UC Merced Undergraduate Research Journal

The brain is what gives individuals their unique personality and cognitive ability, sowhen the brain is damaged, a person's cognitive capacity may also be damaged. The cognitiveimpairment is specific to the type of brain damage and can greatly vary from person to person.There has been no widespread convention for what tests have been used to analyze eachcognitive domain’s impairment, making it difficult to compare previous results stemming fromthe different neurological disorders. Our objective is to use a standardized battery of cognitivetests, taken on a large time scale, to analyze the effect that different brain disorders have on longtermcognitive ability and to assess the cognitive trends between a wide array of neurologicaldisorders and the connections that they have to each cognitive area. The study will track a largegroup of healthy subjects who have taken the standardized battery, the Cogstate Cognigramassessment. Should the subjects be diagnosed with any neurological disorder in the future, theywill be asked to retake the assessment at one-year intervals, collecting data on each cognitivedomain’s impairment and the status of the neurological damage. Our findings will advance thefield's understanding of the relationships between specific cognitive domains and theneurological disorders that impair them.