Developmental norms for the Gardner Steadiness Test and the Purdue Pegboard: a study with children of a metropolitan school in Brazil

Norms for the Gardner Steadiness Test and the Purdue Pegboard were developed for the neuropsychological assessment of children in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro. A computer-generated unbiased sample of 346 children with a mean age of 9.4 years (SD = 2.76), who were attending a large normal public school in this urban area, was the subject of this study. Two boys were removed from the study, one for refusing to participate and the other due to severe strabismus. Therefore, the final sample contained 344 children (173 boys and 171 girls). Sex and age of the child and hand preferred for writing, but not ethnic membership or social class, had significant effects on performance in the Gardner Steadiness Test and the Purdue Pegboard. Girls outperformed boys. Older children performed better than younger children. However, the predictive relationship between age of the child and neuropsychological performance included linear and curvilinear components. Comparison of the present results to data gathered in the United States revealed that the performance of this group of Brazilian children is equivalent to that of US children after Bonferroni's correction of the alpha level of significance. It is concluded that sex and age of the child and hand preferred for writing should be taken into account when using the normative data for the two instruments evaluated in the present study. Furthermore, the relevance of neurobehavioral antidotes for the obliteration of some of the probable neuropsychological effects of cultural deprivation in Brazilian public school children is hypothesized

Developmental norms for eight instruments used in the neuropsychological assessment of children: studies in Brazil

Norms for a battery of instruments, including Denckla's and Garfield's tests of Motor Persistence, Benton's Right-Left Discrimination, two recall modalities (Immediate and Delayed) of the Bender Test, Wechsler's Digit Span, the Color Span Test and the Human Figure Drawing Test, were developed for the neuropsychological assessment of children in the greater Rio de Janeiro area. Additionally, the behavior of each child was assessed with the Composite Teacher Rating Scale (Brito GNO and Pinto RCA (1991) Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 13:417-418). A total of 398 children (199 boys and 199 girls balanced for age) with a mean age of 9.3 years (SD=2.8), who were attending a public school in Niterói, were the subjects of this study. Gender and age had significant effects on performance which depended on the instrument. Nonachievers performed worse than achievers in most neuropsychological tests. Comparison of our data to the available counterparts in the United States revealed that American children outperformed Brazilian children on the Right-Left Discrimination, Forward Digit Span, Color Span and Human Figure Drawing Tests. Further analysis showed that the neurobehavioral data consist of different factorial dimensions, including Human Body Representation, Motor Persistence of the Legs, Orbito-Orobuccal Motor Persistence, Attention-Memory, Visuospatial Memory, Neuropsychomotor Speed, Hyperactivity-Inattention, and Anxiety-Negative Socialization. We conclude that gender and age should be taken into account when using the normative data for most of the instruments studied in the present report. Furthermore, we stress the need for major changes in the Brazilian public school system in order to foster the development of secondary cognitive abilities in our children.

Locomotor activity and one-way active avoidance after intrahyppocampal injection of neurotransmitter antagonists

Sixty-three rats with previous training in a T-maze, bilaterally implanted with cannulae directed toward the dorsal hippocampus, were used in this study. All rats received bilateral 1-microngl injections 20 min before testing for locomotor activity (day 1) and one-way active avoidance (day 3). The following drugs were injected into groups of 4 to 8 animals: scopolamine (9 or 18 microng/micronl), propranolol (5 or 10 microng/micronl), cimetidine (0.75 or 1.5 microng/micronl), sulpiride (5 or 10 microng/micronl), or vehicle (Krebs-ringer). Locomotor activity was not changed by injection of any drug. However, intrahippocampal injections of scolpolamine (9 microng/micronl) and sulpiride (10 microng/micronl) impoaired avoidance bahavior, particularly during the last five trials of the task. We conclude that muscarinic-cholinergic and D2-dopaminergic, but not beta-adrenergic or H2-histaminergic, mechanisms in the hippocampus are involved in the performance of one-way active avoidance behavior

The cholinergic and dopaminergic systems of the prelimbic sector of frontal cortex and memory in the rat

Rats were trained to perform delayed non-matching to sample (a working/representational memory task) and visual discrimination(a reference/dispositional memory task) in a T-maze, and implanted bilaterally with cannulae in the prelimbic cortex. The rats were tested postoperatively after bilateral 1 - micronl injections of vehicle (Krebs-Ringer), sulpiride (10 microng/micronl) or scopolamine (18 microng/micronl). Sulpiride had no effect on the performance of either task, whereas scopolamine interfered only with the performance of delayed non-matching to sample. We conclude that dopaminergic mechanisms in the prelimbic cortex are not involved in either type of memory and that cholinergic, but not dopaminergic, mechanisms are important for working/representational memory process