The deficient cue monitoring and the facilitating effect of prosocial intention on prospective memory in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

The study aimed to investigate the cognitive processing of prospective memory (PM) in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) by using an eye-tracking paradigm. In addition, the facilitating effects of prosocial intention (the desire to help others) on PM in SSDs were also examined. In phase 1, 26 patients (group1) and 25 healthy controls (HCs) were compared in an eye-tracking PM paradigm in terms of the PM accuracy and eye-tracking indices. In phase 2, 21 more patients (group2) were recruited, and a prosocial intention was introduced in the eye-tracking PM paradigm. Their PM accuracy and eye-tracking indices were compared with those in group1. The PM cue monitoring was indicated by the total fixation counts and fixation time on distractor words. In phase 1, group1 showed lower PM accuracy, fewer fixation counts and less fixation time on distractor words than HCs. In phase 2, group2 (with prosocial intention) performed significantly better than group1 (with typical instruction) on both PM accuracy and fixation time on distractor words. In both groups of SSDs, the PM accuracy was significantly correlated with both the fixation counts and the fixation time of distractor words. After controlling for the cue monitoring indices, the difference in PM accuracy remained significant between group1 and HCs but disappeared between group1 and group2. The cue monitoring deficit contributes to the PM impairment in SSDs. The facilitating effect of prosocial intention disappears after the control of cue monitoring, also indicating its critical role in PM.

Neural correlates of mental time travel in individuals with high level of schizotypy.

BACKGROUND: Mental time travel (MTT) is the ability to re-experience past events (autobiographic memory, AM) and pre-experience possible future events (episodic future thinking, EFT) through mental simulation. Empirical findings suggest that individuals with high level of schizotypy exhibit MTT impairment. However, the neural correlates of this impairment remain unclear. METHOD: Thirty-eight individuals with high level of schizotypy and 35 low level of schizotypy were recruited to complete an MTT imaging paradigm. Participants were required to recall past events (AM condition), imagine possible future events (EFT condition) related to cue words, or generate exemplars related to category words (control condition) while undergoing functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). RESULTS: AM showed greater activation in precuneus, bilateral posterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, and middle frontal gyrus than EFT. Individuals with high level of schizotypy exhibited reduced activation in the left anterior cingulate cortex during AM (vs. Control) and in the medial frontal gyrus during EFT (vs. Control) compared to individuals with low level of schizotypy. Although psychophysiological interaction analyses did not show any significant group difference, individuals with high level of schizotypy exhibited functional connectivity between left anterior cingulate cortex (seed) and right thalamus, between medial frontal gyrus (seed) and left cerebellum during MTT, whereas individuals with low level of schizotypy did not exhibit these functional connectivities. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that decreased brain activations may underlie MTT deficits in individuals with high level of schizotypy.

Mental time travel for self and others in individuals with a high level of schizotypy.

Mental time travel (MTT) is the ability to project oneself to the past or future through mental simulation. Moreover, MTT can involve self-related or other-related information. This study aimed to compare MTT in individuals with high levels of schizotypy and that in their counterparts with low levels of schizotypy. Participants with high (n = 37) and low (n = 37) levels of schizotypy completed an MTT task with four conditions [2 (Condition: self vs. other) × 2 (Time orientation: past vs. future)]. They were required to recall past events that had happened to themselves or to a non-intimate person, and to imagine possible future events that might happen to themselves or to a non-intimate person, related to cue words. Outcome measures included specificity, vividness, sense of experience, emotional valence, emotional intensity, proportion of first-person visual perspective in events, and difficulty in event generation. A 2 (Group: high vs. low levels of schizotypy) × 2 (Condition) × 2 (Time orientation) mixed analysis of variance was conducted on each index. Results showed that self-related MTT was more specific than other-related MTT in low levels of schizotypy participants but not in high levels of schizotypy participants. Participants with a high level of schizotypy reported fewer specific events, and reported events with lower vividness and positive emotion than did those with a low level of schizotypy. Self-related MTT showed higher levels of phenomenological characteristics than did other-related MTT. In conclusion, individuals with a high level of schizotypy have altered MTT, and cannot benefit from the self-advantage effect on the specificity of MTT.

A Meta-analysis of Mental Time Travel in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with cognitive dysfunctions, including mental time travel (MTT). However, findings on diminished MTT ability may be confounded by a number of factors, including the individuals' language ability, factors related to the MTT task and the demographic factors of participants. The present study provided a meta-analysis of MTT ability in people with ASD. The results showed significant overall reductions in MTT ability in people with ASD. Moderator analyses revealed that the variables examined did not explain the reduction in MTT ability. These findings suggest that MTT ability is diminished in people with ASD and that the degree of this diminishment may not depend on the characteristics of measures or demographic variables of people with ASD.

