Traditionally early brain insult (EBI) has been considered to have better outcome than later injury, consistent with the notion that the young brain is flexible and able to reorganize. Recent research findings question this view, suggesting that EBI might lead to poorer outcome than brain insult at any other age. Exploring this early vulnerability…

The functional organization of working memory (WM) in the human prefrontal cortex remains unclear. The present study used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to clarify the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) both in the types of information (verbal vs. spatial), and the types of processes (maintenance vs.…

Differences in neural activation during performance on an attentionally demanding Stroop task were examined between 23 young adults with ADHD carefully selected to not be co-morbid for other psychiatric disorders and 23 matched controls. A hybrid blocked/single-trial design allowed for examination of more sustained vs. more transient aspects of…

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is due to the silencing of a single X-linked gene and it is associated with striking attentional difficulties. As FXS is well characterised at the cellular level, the condition provides a unique opportunity to investigate how a genetic dysfunction can impact on the development of neurocomputational properties relevant to…

The Sustained Attention to Response task is a classical neuropsychological test that has been used by many centres to characterize the attentional deficits in traumatic brain injury, ADHD, autism and other disorders. During the SART a random series of digits 1-9 is presented repeatedly and subjects have to respond to each digit (go trial) except…