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Psychiatry Research Sep 2002Although perseveration in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) has been studied extensively in schizophrenia, the underlying cognitive dysfunctions are not yet clear....
Although perseveration in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) has been studied extensively in schizophrenia, the underlying cognitive dysfunctions are not yet clear. In schizophrenia, perseveration has been found to relate to frontal and striatal abnormalities. Therefore, both a failure to generate a plan as seen in patients with frontal abnormalities, or a failure to execute a plan as observed in Parkinson patients, who suffer primarily from striatal abnormalities, could explain perseveration in schizophrenia. The aim of the present study was to distinguish between these two cognitive dysfunctions, which are described by Frith in his routes-to-action model. The main difference between these dysfunctions is the ability to use external guidance. In the present study, 39 schizophrenic patients and 36 healthy controls were assessed with the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) and the WCST, in which use of external guidance can be measured, and with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) to determine the relationship with symptomatology. The results showed that half of the schizophrenic patients showed perseveration, which could be explained by a failure to generate a plan and was related to the psychomotor poverty subsyndrome. No evidence was found for a failure to execute a plan. Type of antipsychotic medication used (atypical vs. typical) proved not relevant. The results are discussed in the light of evidence for involvement of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in perseveration in schizophrenia.
Topics: Adult; Attention; Corpus Striatum; Discrimination Learning; Female; Humans; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; Prefrontal Cortex; Problem Solving; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychometrics; Psychomotor Performance; Reference Values; Retention, Psychology; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenic Psychology; Verbal Learning
PubMed: 12379447
DOI: 10.1016/s0165-1781(02)00178-6 -
Neuropsychology Jan 2004Letter and semantic fluency tasks are often used in neuropsychological assessment and are sensitive to many conditions. Performance is assessed by correct responses and... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
Letter and semantic fluency tasks are often used in neuropsychological assessment and are sensitive to many conditions. Performance is assessed by correct responses and errors, including perseverations. Healthy young adults performed letter and semantic fluency tasks. One group performed these tasks in the conventional manner; 2 other groups performed them while maintaining memory loads. The memory loads consisted either of words from the same category as the fluency task or of words from a different category. The results showed little effect of memory loads on correct responses but significant effects of memory load on perseveration rates: Same-category loads resulted in higher rates, especially in letter fluency. The results are discussed in terms of frontal lobe function in verbal fluency.
Topics: Analysis of Variance; Humans; Memory, Short-Term; Neuropsychological Tests; Random Allocation; Semantics; Task Performance and Analysis; Verbal Behavior; Verbal Learning; Vocabulary
PubMed: 14744189
DOI: 10.1037/0894-4105.18.1.69 -
Hippocampus 1997Animals with damage to the fimbria-fornix (FF) or cells of the hippocampus (HIP) can learn a place problem but cannot learn matching-to-place problems, which feature a...
Animals with damage to the fimbria-fornix (FF) or cells of the hippocampus (HIP) can learn a place problem but cannot learn matching-to-place problems, which feature a series of place "reversals." The two experiments described in the present report were designed to examine the causes of impairment on reversal learning. In experiment 1, control, HIP, and FF groups were trained to asymptote on a place problem, and then the location of the platform was moved. Control rats learned the reversal response more quickly than the initial response; the HIP rats learned both problems at the same rate. Swim analysis showed that the impairment in the lesion group on the reversal response was aggravated by perseverative returns to the first learned place. In experiment 2, control and FF groups were trained on a task in which the platform was visible on three daily trials and hidden on one daily trial. After 10 days, the platforms were moved. In the reversal response, the FF group showed enhanced performance on the cue trials and severely impaired performance on the place trials relative to initial learning and control performance. Swim analysis showed that FF rats perseverated on the initial place response in place trials. These experiments provide further evidence for place learning in hippocampal rats and show that perseverative responses contribute to impairments in new learning. The results are discussed in relation to the idea that the hippocampus mediates spatial mapping and/or uses self-movement cues to solve spatial problems.
