Brain Batteries

A comprehensive neuropsychological test battery should assess the integrity
of the entire brain. To assure the thoroughness of the evaluation, the
neuropsychologist generally administers a large number of diverse tests to
the patient. The tests typically demand different mental or cognitive abilities,
which are subserved by different regions of the brain. These different
cognitive abilities are commonly referred to as cognitive domains and include
functions such as attention, memory, perception, movement, language,
and problem solving. A number of comprehensive test batteries have
been created to assess the various cognitive domains. The Halstead-Reitan
and Luria-Nebraska are two such batteries that have been used to diagnose
the location and severity of brain damage in neurological patients.
These batteries consist of a variety of subtests that are believed to tap into
different cognitive abilities. For example, the Halstead-Reitan contains
subtests that have proved to be helpful in localizing brain damage. This is
done by first administering the Halstead-Reitan to a large number of patients
with previously diagnosed brain damage. The researcher then looks at
those patients with damage to a particular region of the brain (for example,
right frontal) and observes which subtests gave them difficulty. By repeating
this process on each patient group (left frontal, right posterior, and so on),
the researcher can establish norms.
When a patient with suspected damage is tested with the battery, his or
her scores can be compared to those in each patient group. Thus, if he or
she performs similarly to the right-frontal norms, damage may be diagnosed
to this region. While this is an oversimplification, it provides a general
model of how test batteries are used in neuropsychology to evaluate patients
with suspected brain damage.