Indicators of success: academic research partnerships to implement performance indicator systems in Clubhouses.

TOPIC: This article describes a collaboration between academic researchers and Clubhouses to develop and implement a statewide Clubhouse performance indicator system. PURPOSE: Given the challenging funding climate, it is important that Clubhouses are able to gather service provision and performance data. However, establishing the necessary data structures can be a daunting task, and partnerships with academic researchers can aid in this process. We detail one such collaboration, utilizing a participatory research public-academic liaison framework, between researchers and Hawai'i's Clubhouses. SOURCES USED: Sources used include published literature, personal communication, and personal observation. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Lessons learned during the collaboration include the importance of face-to-face contact, technology training, duplicated and unduplicated variables, and tailoring data structures to the culture and work-ordered day of each Clubhouse. Experiences in this collaboration confirm that with support Clubhouse members are capable of fulfilling the rigorous responsibilities of contributing to a performance indicator system.

Different patterns of cerebral activation in genuine and malingered cognitive effort during performance on the Word Memory Test.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: The Word Memory Test (WMT) is a popular symptom validity test in which individuals are required to remember and recall semantically-related word pairs. Research shows successful WMT completion employs a wide neural network which is involved in tasks requiring high cognitive effort. The primary purpose of this study was to replicate earlier fMRI findings using a larger sample and extend previous findings by including male and female subjects. The second purpose was to investigate the neural networks involved during intentional malingering on the WMT. RESEARCH DESIGN: For all trials, a time-series ANCOVA design was implemented using SPM5 software. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Ten subjects (five male and five female) underwent fMRI imaging while completing the WMT in full-effort and simulated poor effort conditions. MAIN OUTCOME AND RESULTS: Full-effort trials found activation peaks in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, superior parietal lobe, anterior cingulate, bilateral lingual cortices and anterior insula/frontal operculum, supporting earlier findings. Simulated poor effort trials had similar foci of activation, with additional peak strength in surrounding cortical regions identified previously as relevant to simulated malingering. No sex differences were observed in either condition. CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate the neural underpinnings of WMT performance in normal and simulated performance.

An fMRI study of sex differences in brain activation during object naming.

We present a neuroimaging experiment that examines whether males and females use distinct brain systems while performing a confrontational naming task, with specific attention to the possibility of laterality differences, as suggested by some theories of sex differences in language processing. We further address whether sex-based differences in functional brain organization might interact with object category distinctions, given that previous behavioral studies have shown some consistent processing differences between the sexes with respect to tools versus plants. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected from 26 participants (13 males and 13 females). Main effect and interaction analyses reveal no discernable laterality differences between the sexes. All other results, however, were consistent with previous object-naming studies. Global effects revealed dominant foci in fusiform gyrus, left posterior middle temporal gyrus, left basal ganglia/thalamus, left middle/inferior frontal gyri, left frontal operculum, left supplementary motor area/dorsal anterior cingulate, and left pre-central gyrus. Main contrasts for tools versus plants were likewise consistent with previous fMRI studies. Although men and women showed no discernable activation differences, hemispheric or otherwise, when collapsed across object categories, sex-by-category analyses showed selective activation for females in dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus and left posterior middle temporal gyrus for tools, and selective activation for males in left posterior middle temporal gyrus for plants. We discuss the relevance of these sex-by-category effects to previous behavioral findings and theories that relate to vocabulary differences between the sexes.