OBJECTIVE: Complaints of cognitive changes are often expressed by patients at all stages of HIV infection. Such changes include decreased memory and attention span, diminished concentration, apathy, and "slowing." Methylphenidate (MPD) has been used in several clinical studies in men with late-stage HIV disease in an attempt to ameliorate these difficulties. The objectives of this review article are to review salient psychopharmacological characteristics of MPD and to describe the research and clinical literature supporting the use of MPD in patients at all stages of HIV infection. METHODS: Seven studies, case reports, or abstracts from International Conferences on AIDS were available in the English literature through August, 1993, directly addressing the use of MPD in patients with HIV disease. Twenty-nine papers were reviewed for pharmacokinetic data, eighteen for safety and side effects issues, and seventeen for relevant contributions from the neuropsychological testing literature. RESULTS: Studies in clinical settings have used doses ranges from 10-90 mg. per day in two or three divided doses with reportedly good results in improving both affective and cognitive symptoms associated with HIV disease. Side effects have been relatively mild and patient satisfaction with treatment has been high. However, no studies have been conducted in early stage HIV disease, where a significant minority of patients have similar complaints in the absence of clinically apparent immunosuppression. Likewise, placebo-controlled, dose-finding studies in AIDS patients are entirely lacking, and no studies in women with HIV disease and cognitive changes have been published. CONCLUSIONS: In spite of these important research short-comings, clinical experience with MPD treatment of cognitive changes in men with HIV/AIDS is consistent with the notion that this medication holds significant promise to improve the quality of life for persons living with HIV/AIDS. Controlled studies to test this hypothesis are warranted.

The growing numbers of people suffering from Alzheimer’s and other dementia related diseases are expected to accelerate, and the cost for these diseases in Swedish healthcare is high. There are many ongoing research projects in the dementia diagnostics field which aim to detect cognitive impairment at an earlier stage, which would result in reduced costs in healthcare and improved life quality for sufferers. This work aims to investigate if it is possible to classify cognitive impairment based on a person’s eye movements. More specifically, it will explore the possibility of automating an established picture description task that is widely used in traditional dementia diagnostics. In order to do this, eye tracking data was collected during numerous conductions of this task. The eye tracking data was then parsed in to eye movement features and Binary Logistic Regression was used to classify these eye movements. The results showed that the average accuracy of the classification reached 73%. The results did not confirm that eye tracking technique can be used to automate neuropsychological test with an accuracy high enough, but to use a machine learning approach for detecting deviances in eye movement patterns appears to be a promising approach. Furthermore, this work analyzes the possibilities for practically implementing eye tracking techniques in Swedish healthcare in order to detect cognitive impairment at an earlier stage. Provided that an eye tracker can detect cognitive impairment with an accuracy equal to or higher than a medical professional can maintain, the study argues that automated neuropsychological tests at health clinics could be the key to detect cognitive impairment at an earlier stage. / Antalet personer som lider av alzeimers och andra demensrelaterade sjukdomar förväntar att öka med accelerande fart och kostnaden for dessa sjukdomar för svensk sjukvård är hög. Det finns idag många pågående forskningsprojekt inom demensdiagnostik där man analyserar personers ögonrörelser för att kunna detektera kognitiva svårighetet i tidigt stadie. Forskningen görs för att minska på kostnaden och öka livskvaliten för de som insjuknar. Detta arbete syftar till att undersöka om det går att använda maskininlärning för att klassificera kognitiv svårighet baserat på en persons ögonrörelser. Mer konkret vill man undersöka om en automatisering av en etablerad bildbeskrivningsuppgift, som idag används flitigt inom demensdiagnotistik. Det har äarför samlats in data som representerar personers ögonrörelser under tider de utför olika demenstester. Med hjälp av datan har man sedan tagit fram olika synfunktioner och använt binär och logistisk regression för att klassifisera dessa ögonrörelser. Det genomsnittliga resultatet visade att modellen klassificerade rätt i 73% av fallen. Detta resultat kan inte bekräfta att denna teknik kan användas för att automatisera neuropsykologiskt tester med tillräckligt hög noggrannhet. Daremot ser det lovande ut att kunna ända maskininlärning för att detektera avvikelser i ögonrörelser, hos personer som lider av kognitiva svårigheter. Vidare analyseras också möjligheten att praktiskt implementera tekniken där man analysera ögonrörelser i svensk sjukvård. Resultatet visar att om det är m jligt att utforma en modell som diagnotiserar bättre än vad en professionell läkare gör, så går det att argumentera for att automatiska, neuropsykiska tester skulle kunna vara en nyckel för att detektera kognitiva svårigheter i tidigt stadie.

