Las funciones ejecutivas: su significado y aplicación clínica / Executive functions: meaning and clinical application

Las funciones ejecutivas generalmente se conceptualizan como un conjunto de procesos generales de control de orden superior que trabajan juntos para dirigir y gestionar las funciones cognitivas, emocionales y conductuales, especialmente durante la resolución activa de problemas. Su disfunción es frecuente de ser detectada como comorbilidad de otros trastornos del neurodesarrollo, causa o efecto? La detección precoz de la disfunción ejecutiva y su abordaje terapéutico temprano, mejora el pronóstico global madurativo en el periodo infantojuvenil. Esta sucinta revisión de las funciones ejecutivas intenta resaltar su importancia para el pediatra y su mirada de los trastornos del neurodesarrollo (AU)

Executive functions are typically understood as a set of general higher-order control processes that collectively direct and manage cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functions, especially during active problem solving. Their dysfunction is often detected as a comorbidity of other neurodevelopmental disorders; cause or effect? Early detection of executive dysfunction and a prompt therapeutic approach improves the overall developmental prognosis in childhood and adolescence. This brief review of executive functions aims to highlight their importance for the pediatrician and his/her view of neurodevelopmental disorder (AU)

Improving physical function by focusing on sports archery training / Aprimoramento da função física pelo foco no treinamento com arco esportivo / Mejora de la función física centrándose en el entrenamiento del arco deportivo

ABSTRACT Introduction: Physical training of high-level archers is a very critical point. It is now known that the ultimate goal of athletes' training is to achieve a good competitive state in their physical training. This has revealed that the relationship between athletes' attention stability and their performance in archery competitions also needs to be explored. Objective: Analyze the fitness training methods for Chinese archers. In addition, this paper also explores the relationship between attention and performance in competitions. Methods: By random sampling method, 24 archery athletes were investigated. They were divided into three groups: A, B, and C. Group A represented excellent scores (8), group B with good scores (8), and group C with average scores (8). Statistical methods were used to analyze and infer the data. Using the SPSS program, mathematical statistics were performed to objectify the data collected. Results: Athletes in group A had the greatest increase in attention after training, showing statistical significance (P<0.01). The comparison between groups B and C also showed statistical significance (P<0.01). Significant differences were found in the stability of attention between the experimental and control groups. Conclusion: The sport bow practice method can effectively improve athletes' concentration. This training method showed a significant effect on improving archers' attention and concentration. Level of evidence II; Therapeutic studies - investigation of treatment outcomes.

RESUMO Introdução: O treinamento físico dos arqueiros de alto nível é um ponto muito crítico e atualmente sabe-se que o objetivo final do treinamento dos atletas é alcançar um bom estado competitivo em seu treinamento físico. Isso tem revelado que a relação entre a estabilidade da atenção dos atletas e seu desempenho nas competições com arco também precisa ser explorada. Objetivo: Analisar os métodos de treinamento de aptidão física para os arqueiros chineses. Além disso, este documento também explora a relação entre a atenção e o desempenho nas competições. Métodos: Pelo método de amostragem aleatória investigou-se 24 atletas de arco e flecha. Eles foram divididos em três grupos: A, B, e C. O grupo A representando excelentes resultados (8); O grupo B com boas notas (8), e o grupo C com notas médias (8). Utilizou-se métodos estatísticos para analisar e inferir os dados. Utilizando o programa SPSS, foram realizadas as estatísticas matemáticas para objetivar os dados coletados. Resultados: Os atletas do grupo A tiveram o maior aumento na atenção após o treinamento, apresentando significância estatística (P<0,01). A comparação entre os grupos B e C também apresentou significância estatística significativa (P<0,01). Foram encontradas diferenças significativas na estabilidade da atenção entre os grupos experimental e controle. Conclusão: O método de prática com arco esportivo pode efetivamente melhorar a concentração dos atletas. Este método de treinamento apresentou um efeito significativo na melhoria da atenção e concentração dos arqueiros. Nível de evidência II; Estudos terapêuticos - investigação dos resultados do tratamento.

