Relations among prospective memory, cognitive abilities, and brain structure in adolescents who vary in prenatal drug exposure

Abstract

This investigation examined how prospective memory (PM) relates to cognitive abilities (i.e., executive function, attention, working memory, and retrospective memory), and brain structure in adolescents who vary in prenatal drug exposure (PDE). The sample included 105 (55 female, 50 male) urban, primarily African American adolescents (mean age 15.5 years) from low socioeconomic status (SES) families; 56% (n=59) were prenatally exposed to drugs (heroin and/or cocaine) and 44% (n=46) were not prenatally exposed, but similar in age, gender, race, and SES. Executive functioning, attentional control, working memory, retrospective memory, and overall cognitive ability were assessed by validated performance measures. Executive functioning was also measured by caregiver report. A subset of 52 adolescents completed MRI scans, which provided measures of subcortical gray matter volumes and thickness of prefrontal, parietal and temporal cortices. Results revealed no differences in PM performance by PDE status, even after adjusting for age and IQ. Executive function, retrospective memory, cortical thickness in frontal and parietal regions, and volume of subcortical regions (i.e., putamen and hippocampus) were related to PM performance in the sample overall, even after adjusting for age, IQ, and total gray matter volume. Findings suggest that variations in PM ability during adolescence are robustly related to individual differences in cognitive abilities, in particular executive function and retrospective memory, and brain structure, but do not vary by PDE status.

A systematic review of cognitive functioning among young people who have experienced homelessness, foster care, or poverty

“…Conversely, young people who have experienced poverty are comparable with norms on tests of verbal memory and executive function (Robey et al, 2014). Performance on tests of working memory is variable (Robey et al, 2014;Walker et al, 2005). In the homeless category, Saperstein et al (2014) found impaired performance compared to norms in their sample on tests of general cognitive functioning, executive function, working memory, attention, and verbal memory.…”

“…The performance of young people who have experienced poverty tends to be below the normative averages in the domains of general cognitive functioning (Campbell, Ramey, Pungello, Sparling, & Miller-Johnson, 2002;Howell, Lynch, Platzman, Smith, & Coles, 2006;Walker, Chang, Powell, & Grantham-McGregor, 2005; but see Ivanovic et al, 2000) and sustained attention (Coles, Platzman, Lynch, & Freides, 2002;Robey, Buckingham-Howes, Salmeron, Black, & Riggins, 2014). Conversely, young people who have experienced poverty are comparable with norms on tests of verbal memory and executive function (Robey et al, 2014). Performance on tests of working memory is variable (Robey et al, 2014;Walker et al, 2005).…”

“…Looking across studies, all groups show impairment on working memory tasks (Evans & Schamberg, 2009;Hackman et al, 2014;Kira et al, 2012;Robey et al, 2014;Saperstein et al, 2014;Skoe et al, 2013). Those who have experienced homelessness or poverty also demonstrate poorer performance on tasks assessing general cognitive functioning, attention, and executive function (Campbell et al, 2002;Howell et al, 2006;Kobrosly et al, 2011;Ornoy et al, 2010;Pluck et al, 2015;Saperstein et al, 2014).…”

LORETA Neurofeedback at Precuneus in 3-year-old Female with Intrauterine Drug Exposure

“…The effects of IUDE can persist over the developmental continuum into adulthood, and the deficits seen across populations can vary (Bard, Coles, Platzman, & Lynch, 2000;Bhide & Kosofsky, 2009;BuckinghamHowes, Mazza, Wang, Granger, & Black, 2016;Derauf, Kekatpure, Neyzi, Lester, & Kosofsky, 2009;Jaeger, Suchan, Schölmerich, Schneider, & Gawehn, 2015;Nadebaum, Anderson, Vajda, Reutens, & Wood, 2012;Pulsifer, Radonovich, Belcher, & Butz, 2004;Robey, Buckingham-Howes, Salmeron, Black, & Riggins, 2014); however, executive functions, social and emotional delays, and integration of social cues and rules appear to be the most prevalent issues seen in the clinical experience of the current authors.…”

MRI-Based Intelligence Quotient (IQ) Estimation with Sparse Learning

“…The Heschl’s gyri is found related to auditory processing and semantic task [ 41 ], and its abnormalities has been shown as one of the main reasons for the impairment of human cognitive abilities [ 42 , 43 ]. Since memory and cognitive abilities are the two important components that are commonly assessed in IQ tests [ 44 ], changes of GM/WM tissues in these ROIs may affect the quantification of human intelligence. In a supplementary experiment, we treat age as an independent type of features and further combine it with GM and WM features by using multi-kernel SVR, for the purpose of investigating whether it will affect the performance of our estimators.…”