No description available.

No description available.

This quasi-experimental study investigates neuropsychological functioning differences between 63 active duty soldiers who were placed into three groups (MTBI, PTSD, control) to provide better information for differentiating PTSD and MTBI. The ANAM and MicroCog were utilized to measure psychomotor speed, memory, and attention. Participants with PTSD performed worse on most measures of psychomotor speed and attention, and endorsed more symptoms of depression and anxiety when compared to MTBI and control participants. Further, attention appears to be the best cognitive domain for differentiating PTSD from MTBI, whereas memory variables did not differentiate these groups. Clinical and research implications of these findings are discussed.

No / Metamemory is integral for strategizing about memory intentions. This study investigated the prospective memory (PM) deficit in Parkinson's disease (PD) from a metamemory viewpoint, with the aim of examining whether metamemory deficits might contribute to PM deficits in PD. METHOD: Sixteen patients with PD and 16 healthy older adult controls completed a time-based PM task (initiating a key press at two specified times during an ongoing task), and an event-based PM task (initiating a key press in response to animal words during an ongoing task). To measure metamemory participants were asked to predict and postdict their memory performance before and after completing the tasks, as well as complete a self-report questionnaire regarding their everyday memory function. RESULTS: The PD group had no impairment, relative to controls, on the event-based task, but had prospective (initiating the key press) and retrospective (recalling the instructions) impairments on the time-based task. The PD group also had metamemory impairments on the time-based task; they were inaccurate at predicting their performance before doing the task but, became accurate when making postdictions. This suggests impaired metamemory knowledge but preserved metamemory monitoring. There were no group differences regarding PD patients' self-reported PM performance on the questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: These results reinforce previous findings that PM impairments in PD are dependent on task type. Several accounts of PM failures in time-based tasks are presented, in particular, ways in which mnemonic and metacognitive deficits may contribute to the difficulties observed on the time-based task.

Il est maintenant bien établi que le cerveau humain est doté d’un système de neurones qui s’active tant à la perception qu’à l’exécution d’une action. Les neurones miroirs, ainsi que le système qu’ils forment avec des structures adjacentes appelées système neurones miroirs (SNM), ont été relié à la compréhension d’action et pourrait être impliqué dans les fonctions sociales de haut niveau tel que l’empathie et l’imitation. Dans la foulée spéculative reliant le SNM à la sphère sociale, le dysfonctionnement de ce système a rapidement gagné intérêt dans la genèse des anomalies du domaine social chez les personnes présentant le Trouble du spectre de l’autisme (TSA). Néanmoins, l’hypothèse voulant que le dysfonctionnement social des TSA repose sur une atteinte du SNM est controversée. En effet, les études soutenant cette hypothèse nécessitent des fonctions cognitives et sociales qui peuvent contribuer à l’obtention de résultats atypiques, telles que la compréhension des consignes, l’attention sur des stimuli sociaux ou la réalisation d’acte moteur. Récemment, un protocole auditif de négativité de discordance (MMN) utilisant des stimuli reliés à l’action humaine a été utilisé pour mesurer l’activité du SNM. Cette technique semble prometteuse dans la mesure où elle ne nécessite pas de capacités attentionnelles ou langagières, elle est brève et demande un montage minimal d’électrodes. Le premier article avait comme objectif principal de mesurer la validité de convergence du protocole MMN relié à l’action avec celui du rythme mu, le protocole le plus utilisé pour enregistrer l’activité miroir à l’aide de l’électroencéphalographie (EEG). Les modes de stimulation ont été délivrées en bloc successif à un groupe de 12 adultes en santé. Alors que les deux techniques ont modulé efficacement les régions fronto-centrales et centrales respectivement, mais ne sont pas corrélées, nous