Study of Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control Attentional Networks in Bilingual and Monolingual Primary School Children: The Role of Socioeconomic Status.

For decades, researchers have suggested the existence of a bilingual cognitive advantage, especially in tasks involving executive functions such as inhibition, shifting, and updating. Recently, an increasing number of studies have questioned whether bilingualism results in a change in executive functions, highlighting conflicting data published in the literature. The present study compared the performance of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade bilingual and monolingual children on attentional and cognitive tasks. The participants were 61 monolingual and 74 bilingual children (M = 114.6 months; SD = 8.48 months) who were tested on two versions of the attention network task (ANT), with and without social stimuli, as well as tests investigating working memory, short-term memory, narrative memory, and receptive vocabulary. Data on families' socioeconomic status and children's reasoning abilities were also collected. The results showed that bilingualism and socioeconomic status affected attentional networks in tasks involving social stimuli. In tasks involving non-social stimuli, socioeconomic status only affected the alerting and executive conflict networks. Consistent with the literature, a positive relationship emerged between socioeconomic status and executive control in the context of social stimuli, and a negative relationship emerged between socioeconomic status and the alerting network in the context of non-social stimuli. Interestingly, neither socioeconomic status nor social attentional networks correlated with working memory. Therefore, although more investigations are required, the results suggest that differences in social contexts mainly affect attentional functions.

The Effects of Social Processing and Role Type on Attention Networks: Insights from Team Ball Athletes.

(1) Background: Several findings have shown how social stimuli can influence attentional processes. Social attention is crucial in team ball sports, in which players have to react to dynamically changing, unpredictable, and externally paced environments. Our study aimed at demonstrating the influence of social processing on team ball sports athletes' attentional abilities. (2) Methods: A total of 103 male players divided by sport (soccer, handball, and basketball) and by role (striker, midfielder, or defender) were tested through a modified version of the Attention Network Test (ANT) in which they were exposed to both social and non-social stimuli. (3) Results: Social stimuli positively impacted the athletes' abilities to focus on target stimuli and ignore conflicting environmental requests (t = -2.600, p = 0.011 *). We also found that the athletes' roles impacted their performance accuracy. Specifically, differences were found in the ability to maintain a general state of reactivity between athletes (strikers vs. midfielders: t = 3.303, p = 0.004 **; striker vs. defenders: t = -2.820, p = 0.017 *; midfielders vs. defenders: t = -5.876, p < 001 ***). (4) Conclusion: These findings revealed that social stimuli are crucial for performance enhancement in team ball sports athletes. Further, we suggest that it is possible to draw specific attentional profiles for athletes in different roles.

Erectile Dysfunction Severity: The Role of Glycometabolic Compensation and Antihyperglycemic Drugs.

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of DM among patients with ED and the impact of glycometabolic compensation and antihyperglycemic treatment on ED severity. Methods: In total, 1332 patients with ED were enrolled. The diagnosis was performed through the International-Index-of-Erectile-Function questionnaire. ED severity was considered according to presence/absence of spontaneous erections, maintenance/achievement deficiency and response to PDE5-i. DM patients were clustered according to antihyperglycemic treatment: "metformin"/"insulin"/"old antihyperglycemic drugs"/"new antihyperglycemic drugs". Results: The prevalence of DM patients was 15.8% (Group A, patients with ED and DM). Among these, the prevalence of spontaneous erections (21.0%) was lower than in the remaining patients (Group B, patients with ED without DM) (32.0%, p < 0.001). The prevalence of poor response to PDE5-i was lower in Group B (10.0%) than in Group A (35.0%, p < 0.001). Patients with good response to PDE5-i therapy showed lower HbA1c values than patients with poor/no response (6.6 ± 1.1% vs. 7.7 ± 1.9%, p = 0.02). The prevalence of absent response to PDE5-i was higher in patients treated with old antidiabetic drugs than in the population treated with new drugs (p = 0.03). Conclusion: The severity of ED and lower response to PDE5-i were higher in DM patients. A better glycometabolic profile, as well as new antihyperglycemic drugs, seem to have a positive effect on ED.

How Is Working Memory Related to Reading Comprehension in Italian Monolingual and Bilingual Children?