RESUMEN Introducción: La preparación física de los arqueros de alto nivel es un punto muy crítico y hoy en día se sabe que el objetivo final del entrenamiento de los deportistas es alcanzar un buen estado competitivo en su preparación física. Esto ha revelado que la relación entre la estabilidad de la atención de los atletas y su rendimiento en las competiciones de tiro con arco también debe ser explorada. Objetivo: Analizar los métodos de entrenamiento físico de los arqueros chinos. Además, este trabajo también explora la relación entre la atención y el rendimiento en las competiciones. Métodos: Mediante un método de muestreo aleatorio se investigaron 24 atletas de tiro con arco. Se dividieron en tres grupos: A, B y C. El grupo A, que representa resultados excelentes (8); el grupo B, con buenos resultados (8), y el grupo C, con resultados medios (8). Se utilizaron métodos estadísticos para analizar e inferir los datos. Utilizando el programa SPSS, se realizaron estadísticas matemáticas para objetivar los datos recogidos. Resultados: Los atletas del grupo A tuvieron el mayor aumento de la atención después del entrenamiento, mostrando significación estadística (P<0,01). La comparación entre los grupos B y C también presentó significación estadística (P<0,01). Se encontraron diferencias significativas en la estabilidad de la atención entre los grupos experimental y de control. Conclusión: El método de práctica del arco deportivo puede mejorar eficazmente la concentración de los deportistas. Este método de entrenamiento mostró un efecto significativo en la mejora de la atención y la concentración de los arqueros. Nivel de evidencia II; Estudios terapéuticos - investigación de los resultados del tratamiento.

Relationships among mindfulness,anxiety and depression in surface warship soldiers:the mediating role of attentional control / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

Objective To investigate the relationships between mindfulness,anxiety and depression in surface warship soldiers and the mediating role of attentional control.Methods Chinese versions of State-Trait Anxiety Inventory ( STAI ) , Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale ( CES-D ) , Attentional Control Scale ( ACS) and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire ( FFMQ) were used to survey 475 sur-face warship soldiers. Single factor analysis of variance,correlation analysis and path analysis were conducted by SPSS 20.0 and Amos18.0. Results ①The scores of the state anxiety,trait anxiety and depression in the soldiers and noncommissioned officers were significantly higher than that of commissioned officers (P<0.05) . As for the state anxiety,trait anxiety,depression and attentional focusing,there were statistically significant differences among different educational levels (P<0.05) . Specifically,the lower educational level,the higher anxiety and depression,the lower control focusing. ② There were significant positive correlations among at-tentional focusing (27.12±4.43),attentional shifting (29.43±3.78) and mindfulness (120.27±11.16,r=0.49-0.51,P<0.01). State anxiety (38.65±10.07) was negatively correlated with attentional focusing,atten-tional shifting and mindfulness (r=-0.32--0.54, P<0.01). Similar results were observed for trait anxiety (41.28±8.79) and depression (9.97±10.13). ③Attentional focusing partially mediated the relationships be-tween state anxiety,trait anxiety,depression and mindfulness. Conclusion Anxiety and depression of sol-diers have obvious relationships with kinds of soldiers' rank and education level. Mindfulness and attentional control are vital protective factors for marine army's mental health. This study indicates that mindfulness may improve individuals' attentional focusing and attentional shifting,and ameliorate negative moods such as anx-iety and depression.

Efectos del ejercicio físico sobre la atención: una revisión de los últimos años / Effects of the physical exercise on the attention: a review of last years

El siguiente trabajo es una revisión de las investigaciones sobre el efecto crónico del ejercicio físico en la atención, basado en el entrenamiento físico-deportivo en estudios de carácter longitudinal, el efecto agudo del ejercicio físico en la atención, basado en situaciones experimentales y la relación entre los niveles de actividad física y condición física con la atención realizado en estudios transversales. La bús-queda se realizó en las bases de datos Dialnet, Scielo y Pubmed. Se encontró un total de 119 artículos, de los cuales 28 cumplían con los criterios de inclusión (publicados entre el 1° de enero del año 2010 y el 31 de diciembre del 2016, idioma español, inglés o portugués, artículos de investigación, estudios realizados en seres humanos y muestras con sujetos sanos). De la revisión más del 70% dan cuenta de los efectos positivos del ejercicio físico sobre la atención, incluyendo trabajos con aplicaciones de una sesión de entrenamiento o de varias semanas/meses. También se observaron relaciones importantes en-tre la práctica de actividad física y esta función cerebral. Algunos trabajos no mostraron influencia del entrenamiento, lo que hace necesario más estudio orientados a determinar las intensidades y tiempos de aplicación mas adecuados para potenciar la atención en diferentes grupos etarios.