Topics: Animals; Behavior, Animal; Denervation; Excitatory Amino Acid Agonists; Hippocampus; Ibotenic Acid; Male; Maze Learning; Rats; Rats, Inbred Strains; Reversal Learning; Spatial Behavior; Swimming
PubMed: 9287076
DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1098-1063(1997)7:4<361::AID-HIPO2>3.0.CO;2-M -
Neuropsychologia May 2009In order to assess sequential effects in grasping a disc, grip aperture was measured as a function of whether the previous disc was smaller or larger than the current...
In order to assess sequential effects in grasping a disc, grip aperture was measured as a function of whether the previous disc was smaller or larger than the current target. In Experiment 1, a biphasic sequential effect was found over the course of the reach: Early in the movement, a contrast effect was observed in which grip aperture was wider following a smaller target; later in the movement, a perseveration effect was observed in which grip aperture was smaller following a smaller target. In Experiment 2, the target was accompanied by context discs that were larger and smaller than the range of target sizes. In this case, there was no contrast effect, and a perseveration effect was observed over the course of the movement trajectory. In a third experiment, a sequential contrast effect was found when subjects did not grasp the disc but merely estimated its size. Our interpretation is that there are two mechanisms producing sequential effects: a perceptual contrast effect in which the target appears larger following a smaller disc, and a motor perseveration effect in which subjects tend to reuse similar motor control parameters from trial to trial. These effects were overlaid in Experiment 1, producing the observed biphasic response. However, in Experiment 2, the context eliminated sequential perceptual contrast, and grip aperture only showed an effect of perseveration. In Experiment 3, only the perceptual effect was found because subjects did not need to grasp the disc.
Topics: Contrast Sensitivity; Female; Hand Strength; Humans; Male; Memory; Movement; Neuropsychological Tests; Photic Stimulation; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Size Perception; Time Factors
PubMed: 19162049
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.12.032 -
Physiology & Behavior Oct 2019Rodent self-grooming is a behavior that, besides its cleaning function, can be led by arousing experiences. A putative trait-like nature of this behavior was studied....
Rodent self-grooming is a behavior that, besides its cleaning function, can be led by arousing experiences. A putative trait-like nature of this behavior was studied. With the aim of providing information about how grooming behavior can reflect different behavioral processes, an individual differences approach was adopted. Fifty nine male Wistar-derived rats were submitted to five 30-min long behavioral tests. These tests were selected based on the behavioral processes they entangle. Elevated plus-maze (EPM): anxiety, exploration/habituation, arousal/dearousal; Marble burying (MB): active/passive coping; Operant extinction (EXT): frustration, perseveration; Conditioned fear context (CFC): fearfulness, active/passive coping; Novelty after restraint (NAR): stress induced behavior. Orthogonal (Varimax) factor analyses were performed within each test in order to select the most representative measures. To the selected variables from all tests a Direct Oblimin factor analysis was applied. A three factor solution was found after the application of the Cattell's scree test. This solution accounted for 44.2% of the variance. By looking at the loading variables, some conclusions could be drawn. On Factor 1 loaded time spent grooming in three tests and the measure of extinction resistance. We considered this factor to evidence a trait-like nature of grooming and a relationship between it and perseveration. On Factor 2 loaded freezing in the CFC, SAPs in the EPM and grooming duration in the EXT. We considered this factor to correspond to anxiety. On Factor 3, moderate to high loadings were found for crossings in the NAR test and for grooming duration in this test and in the EPM. A lower loading on this factor was also found for the number of buried marbles. We considered this factor as related to dearousal. The present results suggest important relationships both (1) within grooming measures recorded in different behavioral tests and (2) among grooming and other behaviors observed in the tests. These relationships are in accordance with a trait-like nature for self-grooming and shed some light to how grooming behavior interplays with anxiety, dearousal and perseveration.