This study explored how working memory resources contributed to reading comprehension using tasks that focused on maintenance of verbal information in the phonological store, the interaction between the central executive and the phonological store (WMI), and the storage of bound semantic content in the episodic buffer (immediate narrative memory). We analysed how performance in these tasks was related to text decoding (reading speed and accuracy), listening and reading comprehension. The participants were 62 monolingual and 36 bilingual children (mean age nine years, SD = 9 months) enrolled in the same Italian primary school. Bilingual children were born to immigrant parents and had a long history of exposure to Italian as a second language. The regression analyses showed that reading accuracy and listening comprehension were associated with reading comprehension for monolingual and bilingual children. Two working memory components-WMI and immediate narrative memory-exhibited indirect effects on reading comprehension through reading accuracy and listening comprehension, respectively. Such effects occurred only for monolingual children. We discuss the implications of such findings for text reading and comprehension in monolinguals and bilinguals.

Aging in cognitive control of social processing: evidence from the attention network test.

Aging seems to be associated with impairment of attentional network functioning. It is not known whether social information can modulate this age-related decline. We used three variants of Attention Network test to examine the age-related decline of attentional effects in response to stimuli with and without social-cognitive content. Three groups of younger, middle-aged, and older participants performed the ANT, using fish, drawings, or photographs of faces looking to the left or right as target and flanker stimuli. The results showed that both executive attention and alerting were more resistant to the age-related decline with social stimuli and that orienting attention scores showed a progressive increase with age in the presence of this kind of stimuli. These findings underline the importance of social information in modulating and contrasting the age-related decline and support the status of human faces as a special class of visual stimuli for the human attentional systems.

The Impact of Bilingualism on Executive Functions in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review Based on the PRISMA Method.

Approximately half of the world's population is bilingual or multilingual. The bilingual advantage theory claims that the constant need to control both known languages, that are always active in the brain, to use the one suitable for each specific context improves cognitive functions and specifically executive functions. However, some authors do not agree on the bilingual effect, given the controversial results of studies on this topic. This systematic review aims to summarize the results of studies on the relationship between bilingualism and executive functions. The review was conducted according to PRISMA-statement through searches in the scientific database PsychINFO, PsycARTICLES, MEDLINE, and PUBMED. Studies included in this review had at least one bilingual and monolingual group, participants aged between 5 and 17 years, and at least one executive function measure. Studies on second language learners, multilingual people, and the clinical population were excluded. Fifty-three studies were included in the systematic review. Evidence supporting the bilingual effect seems to appear when assessing inhibition and cognitive flexibility, but to disappear when working memory is considered. The inconsistent results of the studies do not allow drawing definite conclusions on the bilingual effect. Further studies are needed; they should consider the role of some modulators (e.g., language history and context, methodological differences) on the observed results.

Natural Environment and Social Relationship in the Development of Attentional Network.

The attention mechanism is related to both voluntary and automatic processes, that may be summarized in three distinct networks: alert, orientation, and inhibitory control. These networks can be modulated by different contextual and relational situations. Aim of this review is to explain how a combination of natural and social stimuli can positively affect the attentional processes. It has been proposed that the exposition to natural environment can positively affect direct attention, a common resource supporting both executive functioning and self-regulation processes in cognition. It has been suggested that the decrease of the effort required to voluntary control attention from the bottom upwards could determine some internal reflection that may support creative thinking secondarily to a simultaneous reduction in the effort required to orient attention between thoughts and impressions. In my view, not only exposition to natural and green environment improves attentional processes but also the involvement in social relationship. The development of the orientation and inhibitory control networks is sensitive to the social nature of the stimuli, for instance, in a task, including socially relevant stimuli the efficiency of these two attentional networks increases in children, in adults and in elderly subjects. Social attention, starting very early in the life (joint attention) is a very important mechanism for the regulation of social relationships. A key for a better development of cognitive functions such as attentional processes is the promotion of the immersion in the natural environment and the involvement in social relationship.

Acquisition of Ownership Illusion with Self-Disownership in Neurological Patients.

The multisensory regions in frontoparietal cortices play a crucial role in the sense of body and self. Disrupting this sense may lead to a feeling of disembodiment, or more generally, a sense of disownership. Experimentally, this altered consciousness disappears during illusory own-body perceptions, increasing the intensity of perceived ownership for an external virtual limb. In many clinical conditions, particularly in individuals with a discontinuous or absent sense of bodily awareness, the brain may effortlessly create a convincing feeling of body ownership over a surrogate body or body part. The immediate visual input dominates the current bodily state and induces rapid plastic adaptation that reconfigures the dynamics of bodily representation, allowing the brain to acquire an alternative sense of body and self. Investigating strategies to deconstruct the lack of a normal sense of bodily ownership, especially after a neurological injury, may aid the selection of appropriate clinical treatment.

