Saturday, December 11, 2010

Research byte: More on the "nose knows" - Go and cognition




I continue to be intrigued with the increasing research on the domain of Go.......I have posted a number of articles at my blog over the past five years (can be found by clicking on Go category label) that indicate that it is a separate cognitive domain and, more importantly, it has significant diagnostic potential for a wide array of cognitive disorders, esp. during the early stages of a disorder.

The nose knows :)

Cognitive factors in odor detection, odor discrimination, and odor identification tasks. Journal of Experimental and Clinical Neuropsycholgy, 32 (10), 1062–1067

Authors: Margareta Hednerab; Maria Larssonab; Nancy Arnoldc; Gesualdo M. Zuccod; Thomas Hummelc

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine cognitive correlates of olfactory performance across three different tasks. A total of 170 men and women (30-87 years of age) were assessed in olfactory sensitivity, discrimination, and identification. Also, participants were tested in a range of cognitive tests covering executive functioning, semantic memory, and episodic memory. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that proficiency in executive functioning and semantic memory contributed significantly to odor discrimination and identification performance, whereas all of the cognitive factors proved unrelated to performance in the odor threshold test. This pattern of outcome suggests that an individual's cognitive profile exerts a reliable influence on performance in higher order olfactory tasks.


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