Diferenças de gênero na produção de associações livres de palavras através do ciclo sono-vigília

Although several studies, have shown differences in cognitive performance between men and women, it not yet known whether these differences occur in tasks involving free association of words (WA). Studies across the sleep-wake cycle (SWC) suggest that rapid eye movement sleep (REM) favors semantic flexibility, in comparison with pre-sleep waking (Pre-WK), slow-wave sleep (SWS) and post-sleep waking (Post-WK). The present work has two aims: (1) to evaluate the semantic distances of word pairs produced by AP, comparing men and women, (2) to evaluate semantic distance in word pairs produced by free association across the SWC in young adults of both sexes. To achieve aim (1), we applied a task of WA in 68 adult volunteers during waking (52 women and 16 men). The WA task consisted of writing the first word that came to mind after viewing another word offered as a stimulus (root Word). To achieve aim (2), we performed polysomnography to identify specific stages of the SWC. The experimental subjects were then awakened (if they were asleep) and were immediately given a WA task. The task was administered to 2 groups of 10 subjects each (G1 and G2). G1 subjects were stimulated with the same set of root words after waking from various states of SWC, while G2 subjects received sets of different root words at each state of the SWC. In the absence of a Portuguese corpus suitable for the measurement of semantic distances, the words collected in our experiments were translated to English, and semantically quantified within a systematic and representative corpus of that language (Wordnet). This procedure removed the polysemies typical of Portuguese, but preserved the semantic macrostructure common to both languages. During waking, we found that semantic distances are significantly lower in WA produced by women, in comparison with the distances observed in men. Through the SWC, there were no statistically significant differences in G1. In G2 women, we detected a significant increase of semantic distances upon being awakened from SWS. In contrast, G2 men showed a significant increase in semantic distances upon being awakened from REM. The results of the first experiment are consistent with the notion that women have a more concrete reasoning than men. The results of the second experiment indicate that men awakened from REM present more flexibility in word association than when being awakened from other states. In contrast, women showed more flexible word association after being awakened from SWS, in compared with other states. The results indicate that the cognitive flexibility attributed to different states of the SWC shows gender dependency

A relação entre transtorno da insônia e funções executivas em adultos

The insomnia disorder is defined as a difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep or waking up earlier than expected unable to return to sleep, followed by a feeling of nonrestorative and poor quality sleep, present for at least three months, with consequences on daytime functioning. Studies have shown that insomnia affects cognitive function, especially executive functions. However, researches that sought to investigate the relationship between primary insomnia and executive functioning were quite inconsistent from a methodological point of view, especially in regard to the variability of the used methods, the heterogeneity of diagnostic criteria for insomnia and the control of sleep altering drugs. In this sense, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between insomnia and executive functions in adults. The participants were 29 people, from both genders, aged 20-55 years old. Participants were divided into three groups, one composed of 10 people with primary insomnia who used sleep medication (GIM), nine people with primary insomnia who did not use medication (GInM) and 10 healthy people who composed the control group (CG). The research was conducted in two stages. The first one involved a diagnostic evaluation for insomnia disorder through a clinical interview and the application of the following protocols: the Athens Insomnia Scale, the Insomnia Severity Index, Sleep Journal (for 14 days), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Stanford Sleepiness Test, depression and anxiety Beck inventories, and Lipp’s Iventory of stress symptoms for adults. After this stage, the evaluation of executive functions was performed by applying a battery of neuropsychological tests composed by the following tests: Wisconsin, Stoop Test, Colored trails Test, the Tower of London Test, Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and WAIS III subtest digit span, which measured selective attention, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, planning, problem solving, decision making and working memory, respectively. The results showed that insomniacs (GIM and GInM) showed higher sleep latency, shorter sleep duration and lower sleep efficiency compared to the CG. In regard to the performance in executive functions, no statistically significant difference between groups was observed in the evaluated modalities. However, the data show evidence that, compared to GInM and GC, the performance of GIM was lower on tasks that required quick responses and changes in attention focus. On the other hand, GInM, when compared to GIM and GC, showed a better performance on tasks involving cognitive flexibility. Furthermore, impaired sleep measures were correlated with the worst performance of insomniacs in all components evaluated. In conclusion, people with the insomnia disorder showed a performance similar to healthy people’s in components of the executive functioning. Thus, one can infer that there is a relationship between primary insomnia and executive functions in adults.