Prospective memory performance and its improvement in individuals with high schizotypal traits: Evidence from eye-tracking studies.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to examine prospective memory (PM) performance and the potential effect of implementation intention on PM performance and the underlying mechanisms in individuals with high schizotypyal traits (HSTs) using eye-tracking paradigms. METHODS: In Experiment 1, 30 individuals with HSTs and 30 individuals with low schizotypal traits (LSTs) underwent a visual search task that involved PM cues, and participants' eye movements were recorded. In Experiment 2, 50 individuals with HSTs were randomly assigned to the implementation intention group and typical instruction group. RESULTS: In Experiment 1, individuals with HSTs had a lower PM accuracy and performed less PM cue monitoring (indicated by fewer total fixation counts on distractor words) than individuals with LSTs. In Experiment 2, implementation intention significantly improved PM accuracy and increased total fixation counts on distractor words in individuals with HSTs compared to the HST group with typical instruction. CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with HSTs were impaired in PM and showed reduced cue monitoring compared to individuals with LSTs. Implementation intention improved PM performance and facilitated cue monitoring in individuals with HSTs. SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings indicate that cue monitoring may be an important process of intervention target for PM for individuals in the schizophrenia spectrum.

The complete chloroplast genome of Isatis cappadocica Desv. (Brassicaceae).

Isatis cappadocica Desv. is a vigorous perennial rosette plant and it can grow in highly arsenic-contaminated areas. In this study, the complete chloroplast genome of I. cappadocica was assembled and annotated. The total length of this genome is 153,800 bp and the GC content is 36.48%. It has a typical four-part structure: a pair of inverted repeat sequences (26,270 bp each), a small single-copy region (17,715 bp), and a large single-copy region (83,545 bp). The annotation results show that it contains 132 genes. The phylogenetic analysis of I. cappadocica and other 18 representative plants indicates that I. cappadocica is closely related to Isatis tinctoria.

A meta-analysis of the effects of episodic future thinking on delay discounting.

Delay discounting (DD) refers to the phenomenon in which the subjective value of future rewards is reduced over time. There are individual differences in the DD rate, and increased discounting has been observed in those with various psychiatric disorders. Episodic future thinking (EFT) is the act of vividly imagining events that may happen in the future. Studies have shown that EFT could reduce DD, although inconsistent results have been reported. The aim of this meta-analysis was to clarify the efficacy with which EFT reduces DD and to identify potential moderators. Forty-seven studies (including 63 contrasts) were included in the final analysis. EFT was found to significantly reduce DD (Hedges' g = 0.52). Moderator analysis showed that positive EFT (g = 0.64) was more effective in reducing DD than EFT with the valence not specifically mentioned (g = 0.28) and EFT with neutral or negative valence (g = -0.03). In addition, several factors related to the control task and DD task were related to the efficacy of EFT to reduce DD. These findings have implications for using EFT to reduce DD in the future.

ADORA1 is a diagnostic-related biomarker and correlated with immune infiltrates in papillary thyroid carcinoma.

Background: Adenosine A1 Receptor (ADORA1) is an adenosine receptor particularly relevant to the immunomodulatory process of malignant tumors. There are growing evidences that dysregulated overexpression of ADORA1 can promote many types of tumorigenesis. However, the expression and prognostic value and mechanism of ADORA1 in thyroid papillary carcinoma have not been reported. Methods: TCGA, ONCOMINE, UALCAN, cBioPortal, GeneMANIA, LinkedOmics, TIMER, GSCALite, TISIDB and EPIC tools were used in this study. Results: ADORA1 was overexpressed in papillary thyroid carcinoma compared to paracancerous tissue. And ADORA1 was positively correlated with lymph node metastasis as well as pathological stage in PTC. ADORA1 had diagnostic and prognostic value for PTC. The functions of ADORA1 co-expressed genes were mainly enriched in immune response, immune response-regulation signaling pathway, regulation of leukocyte activation and cancer-related pathways. Besides, ADORA1 expression was significantly correlated with tumor-infiltrating cells and immune biomarkers in PTC. Finally, the high expression of ADORA1 was sensitive to JW-55 drug. Conclusion: ADORA1 is a diagnostic and a prognostic biomarker for PTC. The expression of ADORA1 is positively correlated with many immunoregulatory factors in PTC.

An ERP study on proactive and reactive response inhibition in individuals with schizotypy.

