Natalie Gasson | Curtin University (original) (raw)

Papers by Natalie Gasson

Research paper thumbnail of Does Parkinson's Disease Moderate the Relationship Between Disrupted Sleep and Cognition? A Case-Controlled Polysomnographic Study

Journal of Sleep Research, 2016

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Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive Reserve, Executive Function, and Memory in Parkinson’s Disease

Cognitive impairment is acknowledged as a feature of Parkinson’s disease (PD), and the most commo... more Cognitive impairment is acknowledged as a feature of Parkinson’s disease (PD), and the most common cognitive declines are in executive function (EF) and memory. Cognitive reserve (CR) may offer some protection against cognitive dysfunction in PD. The present study used two proxies of CR (years of education, premorbid IQ) to examine the relationship between CR and (i) EF (ii) memory in a large PD sample (n = 334). Two aspects of EF were examined, including verbal fluency and planning skills. Two aspects of verbal memory were examined, including immediate recall and delayed recall. For EF, both CR proxies significantly predicted verbal fluency, but only years of education predicted planning skills. Years of education significantly predicted immediate recall, but premorbid IQ did not. Neither CR proxy predicted delayed recall. These findings suggest that CR, in particular years of education, may contribute to EF and memory function in those with PD. A key finding of this study is the v...

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Research paper thumbnail of doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00105 The measurement of psychological literacy: a first approximation

Psychological literacy, the ability to apply psychological knowledge to personal, family, occupat... more Psychological literacy, the ability to apply psychological knowledge to personal, family, occupational, community and societal challenges, is promoted as the primary outcome of an undergraduate education in psychology. As the concept of psychological literacy becomes increasingly adopted as the core business of undergraduate psychology training courses world-wide, there is urgent need for the construct to be accurately measured so that student and institutional level progress can be assessed and monitored. Key to the measurement of psychological literacy is determining the underlying factor-structure of psychological literacy. In this paper we provide a first approximation of the measurement of psychological literacy by identifying and evaluating self-report measures for psychological literacy. Multi-item and single-item self-report measures of each of the proposed nine dimensions of psychological literacy were completed by two samples (N = 218 and N = 381) of undergraduate psycholo...

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Research paper thumbnail of A Longitudinal Investigation of the Development of Fullterm, Preterm and 'At-Risk' Infants from Birth to Four Years using a Parent Report Measure

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Research paper thumbnail of Motor Heterogeneity in Parkinson's Disease: A Bayesian Perspective

Movement Disorders, 2017

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Research paper thumbnail of Self-Reported Sleep Differentially Predicts Memory and Executive Function in Younger and Older-Onset Parkinson's Disease

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Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive profile and mild cognitive impairment in people with chronic lower back pain

Brain and Cognition

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Research paper thumbnail of Measuring General Expectations of Advanced Stage Treatment Outcomes in Parkinson’s Disease

Journal of Parkinson's Disease

Background: Recent research suggests that a significant number of those who receive advanced trea... more Background: Recent research suggests that a significant number of those who receive advanced treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD) do not report improvements for some symptoms, which may relate to their pre-treatment expectations. It is important that expectations of treatment are measured and discussed prior to advanced treatment. Objective: The primary aim of this study was to develop a measure of treatment expectations of two advanced-stage treatments in PD, deep brain stimulation (DBS), and Levodopa/Carbidopa Intestinal Gel (LCIG). A secondary aim was to explore potential predictors of treatment expectations. Methods: The questionnaire-based measure was developed by researchers in conjunction with a highly experienced clinician, and evaluated treatment expectations in 189 people aged 46–91 years (M = 71.35, SD = 8.73; 61% male) with idiopathic PD. Results: The overall measure demonstrated excellent internal consistency (α= 0.96). Exploratory factor analysis suggested the scale...

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Research paper thumbnail of Beyond factor analysis: Multidimensionality and the Parkinson’s Disease Sleep Scale-Revised

PLOS ONE, Feb 12, 2018

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Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive Training and Noninvasive Brain Stimulation for Cognition in Parkinson’s Disease: A Meta-analysis

Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair

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Research paper thumbnail of The editors would like to thank the following individuals, who acted as guest-reviewers of manuscripts submitted in 2004

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Research paper thumbnail of Mild Cognitive Impairment: Implications of Diagnosis

Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease & Parkinsonism

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Research paper thumbnail of Sleep Symptoms Differentially Predict Cognition in Younger and Older-Onset Parkinson's Disease

OBM Geriatrics

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Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive Training and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for Mild Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson's Disease: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Parkinson's disease, 2018

This study examined whether standard cognitive training, tailored cognitive training, transcrania... more This study examined whether standard cognitive training, tailored cognitive training, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), standard cognitive training + tDCS, or tailored cognitive training + tDCS improved cognitive function and functional outcomes in participants with PD and mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI). Forty-two participants with PD-MCI were randomized to one of six groups: (1) standard cognitive training, (2) tailored cognitive training, (3) tDCS, (4) standard cognitive training + tDCS, (5) tailored cognitive training + tDCS, or (6) a control group. Interventions lasted 4 weeks, with cognitive and functional outcomes measured at baseline, post-intervention, and follow-up. The trial was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR: 12614001039673). While controlling for moderator variables, Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) showed that when compared to the control group, the intervention groups demonstrated variable statistica...

