Assessment of Neurocognitive Domains

There are 6 Neurocognitive Domains:
Acronym: MAPLES
1. Learning and Memory
2. Complex Attention
5. Perceptual Motor
4. Language
2. Executive Function
6. Social Cognition

Learning and Memory Domain
Immediate Memory Span is the ability to repeat a list of words or digits. It is also sometimes subsumed under working memory in executive function. Usually tested in mini mental state examination by listing 3 mutually exclusive items and asking patients to recall them.

Recent Memory assesses the process of encoding new information. Various subsets of recent memory include:
- Free Recall as the ability to recall as many words, diagrams or elements in a story as possible
- Cued Recall as the ability to recall with semantic cues
- Recognition Memory as even more obvious cues such as "did you see this picture"
- Semantic Memory as the memory for facts
- Autobiographical Memory as the memory for personal events or people
- Implicit Learning as the procedural and unconscious learning of skills

Complex Attention Domain
Sustained Attention is the maintenance of attention over time

Selective Attention is the maintenance of attention despite competing stimuli or distractors

Divided Attention is the ability to attend to 2 tasks within the same period


Perceptual Motor Domain
Visual Perception tests line bisection tasks to detect visual defect or attentionl neglect

Visuoconstructional assessment assesses the assembly of items under hand-eye coordination

Perceptual Motor integrates perception with purposeful movement

Praxis is the integrity of learned movements

Gnosis is the perceptual integrity of awareness and recognition

Language Domain
Expressive language consists of confrontational naming (identification), fluency and phonemic

Grammar and Syntax is assessed by comparing the frequency of errors and normal slips of the tongue

Receptive language consists of comprehension, performance of actions according to verbal command

Executive Function Domain
Planning is the ability to find a solution or interpret something

Decision Making as the performance of tasks that assesses the process of deciding in the face of competing alternatives

Working Memory is the ability to hold information for brief period and to manipulate it

Feedback and Error Utilisation is the abilithy to benefit from feedback to infer rules for solving a problem

Overriding Habits/Inhibition is the ability to choose a more complex and effortful solution to be correct

Mental and Cognitive Flexibility is the ability to shift between 2 concepts, tasks or response rules

Social Cognition
Emotional Recognition is the identification of emotion in images of faces representing a variety of both positive and negative emotions

Theory of Mind is the ability to consider another person's mental state (such as thoughts, desires and intentions) or experience