[High mental functions in healthy individuals and in cerebrovascular diseases].

A knowledge of time parameters of the high mental functions of the brain under normal and pathological conditions may serve as a key to understanding of their intimate mechanisms. During the first stage of the study a set of different tests including "word association", "paired words learning" was used to compare these indices in patients with atherosclerotic discirculatory encephalopathy and in normal individuals. The dynamics and volume of the short-term memory and processes of attention were evaluated. An increase of the response latencies in the paired words' tests and a decrease of both volume of short-term memory and the processes of attention were identified. Application of the tests with semantically similar or unlike words was informative.