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Research paper thumbnail of The relationship between executive function and fine motor control in young and older adults

Human movement science, Jan 11, 2016

The present study examined the relationship between executive function (EF) and fine motor contro... more The present study examined the relationship between executive function (EF) and fine motor control in young and older healthy adults. Participants completed 3 measures of executive function; a spatial working memory (SWM) task, the Stockings of Cambridge task (planning), and the Intra-Dimensional Extra-Dimensional Set-Shift task (set-shifting). Fine motor control was assessed using 3 subtests of the Purdue Pegboard (unimanual, bimanual, sequencing). For the younger adults, there were no significant correlations between measures of EF and fine motor control. For the older adults, all EFs significantly correlated with all measures of fine motor control. Three separate regressions examined whether planning, SWM and set-shifting independently predicted unimanual, bimanual, and sequencing scores for the older adults. Planning was the primary predictor of performance on all three Purdue subtests. A multiple-groups mediation model examined whether planning predicted fine motor control scor...

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Research paper thumbnail of Prevalence and Subtypes of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson’s Disease

Scientific Reports, 2016

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Research paper thumbnail of Motor Subtype as a Predictor of Future Working Memory Performance in Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease

PloS one, 2016

Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with reduced spati... more Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with reduced spatial and verbal working memory ability. There are two established motor subtypes of PD, tremor dominant (TD) and postural instability and gait difficulty (PIGD). This study used structural equation modelling to explore the longitudinal relationship between the two subtypes and working memory assessed at a 2-year follow-up. The study comprised 84 males and 30 females (N = 114), aged between 39 and 85 (M = 64.82, SD = 9.23) with confirmed PD. There was no significant relationship between motor subtype at Time 1 and working memory at Time 2. Postural symptom severity at Time 1 predicted Time 2 spatial working memory for the PIGD subtype (p = .011) but not the TD subtype. Tremor symptoms were not associated with Time 2 working memory in either subtype. Predictive significance of Time 1 postural symptoms only in the PIGD subtype suggests an interaction between symptom dominance (subtype) and sy...

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Research paper thumbnail of Psychological Literacy Weakly Differentiates Students by Discipline and Year of Enrolment

Frontiers in psychology, 2016

Psychological literacy, a construct developed to reflect the types of skills graduates of a psych... more Psychological literacy, a construct developed to reflect the types of skills graduates of a psychology degree should possess and be capable of demonstrating, has recently been scrutinized in terms of its measurement adequacy. The recent development of a multi-item measure encompassing the facets of psychological literacy has provided the potential for improved validity in measuring the construct. We investigated the known-groups validity of this multi-item measure of psychological literacy to examine whether psychological literacy could predict (a) students' course of enrolment and (b) students' year of enrolment. Five hundred and fifteen undergraduate psychology students, 87 psychology/human resource management students, and 83 speech pathology students provided data. In the first year cohort, the reflective processes (RPs) factor significantly predicted psychology and psychology/human resource management course enrolment, although no facets significantly differentiated bet...

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Research paper thumbnail of Motor control and coordination across the lifespan

Human Movement Science, Oct 1, 2008

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Research paper thumbnail of A retrospective assessment of MDS criteria for mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society

Objectives: A Movement Disorder Society (MDS) taskforce recently proposed diagnostic criteria for... more Objectives: A Movement Disorder Society (MDS) taskforce recently proposed diagnostic criteria for PD-MCI. This study first examined the prevalence and nature of PD-MCI in a non-demented cohort using the MDS criteria. Using the generic Monte Carlo simulation method developed by Crawford and colleagues (2007), this study then estimated the base rate of the representative population who would demonstrate PD-MCI due to chance alone. Methods: 104 participants with idiopathic PD underwent extensive motor and neuropsychological testing at baseline and 2 years later. The Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) was used to assess motor symptoms of PD and a range of established neuropsychological tests were used to assess PD-MCI in accord with MDS criteria. Results: In accord with MDS criteria, 38% of this cohort demonstrated PD-MCI at baseline and 48% at follow-up. Of the 36 participants in the multiple-domain PD-MCI subtype at time-1, 9 (25%) demonstrated no PD-MCI at follow up. An...

