title: Cognitive reserve and cognitive performance of patients with focal frontal lesions.
abstract: The Cognitive reserve (CR) hypothesis was put forward to account for the variability in cognitive performance of patients with similar degrees of brain pathology. Compensatory neural activity within the frontal lobes has often been associated with CR. For the first time we investigated the independent effects of two CR proxies, education and NART IQ, on measures of executive function, fluid intelligence, speed of information processing, verbal short term memory (vSTM), naming, and perception in a sample of 86 patients with focal, unilateral frontal lesions and 142 healthy controls. We fitted multiple linear regression models for each of the cognitive measures and found that only NART IQ predicted executive and naming performance. Neither education nor NART IQ predicted performance on fluid intelligence, processing speed, vSTM or perceptual abilities. Education and NART IQ did not modify the effect of lesion severity on cognitive impairment. We also found that age significantly predicted performance on executive tests and the majority of our other cognitive measures, except vSTM and GNT. Age was the only predictor for fluid intelligence. This latter finding suggests that age plays a role in executive performance over and above the contribution of CR proxies in patients with focal frontal lesions. Overall, our results suggest that the CR proxies do not appear to modify the relationship between cognitive impairment and frontal lesions.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK; Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
authors.forename: Sarah E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: MacPherson
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, UK.
authors.forename: Colm
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Healy
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK; Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Allerhand
authors.affiliation: Neuroimaging Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Spanò
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, UK.
authors.forename: Carina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tudor-Sfetea
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroradiology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, UK.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: White
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Psicologiche, Pedagogiche e della Formazione, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Smirni
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, UK; International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA-ISAS), Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shallice
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, UK.
authors.forename: Edgar
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: Neuroimaging Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bozzali
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, UK; Dipartimento di Scienze Psicologiche, Pedagogiche e della Formazione, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italy. Electronic address: l.cipolotti@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cipolotti
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D058245:Cognitive Reserve / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D015898:Tomography Scanners, X-Ray Computed
keywords: Age; Cognitive performance; Cognitive reserve; Education; Frontal lesions; Literacy attainment