The ongoing pandemic caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has enforced a shutdown of educative institutions of all levels, including high school and university students, and has forced educators and institutions to adapt teaching strategies in a hasty way. This work reviews the use of gamification-based teaching during the pandemic lockdown through a search in Scopus, PsycINFO, ERIC, and Semantic Scholar databases. A total of 11 papers from Chemistry, Business, Computer Science, Biology, and Medical areas have been identified and included in the present work. All of them analyzed the use of gamification strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic and assessed student’s learning and motivation outcomes. In general, students reported that gamification was innovative, engaging, and an efficient strategy to deliver curricula material; moreover, it was perceived as a fun activity. Some students reported that gamified videoconferences aided to connect with their classmates during isolation time providing effective social support. However, some students reported a bad physical or psychological condition, as consequence of the confinement, and did not get involved in the activity. Some weaknesses of the reviewed studies are the small sample size and its homogeneity, which makes it difficult to generalize their results to other scenarios and academic areas. Furthermore, although there is a feeling of learning during the activity, this result is mainly based on subjective perceptions, and any of the studies demonstrated that superior learning was achieved in comparison with traditional teaching strategies. Nevertheless, gamification can be implemented together with traditional lectures and can be a valuable instrument during post-COVID times.

The original definition of cognitive reserve (CR) refers to the individual differences in cognitive performance after a brain damage or pathology. Several proxies were proposed to evaluate CR (education, occupational attainment, premorbid IQ, leisure activities). Recently, some scales were developed to measure CR taking into account several cognitively stimulating activities. The aim of this study is to adapt the Cognitive Reserve Scale (I-CRS) for the Italian population and to explore its psychometric properties. I-CRS was administered to 547 healthy participants, ranging from 18 to 89 years old, along with neuropsychological and behavioral scales to evaluate cognitive functioning, depressive symptoms, and apathy. Cronbach's α, corrected item-total correlations, and the inter-item correlation matrix were calculated to evaluate the psychometric properties of the scale. Linear regression analysis was performed to build a correction grid of the I-CRS according to demographic variables. Correlational analyses were performed to explore the relationships between I-CRS and neuropsychological and behavioral scales. We found that age, sex, and education influenced the I-CRS score. Young adults and adults obtained higher I-CRS scores than elderly adults; women and participants with high educational attainment scored higher on I-CRS than men and participants with low education. I-CRS score correlated poorly with cognitive and depression scale scores, but moderately with apathy scale scores. I-CRS showed good psychometric properties and seemed to be a useful tool to assess CR in every adult life stage. Moreover, our findings suggest that apathy rather than depressive symptoms may interfere with the building of CR across the lifespan.

Aging is related to a deterioration of cognitive performance and to multiple alterations in the brain. Even before the beginning of a noticeable cognitive decline, the framework which holds cognitive function experiences these alterations. From a system-vulnerability point of view of cognition, the deterioration associated with age would be the collection of repercussions during a life. Brain function and structure are modified in a multidimensional way, which could concern different aspects like structural integrity, functional activity, connectivity, or glucose metabolism. From this point of view, the effects of aging could affect the most brain systems and their functional activity. In this study, we analyze the functional development of three cognitive domains in relation to aging, educational level, and cognitive reserve (CR). A total of 172 healthy subjects were divided into two age groups (young and old), and completed a battery of classic neuropsychological tests. The tests were organized and analyzed according to three cognitive domains: working memory and flexibility, visuoconstructive functions, and declarative memory. Subjects also completed a questionnaire on CR. Results showed that the performance in all cognitive domains decreased with age. In particular, tests related to working memory, flexibility, and visuoconstructive abilities were influenced by age. Nevertheless, this effect was attenuated by effects of education, mainly in visuoconstructive domain. Surprisingly, visual as well as verbal memory tests were not affected either by aging, education, or CR. Brain plasticity plays a prominent role in the aging process, but, as other studies have shown, the plasticity mechanism is quite different in healthy vs. pathological brains. Moreover, this plasticity brain mechanism could be modulated by education and CR. Specially, cognitive domains as working memory, some executive functions and the visuoconstructive abilities seem to be modulated by education. Therefore, it seems to be crucial, to propose mechanisms of maintenance of a healthy and enriched brain, since it promotes auto-regulatory mechanisms of well-aging.