Efeito agudo do exercício aeróbio vigoroso sobre as funções executivas em adolescentes

Executive functions are determinant cognitive processes for student success, since they execute and control complex cognitive activities such as reasoning, planning and solving problems. The development of the executive functions performances begin early at childhood going through the adolescence until adulthood, concomitant with the neuroanatomical, functional and blood perfusion changes over the brain. In this scenario, exercise has been considered an important environmental factor for neurodevelopment, as well as for the promotion of cognitive and brain health. However, there are no large scientific studies investigating the effects of a single vigorous aerobic exercise session on executive functions in adolescents. Objective: To verify the acute effect of vigorous aerobic exercise on executive functions in adolescents. Methods: A randomized controlled trial (RCT) with crossover design was used. 20 pubescent from both sexes/gender with age between 10 and 16 years were submitted to two sessions of 30min each: 1) The aerobic exercise session intensity was between 65 and 75% of heart rate reserve, in which 5min for warm-up, 20min at the target intensity and 5min of cool down; and 2) control session watching cartoons. The computerized Stroop test – Testinpacs and trail making test were used to evaluate the inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility assessment respectively, before and after both experimental and control sessions. The reaction time (RT) and number of errors (n) of Stroop test were recorded. The total time (TT) and the number of errors (n) of the trail making test were also recorded. Results: The control session’s RT did not present significant differences in the Stroop test. On the other hand, the exercise session’s RT decreased significantly (p<0.01) after the session. The number of errors made at the Stroop test had no significant differences in control and exercise sessions. The ΔTT of trail making test of exercise session was significantly (p<0.001) lower than the control session’s. Errors made in trail making test did not show significant differences between control and exercise sessions. Additionally, there was significant and positive association among the Stroop test ΔRT of exercise session with xiii chronological age (r= 0.635, p=0.001; r 2 = 0.404, p=0.003) and sexual maturation (rs= 0.580, p=0.007; r 2 = 0.408, p=0.002). Differently, there was no association among the control session ΔRT and chronological age (r= – 0.144, p=0.273; r 2 = 0.021, p=0.545) or sexual maturation (rs= –0.155, p=0.513; r 2 = 0.015, p=0.610). Conclusion: Vigorous aerobic exercise seems to improve acutely executive functions in adolescents. The effect of exercise on inhibitory control performance was associated to pubertal stage and chronological age. In other words, the benefits of exercise were more evident in early adolescence (↑ ΔRT) and its magnitude decreases along the growing up process.

Efeitos de um programa de treino cognitivo e das técnicas de higiene do sono para as funções executivas e para a qualidade de sono em idosos saudáveis

The aging process causes changes in the elderly’s sleep/awake standard impairing their cognitive abilities, particularly executive functioning, which already suffers loss by aging. The literature suggests that executive function and preserved sleep quality are key to maintaining good quality of life and independence of older people, requiring interventions to minimize the impact of losses incurred by the aging process. This study evaluated the effect of a cognitive training program and sleep hygiene techniques for executive functions and sleep quality in healthy older people. The participants were 41 healthy older adults, of both sexes, who were randomly divided into four groups: control group [GC], cognitive training group [GTC], sleep hygiene group [GHS] and training group + hygiene [GTH]. The research was developed in three stages: 1st - initial assessment of cognition and sleep; 2nd - specific intervention to each group; 3rd - post-intervention revaluation. The results showed that GTC had significant improvements in cognitive tasks flexibility, planning, verbal fluency and some aspects of episodic memory, besides gains in sleep quality and decrease on daytime hypersomnolence. The GHS improved sleep quality and daytime sleepiness as well and had significant improvements in insights capacity, planning, attention and in all evaluated aspects of episodic memory. The GTH had significant gains in cognitive flexibility, problem solving, verbal fluency, attention and episodic memory. The CG showed significant worsening in excessive daytime sleepiness in capacity planning. Thus, we conclude that cognitive training interventions and sleep hygiene strategies are useful in improving cognitive performance and quality of healthy elderly sleep.