avons conclu qu’il est possible 2 qu’elles mesurent des aspects différents du SNM. Le deuxième article avait comme objectif principal de mesurer l’activité du SNM à l’aide du protocole MMN relié à l’action chez 10 enfants présentant un TSA ainsi que chez 12 enfants neurotypiques dans la même tranche d’âge (5-7ans). Chez les enfants TSA, nous avons montré un patron de latence inversée, comparativement aux enfants du groupe contrôle; ils traitaient plus rapidement les sons contrôles que les sons reliés à l’action humaine, alors que la tendance inverse était observée chez les contrôles. De plus, bien que les deux groupes différaient quant aux sons d’action, ils ne différaient pas quant aux sons contrôles. Quant à l’amplitude, les enfants TSA se distinguaient du groupe contrôle par une amplitude restreinte du son d’action provenant de la bouche. Par ailleurs, les mesures neurophysiologiques et neuropsychologiques n’étaient pas corrélées. En sommes, basé sur la prémisse que ce protocole MMN pourrait mesurer l’activité du SNM, cette thèse a comme but d’améliorer les connaissances quant à son utilisation chez l’adulte et l’enfant neurotypique ainsi que chez l’enfant TSA. Celui-ci pourrait ultimement être utilisé comme un biomarqueur potentiel du TSA. / Mirror-neuron system (NMS) has been suggested to underlie action understanding, which is believed to be involved in higher social functions such as empathy and imitation. Numerous studies have also provided indirect evidence supporting the existence of a MNS in the human brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging, transcranial magnetic stimulation, magnetoenceophalography and electroencephalography (EEG). As evidence relating MNS function with social cognition accumulated, its dysfunction was proposed to underlie social impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Although some studies have reported structural and/or functional data supporting this hypothesis, it remains controversial. Indeed, the techniques used to probe MNS activity often require the participant to understand the task, display sustained attention and present spared visual cognitive functions, which could be altered in ASD population. This, in turn, could partly explain differences in MNS activity found between invididuals with ASD and neurotypical participants. The auditory mismatch negativity (MMN) protocol has recently been proposed as a viable tool to assess MNS activity using action-related sounds. This relatively short oddball paradigm does not require visual, attentional or language skills and can be performed with minimal electrode installation (minimal use of 4 electrodes). This action-related MMN may therefore be well-suited to investigate MNS function in very young children or populations with mental disabilities, such as ASD. The first article of this thesis assessed the convergent validity of the action-related MMN protocol with a mu rhythm suppression paradigm, which is the most commonly used EEG measure of MNS activity. To do so, both protocols were consecutively administered in healthy adults in the same experimental session. While both techniques successfully 4 modulated the fronto-central and central brain regions using action-related stimuli, they did not correlate significantly. This suggests that the two techniques may not probe the same aspects of MNS function. The second article aimed at investigating MNS activity in children with ASD using the action-related MMN protocol. Data were compared to age-matched typically developing children. We show that children with ASD present an opposite pattern to that of control children : whereas MMN latencies are shorter for action-related sounds compared to control sounds in neurotypical children, the opposite pattern is observed in children with ASD. Furthermore, although the two groups present different response patterns with regards to action-related sounds, they repond similarly to control sounds. For amplitude measurements, children with ASD display reduced amplitude to action-related sounds produced by the mouth compared to neurotypical children. In summary, this thesis aimed at determining whether and action-related MMN protocol could be used to measure MNS activity in neurotypical adults and children, as well as in ASD children. The action-related MMN could potentially be used as a biological biomarker of ASD pending further studies.

