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Mental Arithmetic (mental + arithmetic)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Psychology50%
Medical Sciences50%

Terms modified by Mental Arithmetic

  • mental arithmetic task
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    Selected Abstracts

    Comparing effects of methylphenidate, sertraline and placebo on neuropsychiatric sequelae in patients with traumatic brain injury

    HUMAN PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY: CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL, Issue 2 2005
    Hoon Lee
    Abstract Background This study aimed to investigate the effects of methylphenidate and sertraline compared with placebo on various neuropsychiatric sequelae associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Methods This was a 4 week, double-blind, parallel-group trial. Thirty patients with mild to moderate degrees of TBI were randomly allocated to one of three treatment groups (n,=,10 in each group) with matching age, gender and education, i.e. methylphenidate (starting at 5,mg/day and increasing to 20,mg/day in a week), sertraline (starting at 25,mg/day and increasing to 100,mg/day in a week) or placebo. At the baseline and at the 4 week endpoint, the following assessments were administered: subjective (Beck Depression Inventory) and objective (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale) measures of depression; Rivermead Postconcussion Symptoms Questionnaire for postconcussional symptoms; SmithKline Beecham Quality of Life Scale for quality of life; seven performance tests (Critical Flicker Fusion, Choice Reaction Time, Continuous Tracking, Mental Arithmetic, Short-Term memory, Digit Symbol Substitution and Mini-Mental State Examination); subjective measures of sleep (Leeds Sleep Evaluation Questionnaire) and daytime sleepiness (Epworth Sleepiness Scale). All adverse events during the study period were recorded and their relationships to the drugs were assessed. Results Neuropsychiatric sequelae seemed to take a natural recovery course in patients with traumatic brain injury. Methylphenidate had significant effects on depressive symptoms compared with the placebo, without hindering the natural recovery process of cognitive function. Although sertraline also had significant effects on depressive symptoms compared with the placebo, it did not improve many tests on cognitive performances. Daytime sleepiness was reduced by methylphenidate, while it was not by sertraline. Conclusions Methylphenidate and sertraline had similar effects on depressive symptoms. However, methylphenidate seemed to be more beneficial in improving cognitive function and maintaining daytime alertness. Methylphenidate also offered a better tolerability than sertraline. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

    Effects of Distraction Versus Spatial Discrimination on Laser-Evoked Potentials in Migraine

    HEADACHE, Issue 3 2008
    Marina De Tommaso MD
    Objectives., To evaluate whether migraine patients exhibit less inhibition to painful stimuli when distracted from pain as compared to healthy subjects, testing the spatial discrimination of painful stimuli, the performance during the mental arithmetic task used to contrast the discrimination performance and the behavior of N1 and N2-P2 laser-evoked potentials (LEPs) amplitudes during spatial discrimination and during distraction. Methods., Eight migraine patients and 8 healthy controls were examined. During repetitive series of painful laser stimulation of the hand, they had to (1) perform a spatial discrimination task, contrasted by (2) a mental arithmetic task that served as distraction. Results., Patients made 50% to 100% more mistakes than controls in the spatial discrimination task (P < .001) as well as during mental arithmetic (P < .05). Whereas healthy subjects showed a marked decrease of the LEP vertex potential amplitudes during distraction compared to the discrimination task, no such attenuation of LEPs was seen in migraine patients (group × task interaction, P < .05). N1 amplitude exhibited a left-hemisphere dominance in both groups, significantly smaller amplitude in migraine patients, but no significant task modulation. Conclusion., Migraine patients exhibited reduced inhibition by attentional modulation of pain processing, accompanied by impaired spatial discrimination of painful stimuli. [source]

    Psychophysiological reactivity in female sexual abuse survivors

    JOURNAL OF TRAUMATIC STRESS, Issue 4 2001
    Annmarie McDonagh-Coyle
    Abstract This study examined psychophysiological reactivity in 37 female childhood sexual abuse (CSA) survivors. After assessment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychiatric comorbidity, and trauma history, we conducted a psychophysiological assessment of forehead muscle tension, electrodermal activity, and heart rate during a mental arithmetic task and 4 script-driven imagery tasks (neutral, consensual sex, pleasant, and trauma). PTSD symptom severity correlated positively with psychophysiologic changes and negative emotions during the trauma imagery task. During mental arithmetic, PTSD symptom severity correlated negatively with autonomic changes and positively with negative emotions. These results extend earlier PTSD research showing trauma-specific increased psychophysiological reactivity related to CSA in women with PTSD. They further suggest a negative association between PTSD severity and autonomic reactions to mental arithmetic. [source]

    Cardiovascular and endocrine reactivity in older females: Intertask consistency

    PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY, Issue 6 2001
    Louise C. Hawkley
    Age-related structural and functional changes in the cardiovascular, sympathoadrenomedullary (SAM), and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) systems may affect the ability to reliably identify individual differences in response to stress. Heart rate, preejection period, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, respiratory rate, norepinephrine, epinephrine, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and cortisol were assessed in 64 healthy older women (mean = 67 years) in response to a mental arithmetic and public-speaking task. All cardiovascular and endocrine measures changed significantly during the tasks. All measures were consistent across the two tasks (rss = .50 to .97). Moreover, a majority of women in this sample exhibited cross-task consistency in the relative activation of the autonomic, SAM, and HPA systems (i.e., response profiles). Further research is recommended to examine the significance of consistent individual differences in response profile. [source]