The following work is a review of the research carried out on the chronic effects of physical exercise on sustained attention, based on: Physical-sports training in longitudinal studies; chronic effects of physical exercise on sustained attention; experimental situations and the relationship between physical activity levels and physical condition with sustained attention, carried out in cross-sectional studies. The search was conducted in the following databases: Dialnet, Scielo and Pubmed. A total of 119 ar-ticles were found, of which 28 met the criteria of inclusion (published between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2016, languages Spanish, English or Portuguese, research articles, studies carried out on human beings and healthy subject samples). Based this revision, more than 70% give account of the positive effects of physical exercise on sustained attention, including one session training workouts or after several weeks/months of workouts. Furthermore, important relations were observed between the practice of physical activity and this cerebral activity. Some workouts, however, did not show any influence on the subjects after the training session, which makes it necessary to study this further in order to determine the right intensities and the best times for the workouts in order to boost sustained attention for different age groups.

Characteristics of attention during visual search in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder / 中国心理卫生杂志

Objective:To explore the characteristics of attention during visual search tasks in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).Methods:Totally 45 adult patients with ADHD who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) and 44 healthy controls matched with age,gender and IQ were selected.The reaction time and accuracy rate of two groups were compared under visual search tasks of low and high visual working memory load.Results:The reaction time was longer in patients with ADHD than in the healthy controls in both low-load task [(823 ± 144) ms vs.(754 ± 123) ms,P ＜ 0.01] and highload task [(912 ± 163) ms vs.(851 ± 162) ms,P ＜ 0.01].Compared with the performance in low load task,the search reaction time was longer in high load task [ADHD group:(823 ± 144) ms vs.(912 ± 163) ms,P ＜ 0.01;control group:(754 ± 123) ms vs.(851 ± 162) ms,P ＜0.01] and the accuracy rate was lower during high load task than low load task[ADHD group:(95.9 ±4.3)％ vs.(91.2 ± 14.29)％;control group:(95.8 ± 4.2)％ vs.(94.4 ±4.9) ％,P ＜ 0.01] in both ADHD and control groups.Conclusion:The results suggest impairment in top-down attentional control in ADHD adults.When the visual working memory load is increasing,ADHD patients allocate more working memory resources on storing the target representation and less resources on visual attention,so the search efficiency may be influenced.

The mediating role of attentional control between negative automatic thoughts and social anxiety among medical freshmen / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

Objective To explore the mediating effect of attentional control between negative automatic thoughts and social anxiety.methods A total of 1 504 college freshmen of medical university were surveyed with the Interaction Anxiety Scale (IAS),the Automatic Thoughts questionnaire (ATQ) and the Attentional Control Scale (ACS).Result sThe scores of IAS,ACS and ATQ of medical freshmen were (39.36±8.15),(53.50±7.48) and (48.93±19.72) respectively.Correlation analysis showed that ATQ total score was significantly positively correlated with IAS total score(r=0.313,P<0.01),ATQ total score was significantly negatively correlated with ACS total score(r=-0.275,P<0.01),and ACS score was significantly negatively correlated with IAS total score(r=-0.455,P<0.01).Mediating effect analysis showed that attentional control partly-mediated the relationship between negative automatic thoughts and social anxiety among medical freshmen (x2/df=1.650,GFI=0.998,AGFI=0.993,RMSEA=0.021),and accounted for 50.8% of the mediating effect.Conclusion Negative automatic thoughts is an important factor which plays direct and indirect roles in social anxiety.Attentional control is the intermediate link between negative automatic thoughts and social anxiety.