Processos de construção do sentido na esquizofrenia: uma perspectiva cognitiva da linguagem

There is still a lot to be said about the relationship between culture, cognition and language. Within an embodied cognition perspective to language, it may be understood that the senses generated and used in discourse are built and negotiated not only linguistically, since they also involve stereotypes, schemes, frames, etc. These cognitive structures, in turn, would emerge from subjects experiences and interactions with a sociohistorically constituted environment. With that in mind, what would happen if someone had an altered view in the perception of such environment? The objective of this master s thesis was to understand the process of meaning construction, aiming at the activation of frames, in the discourse of people who have been diagnosed as schizophrenic and have been hospitalized, that is, individuals who have their socio-environmental perception affected. With that aim in mind, a speech corpus was generated with three schizophrenic patients from Professor Severino Lopes Psychiatric Hospital. The data were collected and analyzed qualitatively, based on the theoretical and analytical premises of Cognitive Linguistics, more specifically, of Simulation Semantic perspective. Therefore, it was possible to identify aspects related to meaning construction processes in the discourse of schizophrenic patients, understanding that language is integrated with cognition and culture. Therefore, the alteration in the way experiences are perceived by schizophrenic patients affect the linguistic production of these subjects. Finally, if we take into consideration that the mental disturbance caused by schizophrenia results in a change in perception of reality by these individuals, we can infer an implication of such factors in language and, subsequently, the interference of such issues in the meaning construction processes in the discourse of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia

Abordagem cognitiva da construção deverbal x-dor: contribuições para o ensino do português

This work analyzes deverbal nominalizations with the sufix dor in Brazilian Portuguese, under the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics, more specifically, the Construction Grammar. The aim is to determine the general features of interpretation that characterize this deverbal construction and its use in formal writing. Based on the cognitive assumption that grammatical structure is motivated, explained, and determined by the structure of cognitive patterns, created from our experience in the world, and by the communicative function of language, the dor deverbal is treated as a polysemic grammatical construction. In the composition of V+dor, the relation rootsuffix is focused, through a characterization of the syntactic-semantic nature of the verb and the values of the suffix. Among the different values conventionally related to the XDOR construction, the agentive is considered as the prototypical sense. The relation between the other values and the prototype is explained by cognitive abilities and discourse motivations. The deverbal construction X-DOR is also interpreted as a valency noun that, like an action nominal, retains the argument structure of the deriving predicate. It is also intended to demonstrate the textual function of this deverbal construction, as a device of information condensing and anaphoric recovery. The data were taken from Veja magazine and the approach is qualitative (explicative), with quantitative support

A interpretação semântica dos auxiliares modais poder, precisar e dever: uma abordagem da semântica cognitiva

Apresentamos, neste trabalho, com base na semântica cognitiva, uma análise do significado, em contexto, dos auxiliares modais poder, precisar e dever. Analisamos 120 textos produzidos por candidatos ao vestibular e por alunos do ensino fundamental, como resposta da questão número três da prova discursiva de Língua Portuguesa do vestibular 2005 da UFRN, que pede aos candidatos para explicitar a diferença de sentido entre três frases, observando o uso desses três verbos. Consideramos que um item lexical não é incorporado a uma representação lingüística semântica fixa, limitada e única, mas antes, é ligado a uma representação lingüística semântica flexível e aberta que provê acesso a muitas concepções e sistemas conceituais dependente de cada contexto determinado. Com base em seu significado, um item lexical evoca um grupo de domínios cognitivos, que por sua vez, apresentam um determinado conteúdo conceitual. Isto implica em afirmar que a rede de significados lexicais vai variar conforme o conhecimento de mundo de cada um (LANGACKER, 2000). A relevância deste trabalho é proporcionar uma contribuição para a descrição semântica do português

Tradução, adaptação cultural e avaliação psicométrica da prova cognitiva de leganés em uma população idosa brasileira com baixo nível de escolaridade