A l’heure où les Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication envahissent tous les espaces de notre vie quotidienne et permettent une certaine accessibilité à l’école des enfants handicapés mais en même temps bouleversent l’identité et les missions des institutions scolaires, ces outils nous obligent à interroger les fondations de la transmission et des apprentissages tout particulièrement liées à la maîtrise de la langue. L’étude propose une réflexion sur les perspectives offertes par ces outils, pour mieux prendre en compte les besoins des enfants handicapés moteurs avec troubles associés, en matière d’estime de soi, de réussite et d’autonomie mais également pour mieux révéler et mieux développer les stratégies de ces élèves. D’une part, notre étude décrit, selon une approche ethnographique, l’observation et l’analyse de vidéos de trois élèves en cours d’apprentissage médié par un outil numérique traçant conçu à cette occasion, et les rétroactions réflexives induites à partir des traces produites. D’autre part, notre étude analyse les résultats d’une enquête réalisée auprès d’enseignants spécialisés ayant utilisé notre outil avec centaine d’enfants en situation de handicap. L’enquête interroge les utilisateurs sur nos hypothèses relatives aux traces auditives et visuelles et à l’apport de l’outil en matière de développement de la conscience phonologique, morphologique et syntaxique et l’émergence de la métacognition, afin de conforter ou non les observations réalisés avec les trois enfants. Pour ces enfants présentant un handicap moteur associé à des troubles instrumentaux importants (langagiers, mnésiques, attentionnels…), nous avons privilégié, dans cet outil, le retour vocal comme trace auditive, la personnalisation et l’enregistrement de l’environnement de travail, la réflexivité augmentée sous la forme d’un retour visuel dynamique sur chacune des actions de l’enfant à l’aide d’un module « traceur », et l’enregistrement de tous les événements de l’historique « rejouables » a posteriori, dans un module « film ». Outil utilisé comme moyen de scolarisation et d’apprentissage de contenus, Pictop se veut être, en même temps et avant tout, une aide au développement de contenants de pensées. Cette étude ouvre des perspectives sur des utilisations nouvelles des traces informatiques au service des apprentissages et de l’autonomie, particulièrement importantes pour des enfants handicapés, mais probablement utiles à d’autres élèves. / In our time, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has become all-pervading in our daily life and allows disabled children more access to the school system, while at the same time drastically changing the way we define the identity and missions of such institution s: ICT tools therefore lead us to question the very foundations of learning and teaching, especially as regards linguistic skills.This study offers a few perspectives on these tools and the possibilities they entail, in order to improve both the assessment of the needs of children with motor disability and associated disorders, in terms of self-esteem, success and autonomy, and the identification and development of strategies for these pupils. Our study first describes, from an ethnographical point of view, the observation and analysis of three videos by three pupils engaged in a course of learning via a digital tracer tool designed especially for the experiment, and the reflexive feedback derived from the traces that were produced. The study then goes on to analyze the results of a survey done with specialized teachers who used our digital tool with a hundred handicapped children. The survey questions users about our initial hypotheses concerning auditory and visual traces, and the tool’s contribution to the development of phonological, morphological and syntactical consciousness, as well as the emergence of metacognition, in order to confirm or disconfirm our observations on the case of the three children mentioned above. For these children with motor disability associated with severe sensory disabilities (linguistic, mnemonic, attention-related) we have privileged, in this tool, vocal feedback as auditory trace, personalization and registering of the work environment, increased reflexivity in the form of a dynamic visual feedback on every action of the child with the help of a “tracer” module, and recording of all events of the history likely to be replayed after the event in a “film” module. A tool used as a means of schooling and learning, Pictop is intended, first and foremost, as an aid to the development of thought contents. This study offers perspectives on new uses of digital traces as an instrument learning and autonomy, especially important for handicapped children, but probably useful to other pupils as well.

