardized behavioral inventory useful to diagnose FLD, to differentiate it from other dementias, and to quantify the behavior disorder. (JINS, 2000, 6, 460–468.)

Measuring recovery of function may mean testing the same individual many times, a procedure that is inevitably open to improvement due to learning on the specific tests rather than recovery per se. This is particularly likely to be an issue with measures of memory performance. We therefore studied the performance of normal and brain-injured people across 20 successive test sessions on measures of orientation, simple reaction time, forward and backward digit span, visual and verbal recognition, word list learning and forgetting, and on three semantic memory measures, namely, letter and category fluency and speed of semantic processing. Differences in overall performances between the two groups occurred for all tests other than orientation, digit span forward, and simple reaction time, although the tests differed in their degree of sensitivity. The tests varied in the presence or absence of practice effects and in the extent to which these differed between the two groups. Data are presented that should allow investigators to select measures that are likely to optimize sensitivity while minimizing possible confounding due to practice effects. (JINS, 2000, 6, 469–479.)

This paper is a literature review on assessment of fitness to drive in older drivers with cognitive impairment. Early studies on dementia and driving generally failed to distinguish between safe and unsafe drivers on the basis of cognitive test performance. Predictive studies demonstrated that cognitively impaired persons as a group perform significantly worse than controls on both neuropsychological and driving measures. A high prevalence of cognitive impairment was found in groups of older drivers involved in traffic accidents and crashes. However, a large range in neuropsychological test scores has been found. Low to moderate correlations could be established between neuropsychological test results and on-road driving performance, making it difficult to discriminate between cognitively impaired subjects who are fit or unfit to drive. The review concludes with a discussion of methodological difficulties in the field of dementia and driving, including participant selection, the choice of neuropsychological tests, and the operationalization of driving performance. (JINS, 2000, 6, 480–490.)

A history of the early years (1965–1985) of the International Neuropsychological Society (INS) is presented. Themes than run through these years—such as the need for an organizational structure, attempts to make the Society truly international, and the involvement of the membership, especially, the “younger” members, in governance—are clearly evident. After a somewhat shaky start, the Society came of age toward the end of this formative 20-year period. (JINS, 2000, 6, 491–509.)

I will confess to a lingering knee-jerk reaction when human cognitive processes are diagramed with boxes and arrows in a way never intended to correspond to identifiable neural pathways. In college and graduate school, such exercises seemed to me a waste of time, when I could be learning how the brain “really” works in mediating memory functions, language, and so forth.

This is a reprint of one issue in the Cambridge University Press journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, originally based on the symposium Controversies in neuroscience IV: Motor learning and synaptic plasticity in the cerebellum, held in Portland Oregon on August 24 to 26, 1993. These symposia were organized by the Robert S. Dow Neurological Sciences Institute and supported by NIH, NSF, and the Good Samaritan Foundation. The subjects of the symposium were the role of the cerebellum in motor learning and the connection between motor learning and synaptic plasticity.

Neuropsychological aspects of neuropsychiatric diseases that are common in old age or that present problems for diagnosis and treatment especially in the old patient represent the objective of this book. There are several good reasons for addressing this topic. Disorders of brain function become more frequent in old age and neuropsychology thus gains importance in geriatric medical evaluation and in distinguishing the many dimensions of neuropsychological deviations from “normal senescence.” Research in this area has recently intensified and valuable insights have accumulated; however, few books on this topic are currently available. The Handbook of Neuropsychology and Aging focuses on neuropsychological aspects; specifically, on geriatric psychiatry and neurology. Here, the editor has attempted to bring together outstanding researchers to cover the entire field of geriatric neuropsychiatry.

In less than 150 pages, the author has written a lucid and broad-ranging primer on functional imaging with much to offer the neuropsychologist. The book consists of three sections: “Basic Concepts,” “Three Methods of Imaging Brain Activation,” and “Establishing the Correspondence of Activation Patterns to Behavioral Functions,” with brief Preface and Postscript (“Imaging Consciousness”). The level of description is more conceptual than technical, relying more heavily on beautifully illustrated visual models of the techniques than on more mathematical accounts, and thus the material is likely to be easily accessible to clinical and basic neuroscientists alike. The text should serve well as required reading for upper division and graduate courses introducing the topic, and will be a painless and thought-provoking introduction for scientists in other areas of specialization as well.