Changes in child functioning pre-to post-neuropsychological evaluation.

Although a key goal of neuropsychological evaluation is to improve patient outcomes, research regarding changes in child functioning following neuropsychological evaluation is very limited. This project examined changes from before neuropsychological evaluation to several months afterward in parent report of their child's functioning and ability to participate across home, school, and community settings. Fifty-one parents of children and adolescents receiving their first outpatient neuropsychological evaluation completed questionnaires prior to initial parent interview and following the final report (of n = 162 who were mailed the follow-up questionnaire). Parents rated their perception of the severity of their child's problems, their child's ability to participate, and satisfaction with the child's ability to participate across school, home, and community domains. Analysis utilized MANOVA with bootstrapping to obtain standard errors and false discovery rate to control Type-1 errors. Parents reported a significant decrease in the severity of problems related to academic progress (p = .034) and overall severity of problems (p = .028) at follow-up. There was no significant change in the rated severity of the child's problems with peers or family. Parents reported significant increases in their child's ability to participate, and parent satisfaction with child participation, in school (ps<.001), at home (ps<.01), and in the community (ps<.001). Although this observational study cannot definitively show cause-and-effect, findings support the utility of pediatric neuropsychological evaluations in facilitating child functioning. These findings dovetail with prior work suggesting that such evaluations can increase parents' understanding of their child, awareness of care options, and efficacy in pursuing those options.

Opposing roles for dopamine D1- and D2-like receptors in discrete cue-induced reinstatement of food seeking.

We used a rat reinstatement model to test the involvement of dopamine D1- and D2-like receptors in discrete cue-induced reinstatement of food seeking. At a dose that did not alter responding during food self-administration, the D1-like antagonist SCH-23390 blocked reinstatement of food seeking, while the D2-like antagonist eticlopride significantly increased reinstatement responding. Thus, these results establish opposing roles for D1- and D2-like receptors in discrete cue-induced relapse to food seeking.