Schizotypy, a subclinical group at risk for schizophrenia, has been found to show impairments in response inhibition. However, it remains unclear whether this impairment is accompanied by outright stopping (reactive inhibition) or preparation for stopping (proactive inhibition). We recruited 20 schizotypy and 24 non-schizotypy individuals to perform a modified stop-signal task with electroencephalographic (EEG) data recorded. This task consists of three conditions based on the probability of stop signal: 0% (no stop trials, only go trials), 17% (17% stop trials), and 33% (33% stop trials), the conditions were indicated by the colour of go stimuli. For proactive inhibition (go trials), individuals with schizotypy exhibited significantly lesser increase in go response time (RT) as the stop signal probability increasing compared to non-schizotypy individuals. Individuals with schizotypy also exhibited significantly increased N1 amplitude on all levels of stop signal probability and increased P3 amplitude in the 17% stop condition compared with non-schizotypy individuals. For reactive inhibition (stop trials), individuals with schizotypy exhibited significantly longer stop signal reaction time (SSRT) in both 17% and 33% stop conditions and smaller N2 amplitude on stop trials in the 17% stop condition than non-schizotypy individuals. These findings suggest that individuals with schizotypy were impaired in both proactive and reactive response inhibition at behavioural and neural levels.

Horizontal but not vertical saccades enhance memory retrieval: A meta-analysis and systematic review.

Saccade-induced retrieval enhancement (SIRE) refers to the phenomenon that actively engaging in horizontal eye movements before recall enhances subsequent memory performance. This effect is thought to be the result of interhemispheric interactions stimulated by saccades. An alternative explanation is that saccades promote memory retrieval by improving top-down attention control. Thus, the mechanisms of SIRE are unclear, and the present meta-analysis quantitatively analysed the effect of saccades on memory performance and examined the mechanisms of SIRE. We searched "Web of Science," "PubMed," and "Springer" for peer-reviewed papers using the keywords "eye movements + memory" and "saccades + memory." Twenty-two papers were included in the final analysis. There was a significant facilitation of horizontal saccades on overall memory performance, with a pooled effect size (Cohen's d) of 0.45 (p < .001). However, the overall effect of vertical saccades was not significant (d = 0.1, p = .14). Moderation analysis showed that the handedness of participants was a significant moderator of SIRE, with strongly right-handed individuals benefitting more from horizontal saccades than non-strongly right-handed individuals (p < .01). Horizontal saccades improved memory performance, particularly for strongly right-handed individuals. These results support the interhemispheric interaction hypothesis.

Schizophrenia patients with poor clinical insight report less subjective memory problems.

This study aimed to explore the relationships among clinical insight, subjective memory complaints, and objective memory performance in patients with schizophrenia. We recruited 205 patients with schizophrenia and 221 healthy controls in this study. The participants were administered a subjective-report scale on memory (the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire), and several objective memory tasks measuring verbal memory, visual memory, and working memory. Clinical insight was measured with an item in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. We found that when patients with schizophrenia were divided into subgroups with good and poor insight, both subgroups showed impairment in memory performance compared with controls. The schizophrenia patients with good insight reported similar memory complaints as controls whereas patients with poor insight reported less memory complaints than did the controls. These findings suggest that clinical insight may be related to subjective memory complaints, but not objective memory performance.

Dissociation of Proactive and Reactive Cognitive Control in Individuals with Schizotypy: An Event-Related Potential Study.

OBJECTIVE: Patients with schizophrenia and individuals with schizotypy, a subclinical group at risk for schizophrenia, have been found to have impairments in cognitive control. The Dual Mechanisms of Cognitive Control (DMC) framework hypothesises that cognitive control can be divided into proactive and reactive control. However, it is unclear whether individuals with schizotypy have differential behavioural impairments and neural correlates underlying these two types of cognitive control. METHOD: Twenty-five individuals with schizotypy and 26 matched healthy controls (HCs) completed both reactive and proactive control tasks with electroencephalographic data recorded. The proportion of congruent and incongruent trials was manipulated in a classic colour-word Stroop task to induce proactive or reactive control. Proactive control was induced in a context with mostly incongruent (MI) trials and reactive control in a context with mostly congruent (MC) trials. Two event-related potential (ERP) components, medial frontal negativity (MFN, associated with conflict detection) and conflict sustained potential (conflict SP, associated with conflict resolution) were examined. RESULTS: There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of behavioural results. In terms of ERP results, in the MC context, HC exhibited significantly larger MFN (360-530 ms) and conflict SP (600-1000 ms) amplitudes than individuals with schizotypy. The two groups did not show any significant difference in MFN or conflict SP in the MI context. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings provide initial evidence for dissociation of neural activation between proactive and reactive cognitive control in individuals with schizotypy. These findings help us understand cognitive control deficits in the schizophrenia spectrum.