Introdução: The scales of cognitive screening are important tools for early detection of dementia, creating the possibility of developing measures to slow this process and assist in the management of the disease. Objective: To validate the Leganés Cognitive Test (Prueba Cognitive de Leganés) (PCL) for cognitive screening in low educated elderly Brazilians. Methods: The study sample was composed of 59 elderly residents from the city of Santa Cruz, Brazil with low schooling levels. Reliability was analyzed with a 2-day interval between assessments, and concurrent validity was assessed using the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). Results: According to the PCL, the prevalence of dementia was 11.8%. The scale items showed a moderate to strong correlation between domains (p <0.01), and inter-rater reliability exhibited ICC = 0.81, 95% CI (0.72-0.88). Factor analysis resulted in two factors: memory and orientation. Interscale agreement was considered poor (k = - 0.02), supporting the hypothesis of an educational impact on final MMSE scores. Conclusion: The results suggest that PCL has acceptable levels of reliability for use in low educated elderly Brazilians

Investigação da relação entre conteúdo onírico e aprendizado de uma tarefa cognitiva complexa

Several lines of evidence indicate that sleep is beneficial for learning, but there is no experimental evidence yet that the content of dreams is adaptive, i.e., that dreams help the dreamer to cope with challenges of the following day. Our aim here is to investigate the role of dreams in the acquisition of a complex cognitive task. We investigated electroencephalographic recordings and dream reports of adult subjects exposed to a computer game comprising perceptual, motor, spatial, emotional and higher-level cognitive aspects (Doom). Subjects slept two nights in the sleep laboratory, a completely dark room with a comfortable bed and controlled temperature. Electroencephalographic recordings with 28 channels were continuously performed throughout the experiment to identify episodes of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. Behaviors were continuously recorded in audio and video with an infrared camera. Dream reports were collected upon forced awakening from late REM sleep, and again in the morning after spontaneous awakening. On day 1, subjects were habituated to the sleep laboratory, no computer game was played, and negative controls for gamerelated dream reports were collected. On day 2, subjects played the computer game before and after sleep. Each game session lasted for an hour, and sleep for 7-9 hours. 9 different measures of performance indicated significant improve overnight. 81% of the subjects experienced intrusion of elements of the game into their dreams, including potentially adaptative strategies (insights). There was a linear correlation between performance and dream intrusion as well as for game improval and quantity of reported dreaming. In the electrophysiological analysis we mapped the subjects brain activities in different stages (SWS 1, REM 1, SWS 2, REM 2, Game 1 and Game 2), and found a modest reverberation in motor areas related to the joystick control during the sleep. When separated by gender, we found a significant difference on female subjects in the channels that indicate motor learning. Analysis of dream reports showed that the amount of gamerelated elements in dreams correlated with performance gains according to an inverted-U function analogous to the Yerkes-Dodson law that governs the relationship between arousal and learning. The results indicate that dreaming is an adaptive behavior

Proposta de Intervenção para Auxiliar a Reabilitação Motora e Cognitiva de Pacientes com Acidente Vascular Cerebral

Stroke is the leading cause of combined motor and cognitive disability worldwide. The rehabilitation of stroke patients is mostly directed towards motor recovery through the training of the affected member under supervision of a Physical Therapist. In the present study we introduce a new approach for both cognitive and motor therapy, which relies on motor imagery of the upper limbs and working memory training. This therapy should be utilized as an adjuvant to physical therapy. Ten individuals (5 men and 5 women) were selected for the pilot study, all of them in the acute phase of the first ischemic stroke episode. The control group had 5 individuals who were submitted to physical therapy only, whilst the other 5 patients in the experimental group also performed the cognitive and motor training with a video game specially built for this study. Two patients left the experimental group before the end. Total training lasted for 9 weeks, 2 times a week, for half an hour. Patients reported they enjoyed playing the game, even though it required a lot of mental effort, according to them. Plus, they considered it had a beneficial influence in their activities of daily living. No side effects were reported. Preliminary results suggest there is a difference between groups in cognitive and upper limb motor evaluation following the intervention. It is important to notice that our conclusions are limited due the small sample number. Overall, this work is supported by other studies in literature focused in rehabilitation with motor imagery and working memory and indicate a continuity of the research, increasing total training hours

