CANTAB – BRIEF UPDATE

David Secker, Chief Scientific Officer Cambridge Cognition LTD.

Cognitive Performance WorkshopLas Vegas, July 2005

Background

•CANTAB = CAmbridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery.

•CANTAB was first designed and used by Trevor Robbins, Adrian Owen and Barbara Sahakian from Cambridge University in 1986, and thus has over 20 years of validation underpinning the paradigm.

•CANTAB has now been used in over 400 universities and research institutions, in 34 countries.

•CANTAB is cited in over 350 peer-reviewed publications.

CANTAB tests of cognition – was 15, now 19

Motor Screening (MOT)

Screens for visual, movement and comprehension difficulties.

Pattern Recognition

Memory (PRM)

Tests visual recognition memory for patterns

Affective Go/No-go (AGN)

Assesses information processing biases for positive and negative stimuli.

Rapid Visual Information

Processing (RVP)

Tests sustained visual attention.

Big/Little Circle (BLC)

Tests comprehension, learning and reversal.

Stockings of Cambridge

(SOC)

Assesses spatial planning and motor control

Delayed Matching to

Sample (DMS)

Assesses immediate and delayed perceptual matching.

Spatial Recognition

Memory (SRM)

Tests recognition memory for spatial locations.

Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shifting

(IED)

Tests rule acquisition, problem solving, and attentional set shifting.

Spatial Span (SSP)

Spatial Working Memory

(SWM)

Verbal Recognition

Memory (VRM)

Assesses working memory capacity.

Tests working memory and strategy use.

Assesses immediate free recall, and immediate and delayed recognition memory.

Matching to Sample

Visual Search (MTS)

Paired Associates

Learning (PAL)

Reaction Time (RTI)

Ability to match visual samples & measures reaction time.

Assesses episodic memory and learning rate.

Measures speed of response.

CANTAB is fully computerized and operates on a touch sensitive panel

computer.

Where millisecond accuracy is required for

latency recording a press pad is

used.

CANTAB was designed to extrapolate first principles from fundamental

animal models.

Pattern/Spatial recognition

Delayed matching to sample

Paired associate learning

Set shifting

Spatial Working Memory

Temporal /

Frontal

Frontal Parietal

Temporal

Frontal Temporal

Frontal

Planning

5-Choice serial reaction time

Frontal

Frontal

Versions for lower primates exist for many CANTAB tests.(see Roberts & Sahakian, 1993)

Reflection Impulsivity Task (RIT)

By pressing the grey boxes in a 5 X 5 matrix, the subject

sees what the colour beneath is.

When the subject thinks she knows which is the predominant colour in the matrix, she decides by pressing one of the two squares below

Reflection Impulsivity Task (RIT)

Fixed Win condition – 100 points earned for a correct decision, regardless of how many boxes opened.

Decreasing Win condition – fewer points available as more boxes ‘opened’.

Reflection Impulsivity Task (RIT)

Outputs:

‘Information sampled’ = mean number of boxes opened at point of decision

‘Probability Correct’ = The chance that the decision will be correct controlling for the number of boxes open (range 0 – 1.0)

Reflection Impulsivity Task (RIT)

Study – Luke Clark (2005, in press).

RIT administered to current substance users dependent upon amphetamines (n=24) or opiates

(n=40), former users of amphetamines or opiates abstinent

for at least one year (n=24) and non-drug using controls (n=26).

0.6

0.65

0.7

0.75

0.8

0.85

0.9

Control Amph Opiate Ex-user

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t d

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isio

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Reflection Impulsivity Task (RIT)

Decision Making

COLD Decisions

Decisions where the outcome does not involve conflict between rewards and punishment. Usually made with little emotion and when there is sufficient time to reflect.

HOT Decisions

Decisions which involve a conflict between reward and punishment. Tend to produce high levels of emotion.

Decision making tends to be considered an executive function predominantly frontal in nature

Conclusions

‘Reduced reflection is suggested to represent a cognitive marker for substance dependence that does

not recover with prolonged abstinence and is associated

with multiple drugs of abuse’.

Work

‘Cold’ Decision – time to reflect, all outcomes seem relatively similar.

Home

‘Hot’ Decision – can result in high punishment OR reward

Is the yellow token under a red or a blue

box?

Subject must guess.

Red\Blue ratio can be 9:1, 8:2,

7:3, or 6:4

Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT)

Cambridge Gambling Task

Subject is allocated a certain number of points which they can use to gamble with (number on

the left).

The yellow number is a proportion of their remaining points (5%, 25%, 75%, 100%)

and changes rapidly in either a descending or ascending

direction. The subject presses this when the number reflects

the amount they are prepared to gamble

Here the subject incorrectly guessed that the yellow token was under a red square – and

lost 704 points. He has only 37 remaining.

Key variable – ‘Adjusted Risk’ tendency to bet a larger proportion of ones points when the odds are better, and the less

when the odds are poorer.

Cambridge Gambling Task

Orbitofrontal stimulation

(see Rogers et al, 1999).

Activation of Right Orbitofrontal Cortex

CANTAB – Tower of London Test (aka SOC).

Dorsolateral PFC/Parietal activation

(see Baker et al 1996)Owen et al 1995

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex

Orbitofrontal Cortex

‘Cold’ Decisions

‘Hot’ Decisions

Further information:

Contact:

David L SeckerCambridge Cognition Ltd

Tunbridge CourtTunbridge Lane, Bottisham

Cambridge CB5 9DU +44(0)1223 810 700

www.cantab.com david.secker@cantab.com