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Research paper thumbnail of Does Parkinson's Disease Moderate the Relationship Between Disrupted Sleep and Cognition? A Case-Controlled Polysomnographic Study

Journal of Sleep Research, 2016

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Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive Reserve, Executive Function, and Memory in Parkinson’s Disease

Cognitive impairment is acknowledged as a feature of Parkinson’s disease (PD), and the most commo... more Cognitive impairment is acknowledged as a feature of Parkinson’s disease (PD), and the most common cognitive declines are in executive function (EF) and memory. Cognitive reserve (CR) may offer some protection against cognitive dysfunction in PD. The present study used two proxies of CR (years of education, premorbid IQ) to examine the relationship between CR and (i) EF (ii) memory in a large PD sample (n = 334). Two aspects of EF were examined, including verbal fluency and planning skills. Two aspects of verbal memory were examined, including immediate recall and delayed recall. For EF, both CR proxies significantly predicted verbal fluency, but only years of education predicted planning skills. Years of education significantly predicted immediate recall, but premorbid IQ did not. Neither CR proxy predicted delayed recall. These findings suggest that CR, in particular years of education, may contribute to EF and memory function in those with PD. A key finding of this study is the v...

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Research paper thumbnail of doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00105 The measurement of psychological literacy: a first approximation

Psychological literacy, the ability to apply psychological knowledge to personal, family, occupat... more Psychological literacy, the ability to apply psychological knowledge to personal, family, occupational, community and societal challenges, is promoted as the primary outcome of an undergraduate education in psychology. As the concept of psychological literacy becomes increasingly adopted as the core business of undergraduate psychology training courses world-wide, there is urgent need for the construct to be accurately measured so that student and institutional level progress can be assessed and monitored. Key to the measurement of psychological literacy is determining the underlying factor-structure of psychological literacy. In this paper we provide a first approximation of the measurement of psychological literacy by identifying and evaluating self-report measures for psychological literacy. Multi-item and single-item self-report measures of each of the proposed nine dimensions of psychological literacy were completed by two samples (N = 218 and N = 381) of undergraduate psycholo...

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Research paper thumbnail of A Longitudinal Investigation of the Development of Fullterm, Preterm and 'At-Risk' Infants from Birth to Four Years using a Parent Report Measure

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Motor Heterogeneity in Parkinson's Disease: A Bayesian Perspective

Movement Disorders, 2017

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Self-Reported Sleep Differentially Predicts Memory and Executive Function in Younger and Older-Onset Parkinson's Disease

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive profile and mild cognitive impairment in people with chronic lower back pain

Brain and Cognition

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Measuring General Expectations of Advanced Stage Treatment Outcomes in Parkinson’s Disease

Journal of Parkinson's Disease

Background: Recent research suggests that a significant number of those who receive advanced trea... more Background: Recent research suggests that a significant number of those who receive advanced treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD) do not report improvements for some symptoms, which may relate to their pre-treatment expectations. It is important that expectations of treatment are measured and discussed prior to advanced treatment. Objective: The primary aim of this study was to develop a measure of treatment expectations of two advanced-stage treatments in PD, deep brain stimulation (DBS), and Levodopa/Carbidopa Intestinal Gel (LCIG). A secondary aim was to explore potential predictors of treatment expectations. Methods: The questionnaire-based measure was developed by researchers in conjunction with a highly experienced clinician, and evaluated treatment expectations in 189 people aged 46–91 years (M = 71.35, SD = 8.73; 61% male) with idiopathic PD. Results: The overall measure demonstrated excellent internal consistency (α= 0.96). Exploratory factor analysis suggested the scale...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond factor analysis: Multidimensionality and the Parkinson’s Disease Sleep Scale-Revised

PLOS ONE, Feb 12, 2018

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Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive Training and Noninvasive Brain Stimulation for Cognition in Parkinson’s Disease: A Meta-analysis

Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair

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Research paper thumbnail of The editors would like to thank the following individuals, who acted as guest-reviewers of manuscripts submitted in 2004

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Research paper thumbnail of Mild Cognitive Impairment: Implications of Diagnosis

Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease & Parkinsonism

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Research paper thumbnail of Sleep Symptoms Differentially Predict Cognition in Younger and Older-Onset Parkinson's Disease

OBM Geriatrics

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive Training and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for Mild Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson's Disease: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Parkinson's disease, 2018

This study examined whether standard cognitive training, tailored cognitive training, transcrania... more This study examined whether standard cognitive training, tailored cognitive training, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), standard cognitive training + tDCS, or tailored cognitive training + tDCS improved cognitive function and functional outcomes in participants with PD and mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI). Forty-two participants with PD-MCI were randomized to one of six groups: (1) standard cognitive training, (2) tailored cognitive training, (3) tDCS, (4) standard cognitive training + tDCS, (5) tailored cognitive training + tDCS, or (6) a control group. Interventions lasted 4 weeks, with cognitive and functional outcomes measured at baseline, post-intervention, and follow-up. The trial was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR: 12614001039673). While controlling for moderator variables, Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) showed that when compared to the control group, the intervention groups demonstrated variable statistica...