Redesenho das configurações estruturais na gestão universitária: ações derivadas da inovação e flexibilidade na legislação pós-LDB 1996

This paper is set in a scenario in which higher education institutions suffer from external pressure to increase efficiency. The legislation after the Law of Directives and Bases for Education (LDBE), from 1996, is characterized by the fragmentation in its implementation, raising a concern with flexibility and innovation in several normative devices as well as aspects that must be incorporated to its organizational structure. The policies examined in this thesis are: Distance Education (DE); Law of Innovation and the Program of Support to Restructuring and Expansion of Federal Universities (PSREFU). This thesis aims to observe to what extent the characteristics of innovation and flexibility, which mark the new post- LDBE educational legislation, influence the organizational redesign of the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). For being about implementation policies, using contingency approach in order to collect the internal dynamics permeating the redesign of higher education institutions, the thesis focuses on the impacts caused by flexibility and innovation. This is a qualitative research, with case study methods, archive research and semi-structured interviews with members of the university administration. The results don t allow us to confirm the adoption of a more flexible and innovative configuration in the university but it is possible to identify the presence of those elements in the implementation changes, characterizing the hybrid structure. The changes mainly expose the extension of the management of projects to the administrative and academic components related to the institution. In terms of projection, the study found changes in the elements which characterize the current setting and the tendency of the university for adopting a diverse organizational structure. However, if the decentralization of management persists, the academic units may adopt their own structural solutions, but with no evidence of changes in the professional organization in most units. In this perspective, this thesis states that there are difficulties when incorporating innovation and flexibility to their organizational structure, which lead to improvised solutions, superposing skills through the redundancy of structures created with the same purpose or copying exogenous solutions

A conceptualização de RAIVA na perspectiva da Teoria Cognitiva da Metáfora: uma análise da emergência de sentido

The objective of this research is to describe and analyze in literary corpus, the way we conceptualize emotions, especially anger. Using the assumptions of the call Cognitive Theory of Metaphor, present a general overview of cognition metaphor on the basis of Cognitive Linguistics, and in a deeper way, we analyze the metaphorical conceptualization of anger. The proposal embodied mind, prevalent in current cognitive science, is fundamental for studies involving mental simulation. Recent research shows that the metaphor is the result of cognitive processes that involve our perception sensorimotor combined with socio-cultural experiences. The ability to build via frequency standards for our experiments is crucial to our language, including metaphorical constructions. Such constructions are the result of cognitive processes that involve the relationship between image schemas and frames. Image schemas comes from our sensorimotor experience, which lists the limits of our bodies to the limits of our surroundings, and frames, in turn, comes from our ability to stock sociocultural events. The metaphorical construction is the result of this constant relationship between body, mind and culture, situating us in bodily experiences and cultural. By analyzing five national literary works, we created an analytical framework on how anger is understood, specifically in Portuguese language. The results are important to understand, through language, how culture is part of our cognition, in conjunction with the sensorimotor aspects.

Ampliação do Setor de Aulas Teóricas IV - UFRN: proposta arquitetônica baseada no conceito da flexibilidade e adaptabilidade, utilizando os parâmetros de conforto ambiental

In recent years, the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) has come through an intense process of expansion, common for the Instituições Federais de Ensino Superior (IFES) - Higher Education Institutions – since the implantation of the Programa de Reestruturação e Expansão das Universidades Federais (REUNI), a program of restructuring and expansion of the federal universities. The incentives made at UFRN can be seen into the expansion of the fields of teaching, research and extension, besides hiring human resources and adaptation / expansion of physical spaces. The focus of the UFRN at the technological area through the project (REUNI) has reflected in a significant expansion of the physical structure of the Center of Technology, area where the section of classes IV remains being the main set of rooms that supports the demand of the courses in the technological area, in which highlights the lack of classrooms. In this sense, the work presented here, proposes an architectural blueprint for expanding the physical space of this sector, based in this main parameters: (i) the spatial flexibility that attends the varying numbers of students per class; (ii) the environmental comfort, using the parameters and guidelines constructive for the Bioclimatic Zone 8; (iii) the requirements contained in the rules of ABNT NBR 9050:2004, 9077:2001 and NBR NBR 15220-3:2003. The architectural proposal used the maximum template allowed by the UFRN Central Campus Master Plan, four floors, considering the existing building (area equal to 7413.95 m²) as the ground floor and the extension proposed distributed on three floors, with an area of around 2,535, 00 m² each, making up a total of 7602.65 m² of total area built