The characteristic of top-down attentional control of children with acute stress disorder / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

Objective To investigate the characteristic of top-down attentional control of acute stress disorder children.Methods According to SCID-IV-TR,23 acute stress disorder children were chosen as the experinent group and 23 normal children were chosen as the control group.They were asked to perform a visual search task.Results (1) The reaction time of acute stress disorder children((1 253±158)ms) was significantly longer than normal children's((1 194± 146) ms) (P＜0.05).(2) The reaction time of valid condition((1 172± 144) ms)was significantly shorter than neutral condition ((1 229± 156) ms) and invalid condition ((1 269± 157) ms) (P＜0.05),there was no difference of reaction time between neutral condition((1 229± 156)ms) and invalid condition ((1 269±157)ms) (P＞0.05).(3) The reaction time of simple display condition((1 182±127)ms) was significantlv shorter than complex display condition ((1 264± 177)ms) (P＜0.01).Conclusion The performance of acute stress disorder children on top-down attentional control is less than normal children,the reason is that inhibiting capacity of acute stress disorder children is lower than normal children.It indicates that trauma event have negative influence on children's inhibiting capacity.

Changes of cortical-limbic pathways in male recurrent unipolar major depressive disorder during attention control dysfunction / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ObjectiveTo study information transmission circumstances within the neural circuits related to the attentional controls of the mate depression patients.MethodsTwelve unipolar depression patients and twelve age- and education- matched healthy controls were involved in the Stroop word-color interference test to detect the variation of brain inhibitory function by Magnetoencephalography scanning.ResultsCompared with the healthy controls,the abnormally activities in depressed patients during in chronological order were separately as follow:decreased activation in the left postcentral gyrus ( t =3.10 ),the right superior frontal gyrus ( t =2.16 ),the left middle frontal gyrus (t=2.64),the left parietal lobe (t=2.89),the right middle temporal grus( t=1.92),the right superior temporal gyrus(t=2.84),the right insula(t=3.03),the right precuneus(t=2.98),the bilateral middle frontal gyros ( t =3.64,t =2.25 ),the right postcentral gyrus ( t =2.20),the right cingulate gyrus ( t =4.04 ),the bilateral precuneus ( t =2.79,t =1.87 ) ;increased activation in the left caudate body ( t =1.91 ),the left pulvinar ( t =2.56),the left middle temporal gyrus( t =1.89),the left precentral gyrus( t =2.02) (P ＜ 0.05,uncorrected).ConclusionThe abnormal activation in the brain regions related with attentional control processing is detected in the male recurrent unipolar recurrent major depression,performances of limbic system increased and.cortex declined more in the recurrent depressed.

The comparison of attentional control between earthquake anxious and normal children / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

Objective To investigate the characteristics of attentional control between Wenchuan earthquake anxious and normal children. Methods Using Screening Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), 18 earthquake anxious children were chosen as participants and 18 normal children were chosen as control group. They were asked to perform a visual search task. Results ( 1 ) The judgment accuracy of earthquake anxious children was lower than normal children's significantly ( ( 0.95 ± 0.01 ), ( 0. 98 ± 0. 01 ), P ＜0.01 ). ( 2 ) The reaction time of earthquake anxious children was significantly longer than normal children' s ((1664.5 ± 78.5 ) ms, ( 1110.7 ± 78.5 ) ms, P ＜ 0. 01 ). ( 3 ) There was significantly faster performance in the valid condition than in the neutral( ( 1304.7 ± 61.3 ) ms, ( 1382. 3 ± 47.4 ) ms, P ＜ 0. 05 ) and invalid condition ( ((1304.7 ± 61.3 )ms, (1475.8 ± 71.5 )ms; P ＜ 0. 05 ), as well as faster performance in the neutral than in the invalid condition ((1382.3 ± 47.4) ms, ( 1475.8 ± 71.5 ) ms, P ＜ 0.05 ) in all children. Conclusion The performance of earthquake anxious children on top-down attentional control task is less than normal children. It indicates that anxious emotion which is brought by traumatic incidents like earthquake influents earthquake anxious children' s cognitive processing ability.