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Research paper thumbnail of The relationship between executive function and fine motor control in young and older adults

Human movement science, Jan 11, 2016

The present study examined the relationship between executive function (EF) and fine motor contro... more The present study examined the relationship between executive function (EF) and fine motor control in young and older healthy adults. Participants completed 3 measures of executive function; a spatial working memory (SWM) task, the Stockings of Cambridge task (planning), and the Intra-Dimensional Extra-Dimensional Set-Shift task (set-shifting). Fine motor control was assessed using 3 subtests of the Purdue Pegboard (unimanual, bimanual, sequencing). For the younger adults, there were no significant correlations between measures of EF and fine motor control. For the older adults, all EFs significantly correlated with all measures of fine motor control. Three separate regressions examined whether planning, SWM and set-shifting independently predicted unimanual, bimanual, and sequencing scores for the older adults. Planning was the primary predictor of performance on all three Purdue subtests. A multiple-groups mediation model examined whether planning predicted fine motor control scor...

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Research paper thumbnail of Prevalence and Subtypes of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson’s Disease

Scientific Reports, 2016

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Motor Subtype as a Predictor of Future Working Memory Performance in Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease

PloS one, 2016

Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with reduced spati... more Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with reduced spatial and verbal working memory ability. There are two established motor subtypes of PD, tremor dominant (TD) and postural instability and gait difficulty (PIGD). This study used structural equation modelling to explore the longitudinal relationship between the two subtypes and working memory assessed at a 2-year follow-up. The study comprised 84 males and 30 females (N = 114), aged between 39 and 85 (M = 64.82, SD = 9.23) with confirmed PD. There was no significant relationship between motor subtype at Time 1 and working memory at Time 2. Postural symptom severity at Time 1 predicted Time 2 spatial working memory for the PIGD subtype (p = .011) but not the TD subtype. Tremor symptoms were not associated with Time 2 working memory in either subtype. Predictive significance of Time 1 postural symptoms only in the PIGD subtype suggests an interaction between symptom dominance (subtype) and sy...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Psychological Literacy Weakly Differentiates Students by Discipline and Year of Enrolment

Frontiers in psychology, 2016

Psychological literacy, a construct developed to reflect the types of skills graduates of a psych... more Psychological literacy, a construct developed to reflect the types of skills graduates of a psychology degree should possess and be capable of demonstrating, has recently been scrutinized in terms of its measurement adequacy. The recent development of a multi-item measure encompassing the facets of psychological literacy has provided the potential for improved validity in measuring the construct. We investigated the known-groups validity of this multi-item measure of psychological literacy to examine whether psychological literacy could predict (a) students' course of enrolment and (b) students' year of enrolment. Five hundred and fifteen undergraduate psychology students, 87 psychology/human resource management students, and 83 speech pathology students provided data. In the first year cohort, the reflective processes (RPs) factor significantly predicted psychology and psychology/human resource management course enrolment, although no facets significantly differentiated bet...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Motor control and coordination across the lifespan

Human Movement Science, Oct 1, 2008

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of A retrospective assessment of MDS criteria for mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society

Objectives: A Movement Disorder Society (MDS) taskforce recently proposed diagnostic criteria for... more Objectives: A Movement Disorder Society (MDS) taskforce recently proposed diagnostic criteria for PD-MCI. This study first examined the prevalence and nature of PD-MCI in a non-demented cohort using the MDS criteria. Using the generic Monte Carlo simulation method developed by Crawford and colleagues (2007), this study then estimated the base rate of the representative population who would demonstrate PD-MCI due to chance alone. Methods: 104 participants with idiopathic PD underwent extensive motor and neuropsychological testing at baseline and 2 years later. The Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) was used to assess motor symptoms of PD and a range of established neuropsychological tests were used to assess PD-MCI in accord with MDS criteria. Results: In accord with MDS criteria, 38% of this cohort demonstrated PD-MCI at baseline and 48% at follow-up. Of the 36 participants in the multiple-domain PD-MCI subtype at time-1, 9 (25%) demonstrated no PD-MCI at follow up. An...

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