Classificação de técnicas e auxílio à navegação de busca com base em sua carga cognitiva, precisão e eficiência

Navigation, in both virtual and real environments, is the process of a deliberated movement to a specific place that is usually away from the origin point, and that cannot be perceived from it. Navigation aid techniques (TANs) have as their main objective help finding a path through a virtual environment to a desired location and, are widely used because they ease the navigation on these unknown environments. Tools like maps, GPS (Global Positioning System) or even oral instructions are real world examples of TAN usage. Most of the works which propose new TANs for virtual environments aim to analyze their impact in efficiency gain on navigation tasks from a known place to an unknown place. However, such papers tend to ignore the effect caused by a TAN usage over the route knowledge acquisition process, which is important on virtual to real training transfer, for example. Based on a user study, it was possible to confirm that TANs with different strategies affects the performance of search tasks differently and that the efficiency of the help provided by a TAN is not inversely related to the cognitive load of the technique’s aids. A technique classification formula was created. This formula utilizes three factors instead of only efficiency. The experiment’s data were applied to the formula and we obtained a better refinement of help level provided by TANs.

Prevalência e fatores associados à alteração vocal em idosos institucionalizados com capacidade cognitiva preservada

Voice disorders (VD) in the elderly can interfere negatively in communication, emotional well-being and quality of life, conditions that correspond to greater exposure to illness and social isolation bringing consequent economic impact for the health system. It is assumed that institutionalized confinement, weakness and morbidity associated to nursing home (NH) contribute to transform VD an especially prevalent condition in institutionalized elderly, including those without cognitive impairment. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and associated factors of VD in NH elderly residents without cognitive impairment. There is no epidemiological diagnostic instruments of VD for elderly populations, so the first step of this study was dedicated to prepare and analyze the psychometric properties of a short, inexpensive and easy to use questionnaire named Screening for Voice Disorders in Older Adults (Rastreamento de Alterações Vocais em Idosos—RAVI). The methodological procedures of this step followed the guidelines of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing and contemplated validity evidence based on test content, based on response processes, based on internal structure and based on relations with other variables, as well as reliability analysis and clinical consistency. The result of the validation process showed that the RAVI final score generate valid and reliable interpretations for the epidemiological diagnosis of VD in the elderly, which endorsed the use of the questionnaire in the second stage of the study, performed in ten NH located in the city of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. At this stage, data from socioeconomic and demographic variables, lifestyle, general health conditions and characterization of the institution were collected. It was performed a bivariate analysis and it was calculated the prevalence ratio as a magnitude association measure, with a confidence interval of 95%. The variables with p-value less than 0.20 were included in the multiple logistic regression model that followed the Forward selection method. The odds ratio found in the multivariate model was converted into prevalence ratio and the level of significance was 5%. The sample consisted of 117 subjects with predominance of females and average of 79.68 (± 7.92) years old. The prevalence of VD was 39.3% (95% CI: 30.4-48.1%). The multivariate model showed statistically significant association between VD and depressive symptoms, smoking for a year or more and selfreported hearing loss. In conclusion, VD is a prevalent health condition in NH elderly residents without cognitive impairment and is associated with factors involving psychosocial, lifestyle and communicative disability that require attention of managers and professionals involved with NH environment. Strategies to encourage communication and social integration, actions to combat smoking and minimizing the effects of hearing loss could stimulate the physical well-being, emotional and mental health of institutionalized elderly population, contributing to the vocal and communicative maintenance, a more effective social inclusion and better overall health condition.