The nature of verbal memory impairment in multiple sclerosis: a list-learning and meta-analytic study.

The primary purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that multiple sclerosis (MS) patients have impaired acquisition rather than a retrieval deficit. Verbal memory impairment in MS was examined in 53 relapsing-remitting MS patients and 31 healthy controls (HC), and in a meta-analysis of studies that examined memory functioning in MS with list-learning tasks. The MS group demonstrated significantly lower acquisition and delayed recall performance than the HC group, and the meta-analysis revealed that the largest effect sizes were obtained for acquisition measures relative to delayed recall and recognition. Our data argue against a retrieval deficit as the sole explanation for verbal memory impairment in MS, and make a consistent case for the position that deficient acquisition contributes to the memory dysfunction of MS patients. Deficient acquisition may result from demyelination in relevant white matter tracts that reduces encoding efficiency as a result of impaired speed of information processing.

Diversity Summit 2008: challenges in the recruitment and retention of ethnic minorities in neuropsychology.

The 2008 Diversity Summit recognized the many advantages of increasing the number of neuropsychologists from ethnically diverse backgrounds. The Summit addressed the aspiration of creating a more ethnically diverse body of neuropsychologists by increasing the recruitment of ethnic minority students to neuropsychology training programs. Challenges to successful recruitment and retention of ethnic minority students were discussion points at the Summit. This paper summarizes and expands these points and also suggests solutions to these challenges with the aim of stimulating innovative approaches to increasing the representation of ethnic minorities in neuropsychology.

MS vs. HD: can white matter and subcortical gray matter pathology be distinguished neuropsychologically?

This study was conducted to examine the neuropsychological effects of white matter and subcortical gray matter pathology. Nineteen patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), 16 with Huntington's disease (HD), and 17 normal controls (NC) participated. Participants completed the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT), Rotary Pursuit (RP) and Mirror Tracing (MT) tasks, and the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT). The principal findings pertain to a dissociation in procedural memory: on RP, the HD group demonstrated impaired sequence learning compared to the MS group, which performed similarly to the NC group, yet on MT, the MS and HD groups demonstrated normal perceptual-motor integration learning. On the CVLT, both patient groups performed better on recognition than on recall. On the SDMT, both patient groups performed worse than the NC group, with the HD group performing more poorly than the MS and NC groups. These results suggest that involvement of white and subcortical gray matter may produce different neuropsychological effects.