Topics: Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; Anxiety; Arousal; Exploratory Behavior; Extinction, Psychological; Fear; Grooming; Individuality; Instinct; Male; Rats; Rats, Wistar; Stress, Psychological
PubMed: 31226313
DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2019.112585 -
Neuropsychologia Dec 2013Neglect patients' performance during cancellation tasks is characterized by left sided omissions and, in many cases, by the production of inappropriate material of...
Neglect patients' performance during cancellation tasks is characterized by left sided omissions and, in many cases, by the production of inappropriate material of various kinds in the ipsilesional space, e.g. additional marks over already cancelled targets, marks drawn away from targets, scribbles, irrelevant drawings. It is unclear whether these behaviours, which have collectively been called perseverative, are functionally and anatomically connected and whether they correlate with the severity of neglect. Here we report a retrospective study on 33 right brain damaged patients with neglect after right hemisphere lesions in whom we measured the intensity of perseveration of the three following kinds: (1) 'additional marks' (AM) perseveration where patients cancelled a target with two or more well separated marks; (2) 'scribble' perseveration, where patients, instead of cancelling the target with a single pen stroke as required by the task, performed multiple pen strokes without breaking the pen-to-paper contact, with the final product being a scribble; (3) 'flying marks' (FM) perseveration where patients produced cancellation marks well away from the targets. We found that AM and FM perseveration correlated with neglect severity, while 'scribble' perseveration did not. The lesion-symptom mapping showed three separate anatomical areas in the right hemisphere: 'scribble' perseveration was associated with lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex and caudate nucleus; AM perseveration was associated with damage to the rolandic operculum, superior temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus; FM perseveration was associated with damage to the dorsal premotor cortex and the temporal pole. Neglect severity followed damage to a region which grossly corresponds to the sum of the regions associated with AM and FM perseveration respectively. This complex behavioural and anatomical pattern is interpreted in terms of a three-factor model, in which AM perseveration is caused by a deficit of disengagement of attention from the right side (also causing omissions), FM perseveration is caused by directional hypokinesia (also causing left-side omissions), and 'scribble' perseveration is the consequence of a failure to inhibit an initiated motor act, which is completely separate (both anatomically and functionally) from the disorder inducing omissions.
Topics: Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Brain Injuries; Brain Mapping; Dissociative Disorders; Female; Functional Laterality; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests; Perceptual Disorders; Psychomotor Performance; Retrospective Studies; Sensitivity and Specificity; Severity of Illness Index; Space Perception; Tomography Scanners, X-Ray Computed
PubMed: 24200919
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.10.023 -
Brain Injury Nov 1997Perseveration and wandering are well recognized sequelae of traumatic brain injury. They are believed to arise as a constellation of behaviours from lesions involving...
Perseveration and wandering are well recognized sequelae of traumatic brain injury. They are believed to arise as a constellation of behaviours from lesions involving the frontal, temporal, or parietal lobes or subcortical motor regions. Attention and memory deficits are believed to contribute to the presence of perseveration and wandering. Patients who perseverate and/or wander after brain injury tend to have poorer outcomes and slower rates of progress. This prospective study is based on 32 consecutive admissions to a brain injury rehabilitation unit over a 4-month period. For each patient data was collected on perseverative behaviours, wandering, Functional Independence Measure, total number of rehabilitative days, supervision requirement at discharge and discharge disposition. Perseveration and wandering were assessed using the Agitated Behaviour Scale and clinical observations of the primary physician, physical and occupational therapist and speech-language pathologist. Correlations between perseverative and wandering behaviours were made with the variables identified.
Topics: Adult; Brain Injuries; Cognition Disorders; Female; Hospitalization; Humans; Length of Stay; Male; Middle Aged; Psychomotor Disorders
PubMed: 9354258
DOI: 10.1080/026990597123025 -
Journal of Neuropsychology Mar 2013In cancellation tasks, patients with unilateral spatial neglect typically fail to mark targets within the side of the sheet contralateral to the side of the lesion...
