title: Electrophysiological evidence of two different types of error in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.
abstract: The specificity of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) for assessing frontal lobe pathology remains controversial, although lesion and cerebral blood flow studies continue to suggest a role for the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in WCST performance. Inconsistencies might derive from the extended use of various WCST scores as equivalent indicators of frontal pathology. In this study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 32 normal subjects who committed perseverative and non-perseverative errors. Both types of WCST errors evoked anomalous but distinct ERP patterns over frontal lobe regions. Perseverative errors were also associated with a dysfunctional extrastriate response to stimulation. This evidence suggests that perseverative and non-perseverative errors result from disruptions in two different prefrontal neural networks engaged during card sorting.
authors.affiliation: Pluridisciplinar Institute and Department of Psychobiology, Faculty of Psychology, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Barceló
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values