Introdução: Os maus tratos na infância e adolescência são considerados um problema de saúde pública devido a alta prevalência no Brasil e no mundo. A exposição a maus tratos está associada a alterações no desenvolvimento cognitivo, porém, há uma escassez de estudos brasileiros que investiguem o tema. Objetivos: Comparar o funcionamento neuropsicológico de adolescentes com e sem histórico de maus tratos, bem como estudar as relações entre essas vivências, desempenho neuropsicológico e sintomas psiquiátricos relacionados a impulsividade, oposição, hiperatividade e desatenção. Método: Cento e oito adolescentes foram selecionados em dois programas de atendimento a população em situação de vulnerabilidade e/ou risco social de São Paulo (SP). De acordo com a pontuação do Questionário de Traumas na Infância (QUESI), foram classificados em três grupos: GMT1 (grupo de maus tratos leves, n=35), GMT2 (grupo de maus tratos moderado a grave, n=19) e GC (grupo de comparação, n=54). Os adolescentes passaram por avaliação neuropsicológica com o foco na investigação de funções relacionadas a percepção visual e spam atencional (primeira unidade funcional), processamento e armazenamento de informações (segunda unidade funcional) e funcionamento executivo (terceira unidade funcional). Foram utilizadas escalas para avaliação psiquiátrica (K-SADS-PL) e investigação de sintomas de impulsividade, hiperatividade, desatenção e oposição (BIS-1, SNAP-IV). Os resultados obtidos nos grupos foram comparados com o controle estatístico de variáveis sociais (dificuldades socioeconômicas, escolaridade e abrigamento) e clínicas (transtornos psiquiátricos internalizantes e externalizantes, uso de medicação psiquiátrica e quociente intelectual estimado- QI). Por fim, foram feitas associações entre exposição a maus tratos, funcionamento neuropsicológico e sintomas psiquiátricos. Resultados: Os GMTs (grupos de maus tratos) apresentaram pior funcionamento intelectual em relação ao GC, sendo que o pior desempenho foi encontrado no GMT2 (p< 0,001). Medidas menores de QI estiveram associadas a prejuízo nas três unidades funcionais (p<= 0,049) e a mais sintomas de hiperatividade e desatenção (p <= 0,008). Foi encontrado pior desempenho dos GMTs nos testes para avaliação de segunda unidade funcional (p<= 0,001), porém, não foram encontradas diferenças entre os grupos na primeira e terceira unidades. Apesar disso, os testes de correlação indicaram que o aumento das pontuações no QUESI estava associado à piora do desempenho em todas as unidades funcionais (p<= 0,046). Os GMTs apresentaram maior impulsividade e oposição (p<= 0,008) e, quanto maior a pontuação no QUESI, maior a presença de sintomas de impulsividade, oposição, sintomas isolados de desatenção e sintomas mistos de desatenção e hiperatividade (p<= 0,006). Conclusão: Os resultados obtidos corroboram a associação entre exposição a maus tratos e dificuldades cognitivas e psiquiátricas. Os dados obtidos poderão contribuir para o planejamento de políticas públicas voltadas tanto à prevenção quanto para o tratamento de patologias associadas ao desenvolvimento neurobiológico alterado de crianças e adolescentes que crescem em condições adversas. / Introduction: Maltreatment experiences in childhood and adolescence are considered a public health problem due to high prevalence in Brazil and worldwide. The exposure to maltreatment is associated with changes in cognitive development; however, there is a shortage of Brazilian research that investigates this topic. Objectives: Comparison of neuropsychological functioning of adolescents with and without maltreatment history, as well as the research of relationships between these experiences, neuropsychological performance, and psychiatric symptoms relating to impulsivity, opposition, hyperactivity, and inattention. Methods: One hundred and eight adolescents were selected from two assistance programs for people in vulnerability and social risk situation in the city of Sao Paulo (SP). According to the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), three groups were classified: GMT1 Group (Mild Maltreatment, n = 35), GMT2 (group of moderate to severe maltreatment, n = 19) and GC (comparison group, n = 54). The adolescents underwent neuropsychological evaluation with a focus on the investigation of functions related to visual perception and attention spam (first functional unit), processing and retention of information (second functional unit) and executive functioning (third functional unit). Scales were used for psychiatric assessment (K-SADS-PL) and investigation of impulsivity, hyperactivity, inattention, and opposition symptoms (SNAP-IV, BIS-11). Results obtained in these groups were compared with statistical control of social variables (socioeconomic, school level, and shelter), and clinical variables (internalizing and externalizing psychiatric disorders, use of psychiatric medication, and estimated intellectual quotient - IQ). Lastly, associations between exposure to maltreatment, neuropsychological functioning and psychiatric symptoms were made. Results: The GMT (maltreatment groups) had a worse intellectual functioning compared to GC, while the worst performance was found in GMT2 (p < 0.001). Lower IQ measures were associated to impairment on the three functional units (p<= 0.049) and to more symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity (p <= 0.008). Worse performance on tests for evaluation of the second functional unit (p<= 0.001) was found for GMT, but no differences were found between the groups on the first and third units. Nevertheless, the correlation tests indicated that the increase in CTQ scores was associated to worse performance in all of the functional units (p<= 0,046). The GMT presented higher impulsivity and opposition (p<= 0,008) and the higher the CTQ score the more symptoms of impulsivity, opposition, isolated symptoms of inattention, and mixed symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity (p<= 0,006). Conclusion: The results confirm the negative association between exposure to maltreatment and psychiatric and cognitive difficulties. The data obtained will contribute to the planning of public policies for both prevention and treatment of diseases associated to altered neurobiological development of children and adolescents who grow up in adverse conditions.