In cancellation tasks, patients with unilateral spatial neglect typically fail to mark targets within the side of the sheet contralateral to the side of the lesion (contralesional). Moreover, they can show a perseverative behaviour, which consists in repeatedly cancelling stimuli, mainly in the side of the display ipsilateral to the side of the lesion (ipsilesional). We investigated in 13 right-brain-damaged patients with left spatial neglect and perseverative behaviour whether and how different densities of horizontal targets modulated omission and perseverative errors. We found that the density of targets modulated the patients' distribution of neglect (area of omission), but not its extent, as indexed by the percentage of omissions. Specifically, the area of omissions tightened when target density increased leftwards. On the other hand, target density did not affect the distribution of perseverative behaviour (area of perseveration), as well as its extent, as indexed by the percentage of perseverations. Correlation analyses showed that both the extent and the distribution of omissions were positively correlated to clinical measures of spatial neglect. Conversely, perseverations did not show such a correlation. These findings support the view that two different pathological mechanisms might be involved in left spatial neglect and in ipsilesional perseverative behaviour.
Topics: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Female; Functional Laterality; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Perceptual Disorders; Photic Stimulation; Psychomotor Performance; Space Perception; Statistics as Topic
PubMed: 22646536
DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-6653.2012.02034.x -
Memory (Hove, England) 2013Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) exhibit perseverative behaviours, like checking, to reduce uncertainty, but perseveration paradoxically enhances...
Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) exhibit perseverative behaviours, like checking, to reduce uncertainty, but perseveration paradoxically enhances uncertainty. It is unclear what mechanism might be responsible. We hypothesised that perseverative OC-like behaviour produces "semantic satiation" and interferes with the accessibility of meaning. Healthy participants repeated 20 types of OC-like checking behaviour nonperseveratively (2 times) or perseveratively (20 times). Afterwards, they decided as quickly as possible whether a picture was semantically related to the checked object. The nonperseverative condition showed spreading of activation: Judgements were faster for related than for unrelated objects and pictures. The effect was blocked in the perseverative condition, where reaction times for related and unrelated items were similar. The results suggest that the ironic effects of compulsive perseveration are due to interference with spreading of activation.
Topics: Analysis of Variance; Compulsive Behavior; Female; Humans; Male; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Reaction Time; Young Adult
PubMed: 23016554
DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2012.727006 -
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 2013Attentional deficits and executive function impairments are common to many neurodevelopmental disorders of intellectual disability and autism, including Fragile X...
Attentional deficits and executive function impairments are common to many neurodevelopmental disorders of intellectual disability and autism, including Fragile X syndrome (FXS). In the knockout mouse model for FXS, significant changes in synaptic plasticity and connectivity are found in the prefrontal cortex (PFC)-a prominent region for attentional processing and executive control. Given these alterations in PFC synaptic function, we tested whether adult Fragile X knockout mice exhibited corresponding impairments in inhibitory control, perseveration, and sustained attention. Furthermore, we investigated individual performance during attentional rule acquisition. Using the 5-choice serial reaction time task, our results show no impairments in inhibitory control and sustained attention. Fragile X knockout mice exhibited enhanced levels of correct and incorrect responding, as well as perseveration of responding during initial phases of rule acquisition, that normalized with training. For both knockout and wild type mice, pharmacological attenuation of metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 signaling did not affect response accuracy but reduced impulsive responses and increased omission errors. Upon rule reversal, Fragile X knockout mice made more correct and incorrect responses, similar to the initial phases of rule acquisition. Analogous to heightened activity upon novel rule acquisition, Fragile X knockout mice were transiently hyperactive in both a novel open field (OF) arena and novel home cage. Hyperactivity ceased with familiarization to the environment. Our findings demonstrate normal inhibitory control and sustained attention but heightened perseveration, responding, and hyperactivity during novel rule acquisition and during exposure to novel environments in Fragile X knockout mice. We therefore provide evidence for subtle but significant differences in the processing of novel stimuli in the mouse model for the FXS.
PubMed: 24312033
DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00172