General
The ICBM DANI project is a combination of a web application which records the subjects' demographic, medical history and handedness information and a series of five neurocognitive test programmed in Java.
Demographic Section
Demographic Assessment
The examiner enters study identification, subject's age, gender, education, and ethnicity (date).
Average Duration: 1 min
Medical History
The Medical History presents the subject with a series of "yes/no" questions regarding medical and psychiatric history. The program is set up so that the subject can expound upon when the health problem occurred, whether it still affects the subject, and whether or not the subject currently is being treated for the problem. The subject is then queried with regard to other factors that may affect cognitive functioning, including current medications, "over the counter" pharmaceutical preparations, consumption habits for alcohol, and other psychoactive substances.
Average Duration: 10 min
Handedness
Information regarding laterality of hand, eye, and foot preference is gathered through use of visual analog scales ranging from 1 ("All Left Handed") to 10 ("All Right Handed"). Items are based on well-established scales such as the Edinburgh Laterality Inventory and Reitan Handedness Scale. The subject is asked to select a number between 1 and 10 rating his or her hand preference for 10 common activities, such as throwing a ball, using a toothbrush, and striking a match. Information on preferred foot and preferred eye also are obtained. Additional items ask about handedness of father, mother, and siblings.
Average Duration: 2 min
Neurocognitive Section
Motor Speed Component: Arrows Reaction Time Test
For this test, subjects were shown a single arrow pointing left or right and were instructed to press either the right or left arrow keys. This measure was designed to measure simple, choice congruent and choice incongruent reaction times. 449 subjects completed this test. Reaction times increased from simple (266.92±57.0) to choice congruent (318.95±70.9) to choice incongruent (415.10±108.9) measures.
Average Duration: 3 min
Memory Component: Verbal Recognition Memory Test: Immediate and Delay
This is a simple word-learning test where 20 to-be-remembered words are present sequentially (4 possible word lists). There are two test phases, immediate and after a 20 min delay, each with 20 target words and 20 unique distractor words. 455 subjects completed immediate condition (91.85%±7.0) and 259 subjects competed the delay condition (88.97%±9.1).
Average Duration: 3 min and 3 min
Language & Executive Component: Logical Reasoning
For this measure, subjects are asked to determine if a logical statement is true or false (32 total statements). There are two types of statements: "Simple" (one comparison, e.g., "2 is less than 4") and "Complex" (two comparisons (e.g., "2...is not less than...6"). The order of presentation is randomly varied per condition and in the numbers used for the statements. 258 subjects have taken this task with an average score of 14.65±1.37 (reaction time 52.68±13.2).
Average Duration: 5 minExecutive Component: Conceptual Reasoning (Speed-Sorting)
For this measure, the subject is shown a series of 96 pairs of different designs and asked to choose one. Rules for the choice are based on the size, shape or color of the stimuli and change every 16 trials. Dependant variables include total correct responses, set seeking errors (the number of errors that occur within each category before the subject maintains a response set by making three correct responses in a row), failures to maintain set errors (errors while still in the same response set), and perseveratve errors (the subject continues to respond with a previously correct rule even though the rule has changed).
Average Duration: 5 min