Phasic alertness indicated by simple motor reaction time in late childhood: The effect of age and sex

Background: In contrast to strongly established views on the development of tonic, top-down controlled alertness, a small number neurobehavioral and neurophysiological studies deal with developmental trajectory exogenously driven phasic alertness during childhood. Objective: The current study aimed examine age sex effects alerting late childhood, analyse degree association between tonic at behavioural level. Methods: Three groups typically developing children, aged 10, 11 12 years (N = 59, 27 boys, 32 girls) performed computer-based simple hand-eye reaction test that involved 28 trials without warning signal. Results: results showed moderate decrease mean time in both alert non-alert conditions age. However, effect calculated as difference times achieved was not affected by sex. Conclusions: previous suggestions possible continuing improvement suggested neurocognitive function transient enhancement attentional (phasic alertness) does change it is stabilized this period. addition, differ males females