Training Verbal Working Memory in Children with Mild Intellectual Disabilities: Effects on Problem-solving / El entrenamiento de la memoria de trabajo verbal en niños con discapacidad intelectual leve: sus efectos en la resolución de problemas

This multiple case study explores the effects of a cognitive training program in children with mild to borderline intellectual disability. Experimental training effects were evaluated comparing pre-/post-test changes of (a) a baseline phase versus a training phase in the same participant, (b) an experimental training versus either a no intervention phase or a control training in two pairs of children matched for cognitive profile. Key elements of the training program d (1) exercises and card games targeting inhibition, switching, and verbal working memory, (2) guided practice emphasizing concrete strategies to engage in exercises, and (3) a variable amount of adult support. The results that both verbal working memory d with the listening span test and problem-solving tested with the Raven’s Matrices were significantly enhanced after the experimental training

Este estudio de caso múltiple explora los efectos de un programa de entrenamiento cognitivo en niños con discapacidad intelectual entre leve y límite. Se evaluaron los efectos de entrenamiento experimental comparándose los cambios pre/posprueba de (a) una fase basal frente a una fase de entrenamiento en el mismo participante y (b) un entrenamiento experimental frente a una fase sin intervención o un entrenamiento de control en dos pares de niños emparejados en el perfil cognoscitivo. Los elementos clave del programa de entrenamiento constaban de: (1) ejercicios y juegos de cartas cuyo objetivo es la atención, inhibición, conmutación y memoria de trabajo verbal, (2) práctica guiada enfatizando estrategias para realizar ejercicios y (3) un grado variable de apoyo por parte del adulto. Los resultados demuestran que tanto la memoria de trabajo verbal analizada mediante la prueba de capacidad de escucha como la resolución de problemas medida a través de las Matrices de Raven mejoraron significativamente después del entrenamiento experimental

Development in attention functions and social processing: Evidence from the Attention Network Test.

According to the attention network approach, attention is best understood in terms of three functionally and neuroanatomically distinct networks - alerting, orienting, and executive attention. Recent findings showed that social information influences the efficiency of these networks in adults. Using some social and non-social variants of the Attentional Network Test (ANT), this study was aimed to evaluate the development of the three attention networks in childhood, also assessing the development of the ability to manage social or non-social conflicting information. Sixty-six children (three groups of 6, 8, and 10 years of age) performed three variants of the original ANT, using fish, schematic, or real faces looking to the left or right as target and flanker stimuli. Results showed an improvement from 6 to 8 and 10 years of age in reaction time (RT) and accuracy, together with an improvement of executive control and a decrement in alerting. These developmental changes were not unique to social stimuli, and no differences were observed between social and no-social variants of the ANT. However, independently from the age of the children, a real face positively affected the executive control (as indexed by RTs) as compared to both a schematic face and a fish. Findings of this study suggest that attentional networks are still developing from 6 to 10 years of age and underline the importance of face information in modulating the efficiency of executive control. Statement of contribution What is already known? Younger children made more errors and slower reaction times (RTs) than older children, in line with the majority of the past selective attention studies. Younger children showed both greater conflict and alerting effect than older children. The prediction that younger children would display larger interference effects than older children was supported. What does this study add? Extending the findings observed in adults and children, independently from their age, demonstrated greater cognitive interference (i.e., slower RTs and higher percentage of errors to incongruent relative to congruent conditions) when fish and schematic faces were presented than when photographs of real faces were used as stimuli. Like adults, children have a greater ability in the control of social information as compared to non-social information. These results seem to indicate that the ability to handle social conflicts proceeds in parallel with the ability to manage non-social conflicting information.

Peer and Teacher-Selected Peer Buddies for Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders: The Role of Social, Emotional, and Mentalizing Abilities.

This study examined mentalizing abilities, social behavior, and social impact of adolescents who expressed the willingness to become peer buddies for adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders, and adolescents selected by their teachers and peers. Twenty-seven teachers and 395 adolescents from public high schools completed mentalizing abilities, social status, behavioral, and peer buddy nomination measures. Findings suggest that social status and preference play a significant role in the selection of peer buddies by both teachers and classmates. Furthermore, more advanced Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities and the engagement in prosocial behaviors differentiated peers selected as buddies from other classmates. When compared with nonparticipating students, adolescents who expressed willingness to participate were more often girls, and were more prosocial. Agreement between teacher and peer nominations of best peer was moderate.

