HANDBOOK OF FRONTAL LOBE ASSESSMENT

- Describes distinct regions of the frontal lobes that each test 'taps', allowing clinicians and researchers to select tests that tap different frontal regions, making assessments more focused and less time-consuming
- Provides a critical review and an appraisal of the tests used in clinical practice to assess all aspects of frontal lobe function, including social and emotional processing related tasks which have not previously been addressed. This provides clinicians or researchers with an opportunity to examine exactly what various frontal tests are assessing, and select the best instrument for their purposes

There are several tests used in clinical practice and research worldwide that have been devised to assess the functions subsumed by the frontal lobes of the brain. Anatomical localisation has revealed that the frontal lobes can be divided into sub-regions with different functional domains. As a result, a number of authors working in the frontal lobe literature have made a case for patients with frontal lobe damage to be considered in their distinct subgroups, rather than considered together in one unitary group. As a result, it is important for clinicians and researchers to be made aware of the functions assessed by individual frontal tests and understand which frontal regions might be impaired in their patient groups, as patients with damage to one of these regions will perform poorly on tasks tapping that region yet may perform well on tasks tapping the unaffected regions within the frontal lobes.
The 'Handbook of Frontal Lobe Assessment' provides a critical review and appraisal of both the neuropsychological and experimental tests that have been devised to assess frontal lobe functions. It includes many tests that have not been included in previously published neuropsychological compendia. Throughout, the book discusses the available frontal tests in relation to patient and lesion data, neuroimaging data and aging data in order to offer clinicians and researchers the opportunity to choose the best assessment instrument for their purpose.
Readership: Neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists, neurologists working with patient populations in rehab. Researchers and students in psychology and neuroscience

Authors
Sarah E. MacPherson, Senior Lecturer in Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychology Department, University of Edinburgh, UK., Sergio Della Sala, Professor of Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychology Department, University of Edinburgh, UK., with Simon R. Cox, Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, Alessandra Girardi, Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, and Matthew H. Iveson, Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Sarah MacPherson's main research interest is frontal lobe functions in healthy ageing and damaged brains. She is an action editor for Cortex and Treasurer of the British Neuropsychology Society.
Sergio Della Sala's main research interest is cognitive neuropsychology, on this topic he authored over 500 peer-reviewed papers. He is editor of Cortex and current President of the British Neuropsychology Society.

Table of Contents
1: Introduction: Fractionating the Frontal Lobe Syndrome
2: Abstraction
3: Initiation and Inhibition
4: Mental Flexibility
5: Multitasking
6: Problem Solving and Judgment
7: Working Memory
8: Emotional Processing
9: Social Decision-Making
10: Theory of Mind
11: Test Summary Tables
12: Overall Summary Table