Resumen:Introducción. Diversas investigaciones han demostrado que el desarrollo cognitivo de los niños prematuros suele verse afectado, existiendo una estrecha relación entre prematuridad, déficits ejecutivos, trastornos del aprendizaje, alteraciones del lenguaje y problemas conductuales. Asimismo, destacan también las dificultades en tareas viso-perceptivas y de integración funcional. Objetivo. Evaluar los procesos cognitivos (funciones ejecutivas, integración viso-perceptiva, coordinación viso-motora, memoria, conocimiento del medio, lenguaje, procesamiento visomotor y aptitud motora) en niños de siete años de edad nacidos pretérmino y compararlos con un grupo control, igualado en las variables nivel sociocultural, sexo y edad. Sujetos y método. Participaron 20 niños con edades comprendidas entre siete años y dos meses y siete años y 11 meses, distribuidos homogéneamente en dos grupos (prematuro vs. control). Se elaboró un protocolo de pruebas neuropsicológicas estandarizadas para evaluar los diferentes dominios cognitivos mencionados. Resultados. Los datos obtenidos evidencian una peor ejecución en los niños prematuros en diversos dominios evaluados (v.g., funciones ejecutivas y procesamiento visomotor) en comparación con los controles. Conclusiones. Debido al escaso número de trabajos que analizan procesos cognitivos en niños nacidos pretérmino de habla hispana, en esta investigación se seleccionó la ventana de edad de 7 años, momento en el que se inician procesos esenciales -lectura, escritura y cálculo matemático-, para detectar problemas neuropsicológicos que pudiesen estar influyendo en los procesos académicos, aportando de este modo nuevos hallazgos para el ámbito de la neuropsicología infantil. Palabras clave: Prematuridad; neuropsicología; funciones ejecutivas; dominios cognitivos.Title: Neuropsychological assessment of cognitive processes in seven-yearold children born prematurely. Abstract: Introduction. Several studies have shown that the cognitive development of premature children is affected. In fact, it appears to be a close relationship between prematurity, executive deficits, learning disorders, language disorders and behavioral problems. Premature children present also difficulties in viso-perceptive tasks and functional integration tasks. Objective. The main goal of this study was to assess cognitive processes (executive functions, viso-perceptual integration, viso-motor coordination, memory, environmental knowledge, language, viso-motor processing and motor skills) in seven-year-old children who were born preterm and to compare them with those of a control group, matching in sociocultural level, sex and age. Subjects and method. 20 children ranging in age between seven years and two months and seven years and 11 months, assigned to two groups (premature vs. control) participated in the present study. A protocol including standardized neuropsychological tests was designed to assess the different cognitive mentioned domains. Results. We observed that there was worse performance in several eva...

Background: Theory of mind (ToM) is a fundamental aspect of social cognition. Previous studies on age-related changes in mentalizing processes have provided conflicting results. This study aims to investigate the age-related changes in the cognitive and affective components of ToM throughout adulthood. Methods: Two hundred and thirty-eight healthy participants divided into five age groups (18–40 years old; 41–50 years old; 51–60 years old; 61–70 years; 71–80 years old) underwent tasks assessing the cognitive (ToM Picture Sequencing Task, TMPS, and the Advanced Test of ToM, ATT) and affective (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task, RMET, and the Emotion Attribution Task, EAT) components of ToM, in both verbal and nonverbal modality. Results: Regarding affective ToM, both the youngest- and middle-old adult groups (61 to 80 years) performed worse than the young and youngest-middle adult groups (18 to 50 years) in the RMET, but no significant differences were found in the EAT. Regarding cognitive ToM, the middle-old adult group (71 to 80 years) performed worse than the young adult group (18 to 40 years) only in the TMPS, but no significant differences were found in the ATT. Conclusion: Rather than a general decline in ToM, our results provide evidence regarding selective changes in ToM in older adults, further confirming the dissociation of cognitive and affective ToM.