Maintenance and manipulation of object sequences in working memory: a lifespan study.

Many studied reported that working memory components receive remarkable changes during lifespan. In order to better investigate this, we evaluated working memory components on human subjects belonging to five groups (10 subjects each) at different ages 6, 8 and 10 years old, young adult (age) and old adult (age). Our pattern of results shows a major transition in object sequence manipulation performance between ages 8 and 10 years. If related to young adults results, both 10-year-old children and old adults differed in accuracy and RT (specificare cosa significa) in both maintenance and manipulation conditions. In particular, young adults and old adults differ in RTs in the manipulation condition. Our results also suggest that a change in response strategy from 6 to 8 years of age, to prioritize accuracy may be present. Our findings appear consistent with recent neuroscientific findings, and lead to novel predictions.

Attention network test--the impact of social information on executive control, alerting and orienting.

According to the attention network approach, attention is best understood in terms of three functionally and neuroanatomically distinct networks - alerting, orienting, and executive attention. An important question is whether social information influences the efficiency of these networks. Using the same structure as the Attentional Network Test (ANT), we developed a variant of this test to examine attentional effects in response to stimuli with and without social-cognitive content. Fish, drawings or photographs of faces looking to the left or right were used as target stimuli. Results collected from twenty-four university students showed that photographs of faces positively affected attentional orienting and executive control, whereas reduced the efficiency of alerting, as compared to both face drawings and fish. These results support the status of human faces as a special class of visual stimuli for the human attentional systems.

Learning by observation: insights from Williams syndrome.

Observing another person performing a complex action accelerates the observer's acquisition of the same action and limits the time-consuming process of learning by trial and error. Observational learning makes an interesting and potentially important topic in the developmental domain, especially when disorders are considered. The implications of studies aimed at clarifying whether and how this form of learning is spared by pathology are manifold. We focused on a specific population with learning and intellectual disabilities, the individuals with Williams syndrome. The performance of twenty-eight individuals with Williams syndrome was compared with that of mental age- and gender-matched thirty-two typically developing children on tasks of learning of a visuo-motor sequence by observation or by trial and error. Regardless of the learning modality, acquiring the correct sequence involved three main phases: a detection phase, in which participants discovered the correct sequence and learned how to perform the task; an exercise phase, in which they reproduced the sequence until performance was error-free; an automatization phase, in which by repeating the error-free sequence they became accurate and speedy. Participants with Williams syndrome beneficiated of observational training (in which they observed an actor detecting the visuo-motor sequence) in the detection phase, while they performed worse than typically developing children in the exercise and automatization phases. Thus, by exploiting competencies learned by observation, individuals with Williams syndrome detected the visuo-motor sequence, putting into action the appropriate procedural strategies. Conversely, their impaired performances in the exercise phases appeared linked to impaired spatial working memory, while their deficits in automatization phases to deficits in processes increasing efficiency and speed of the response. Overall, observational experience was advantageous for acquiring competencies, since it primed subjects' interest in the actions to be performed and functioned as a catalyst for executed action.

Relationship between brain abnormalities and cognitive profile in Williams syndrome.

Previous studies have shown inconsistent results when reporting brain abnormalities in Williams syndrome (WS). This makes an interpretation of clinical and behavioural data uncertain in terms of anatomical localization of brain tissue changes. In this study we employed voxel based morphometry to directly investigate the regional distribution of grey matter (GM) density as a function of individual neuropsychological profiles in individuals with WS. GM maps were regressed against the neuropsychological measures on which WS individuals performed worse than controls. Results showed an association between the regional GM density in the cerebellum, bilaterally, the right Supplementary Motor Area, the right fusiform gyrus, and measures of morpho-syntactic ability. An association was also found between measures of visuo-spatial and visuo-motor abilities and regional GM density in the left cerebellum, left parietal lobule, right superior and left orbital frontal gyri. The study shows the potential to clarify the anatomical substrate underlying specific cognitive deficits in WS.

Cognitive performances of cholinergically depleted rats following chronic donepezil administration.