INTRODUÇÃO: O termo memória operacional (MO) refere-se a um constructo cognitivo capaz de armazenar e manter a informação acessível para uso determinado por um tempo limitado, possibilitando a manipulação de diversas informações simultâneas e sequenciais como operações matemáticas longas ou complexas, compreensão de palavras pouco frequentes, extensas ou frases complexas. A linguagem está entre as funções cognitivas que dependem do funcionamento da memória operacional e pode estar comprometida em várias condições patológicas, dentre elas o traumatismo cranioencefálico (TCE). Dados da literatura referentes a essa população ainda são restritos ou pouco consistentes. OBJETIVOS: investigar se o teste n-back é uma medida válida para identificar o déficit de memória em pacientes com TCE, estabelecer nota de corte e curva ROC do teste n-back, comparar o desempenho entre os indivíduos saudáveis e aqueles que sofreram TCE, comparar o teste n-back com os testes de linguagem e aspectos da lesão neurológica, tais como gravidade e tempo, tempo de coma e localização hemisférica da lesão nos resultados para verificar o desempenho e a relevância na separação dos casos em pacientes e controles.MÉTODOS: 53 indivíduos brasileiros (26 adultos com TCE e 30 adultos saudáveis) foram avaliados por bateria de estímulos verbais auditivos para verificar diferenças inter-grupos na capacidade de processamento da memória operacional, quanto ao numero de respostas corretas (acurácia), capacidade máxima de processamento na memória operacional (span) e também verificar a relação da memória operacional com habilidades linguísticas, através da comparação de testes. RESULTADOS: na comparação entre os pacientes e os indivíduos do grupo controle observou-se diferença estatisticamente significante entre os grupos tanto para os testes de base quanto para os resultados do n-back. Os grupos foram estatisticamente pareados em relação às variáveis sócio-demográficas (idade, escolaridade e gênero). O modelo estatístico com as variáveis do teste n-back demonstrou ótima separação dos casos em pacientes/ controle com a área sob a curva ROC de 89%. O modelo também mostrou convergência com os testes de linguagem para compreensão auditiva de sentenças, fluência verbal e aspectos discursivos-pragmáticos e com o nível cognitivo. O lado da lesão foi estatisticamente significante para o n-back, fluência verbal e discurso conversacional. CONCLUSÃO: Os resultados mostram que o n-back na maneira como foi desenhado é capaz de diferenciar os indivíduos alterados e os normais na habilidade de memória operacional. No estudo foi possível discriminar o comportamento de indivíduos com lesão encefálica adquirida e indivíduos saudáveis quanto à medida de acurácia e capacidade máxima de manipulação da informação na memória operacional. Esse comportamento reflete o funcionamento linguístico e cognitivo que se correlaciona com o mecanismo de memória operacional / INTRODUCTION: The term working memory (WM) refers to a construct cognitive capability of storing and keeping information on line to a determined use for a limited time, enabling the manipulation of diverse simultaneous and sequential information such as long or complex mathematical operations, comprehension of less frequent words, extensive or complex sentences. The language is among the cognitive functions which depends on the operational memory behavior and may be engaged in many pathological conditions, among them the TBI (traumatic brain injury). Literature dada relative to such population are still restrict or weak. AIM: investigate whether the n -back task is a valid measure for identifying memory deficits in patients with TBI; establish cutoff and ROC curve of n-back task; to compare performance between normals individuals and those who have suffered TBI; to compare n-back task with tests of language and aspects of neurological injury, such as severity, coma and hemispheric laterality of the lesion to verify the performance and relevance in the separation of cases. METHODOS: 53 individuals Brazilians (26 adults with TBI and 30 healthy adults) were assessed by a battery of auditory verbal stimuli for detecting differences between groups in the processing capacity of working memory, as the accuracy and span also check the relationship of working memory to language skills, through the comparison tests. RESULTS: in the comparison between patients and control subjects was observed statistically significant differences between groups thus to the tests as the basis tests as to results of the n -back. The groups were statistically matched in relation to socio-demographic variables (age, education and gender). The statistical model with variables of the n -back test showed good separation of cases where patients / control with the area under the ROC curve of 89 % . The model also showed convergence with language tests for auditory comprehension of sentences, verbal fluency and pragmatic - discursive aspects and the cognitive level. The side of the lesion was statistically significant for the n -back, verbal fluency and conversational discourse. CONCLUSION: the results demonstrated that the n-back on the way it was designed is able to distinguish the changed individuals and the normal on the working memory ability. On the study it was possible to discriminate the behaviors of individuals with acquired brain injury and healthy individuals regarding the accuracy and maximum capacity of manipulating information on the working memory. Such behavior reflects the linguistic and cognitive function which correlates with the working memory mechanism