Since acute and chronic administration of the acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, namely donepezil, improves cognitive functions in patients afflicted by mild to moderate dementia and reverses memory deficits in experimental models of learning and memory, it seemed interesting to assess the effects of chronic donepezil treatment on cognitive functions in adult rats with forebrain cholinergic depletion. Lesions were performed by means of intracerebroventricular injections of the immunotoxin 192 IgG-saporin. The cognitive functions of lesioned animals treated or not treated with donepezil were compared with those of intact animals. Cholinergic depletion affected working memory functions, weakened procedural competencies, affected the acquisition of localizing knowledge, and evoked remarkable compulsive and perseverative behaviors. In lesioned animals, chronic donepezil treatment ameliorated localizatory capabilities, performances linked to cognitive flexibility and procedural abilities. Furthermore, it attenuated compulsive deficits. The present data indicate positive effects of chronic donepezil treatment on specific cognitive performances, suggesting that an aimed use of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, targeting some symptoms more than others, may be beneficial in the case of cholinergic hypofunction. The animal model used in the present research may provide an efficient method for analyzing cognition-enhancing drugs before clinical trials.

Environmental enrichment provides a cognitive reserve to be spent in the case of brain lesion.

To experimentally verify the reserve hypothesis, the influence of rearing conditions on the cognitive performances and on dendritic spines following basal forebrain lesions was analyzed. Adult rats reared in enriched or standard conditions were depleted of the cholinergic projection to the neocortex by 192 IgG-saporin injection into Ch4 region of basal forebrain. Their performance in spatial tasks was compared with that of intact animals reared in analogous conditions. Furthermore, number and density of dendritic spines of the layer-III parietal pyramidal neurons were analyzed. Cholinergic depletion of forebrain cortex resulted in impaired performances in most behavioral tasks in animals reared in standard conditions. Conversely, the enriched lesioned animals did not exhibit most deficits evoked by cholinergic lesion, even if some deficits, such as perseverative behaviors, were still present. The pyramidal neurons exhibited an increased spine number and density in the lesioned animals reared in standard conditions. In the enriched lesioned animals, the enhancement of spine number and density elicited by the rearing condition was fully maintained but not further increased in the presence of the lesion. Thus, rearing in an enriched environment results in the development of brain and cognitive reserves that reduce the cognitive impairment following forebrain lesions.

Cognitive performance of healthy young rats following chronic donepezil administration.

RATIONALE: Experimental studies have investigated the effects of chronic donepezil treatment on the behavioral deficits elicited by reduced activity or the loss of cholinergic neurons that occurs in aging or in models of dementia. However, few studies have analyzed the effects of chronic donepezil treatment on the cognitive functions of intact animals. OBJECTIVES: The cognitive functions of healthy young rats treated chronically with the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor donepezil were evaluated using a wide behavioral test battery. RESULTS: Chronic treatment with donepezil ameliorated memory functions and explorative strategies, speeded up the acquisition of localizing knowledge, augmented responsiveness to the context, and reduced anxiety levels. However, it did not affect spatial span, modify motivational levels, or influence associative learning. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings show the specific profile of donepezil action on cognitive functions in the presence of unaltered cholinergic neurotransmission systems.

Is the cerebellum involved in the visuo-locomotor associative learning?

The role played by cerebellar circuits in visuo-motor associative learning is still unclear. The aim of the present study was to analyse cerebellar involvement using a visuo-locomotor associative learning paradigm that did not require spatial competences. Hemicerebellectomized (HCbed) and Control rats were tested in a visual discrimination task. First, both groups of rats had to learn that a reward was associated with an object that had a specific colour and shape (Experiment 1). Then, the shape but not the colour of the rewarded object was modified to verify whether the animals were able to transfer the rule of rewarding or whether they had to acquire a new association (Experiment 2). In the first sessions of the Experiment 1, HCbed animals displayed a tendency toward peripheral circling and a delay of about three sessions in reaching the criterion of correct choices compared to Controls. This delay has to be correlated to the need to overcome the procedural impairment elicited by the HCb. Once the HCbed animals put efficient procedural abilities into action, they exhibited a similar increase in percentages of successes from the fourth session onward as Controls. The results of Experiment 2 confirm the intact associative abilities of HCbed animals, as demonstrated by their progressive increase in successful associative responses, which, at the end of the transfer phase, were not significantly different from those of the Control group. The present findings indicate that the presence of a cerebellar lesion delays but does not prevent visuo-locomotor associative learning and that stimulus generalisation is performed without difficulty even in the presence of a cerebellar lesion.