CXCL10 is a potential biomarker and associated with immune infiltration in human papillary thyroid cancer.

BACKGROUND: In recent years, the annual incidence of thyroid cancer (TC) has increased, with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) identified as the most commonwinwordpathological type accounting for approximately 80% of all thyroid cancer cases. The tumor microenvironment is known to play a vital role in tumor information transmission and immune detection. METHODS: In the present study, we examined gene expression data from 518 patients with PTC. The ESTIMATE algorithm was used to calculate immune and stromal scores of PTC patients. Based on a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, functional enrichment and overall survival analyses, C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL10) was identified as a core gene. We further investigated the roles of core genes of PTC in the tumor immune microenvironment using LinkedOmics, GSEA, and TIMER tools. RESULTS: Immune, stromal and ESTIMATE scores were related to clinicopathological variables of patients with PTC, but not survival outcomes. Eight differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were associated with survival outcome. In addition, immunochemical staining experiments revealed lower expression of CXCL10 in PTC than paracancerous tissues. GSEA pathway enrichment analysis revealed downregulation of CXCL10 in multiple cancer pathways. CXCL10 and related genes were enriched in pathways related to adaptive immune response, cellular defense response and regulation of innate immune response. CONCLUSION: The tumor microenvironment plays a critical role in development of PTC and CXCL10 may serve as a novel target of precision therapy for this patient population.

Involuntary mental time travel in individuals with schizotypal personality features.

Involuntary mental time travel (MTT) refers to the phenomenon of mentally reliving past experiences or pre-living possible future events in an involuntary form. Few studies have explored involuntary MTT in individuals with schizotypal personality features. The present study aimed to first explore the psychometric properties of the Involuntary Autobiographic Memory Inventory (IAMI) in a Chinese sample (Study 1), and then to explore whether individuals with schizotypal personality features experience involuntary MTT more frequently than individuals without schizotypal features. Moreover, the study explored whether the aberrant frequency of involuntary MTT is correlated with positive schizotypal features (Study 2). The results showed that the IAMI had good structural validity and reliability in a Chinese sample. Individuals with schizotypal traits reported a significantly higher frequency, less positive emotion, and stronger emotional intensity for both involuntary memories and future thoughts compared with individuals without schizotypal features. Further analyses in individuals with schizotypal personality features showed that the frequencies of both involuntary memories and future thoughts were significantly correlated with positive schizotypal traits. These results have potential theoretical and clinical implications for a comprehensive understanding of involuntary MTT among individuals with schizotypal personality features.

Mind wandering in schizophrenia: A thought-sampling study.

Mind wandering has consistently been associated with impairments in cognition, emotion and daily performance. However, few experimental studies on mind wandering have been conducted in individuals with schizophrenia. The present study aimed to examine mind wandering in schizophrenia patients with a thought-sampling experiment embedded in a rapid go/no-go task and the relationship between the frequency of mind wandering and psychotic symptoms. Fifty-eight schizophrenia patients and 56 matched healthy controls were recruited and engaged in a task that assessed mind wandering. The results showed that schizophrenia patients (1.4%) reported less frequent mind wandering than healthy controls (5.8%). Moreover, there was no significant correlation between the frequency of mind wandering and psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia patients. Further studies in different stages of schizophrenia and in patients with more severe psychotic symptoms are needed to demonstrate a more comprehensive picture of mind wandering in schizophrenia.

Implementation intention training for prospective memory in schizophrenia: A 3-month follow-up study.

The beneficial effect of implementation intentions (II) on prospective memory (PM) deficits in patients with schizophrenia has been reported. However, these studies were limited to brief interventions such that the transfer and long-term effects of II training remains unclear. This study examined whether a 10-session II programme could improve PM performance, social functioning and functional capacity in patients with schizophrenia immediately after training and at 3-month follow-up. Patients with schizophrenia (n = 42) recruited from the community were randomly assigned to II training (n = 21) or treatment as usual (TAU) (n = 21). Participants in the II group learned the verbal and imagery component of II and were encouraged to apply these strategies in their daily lives. We found that the II group performed better than the TAU group on computer-based PM tasks and a daily life PM task (telephone call at specified date and time) at post-treatment and at 3-month follow-up. The II group also exhibited better working ability than the TAU group at post-treatment. Our results suggest that the II intervention programme may have lasting beneficial effects in PM performance and significant transfer effects to functional capacity in schizophrenia patients.

Life review therapy enhances mental time travel in patients with schizophrenia.

Mental Time Travel (MTT) is the ability of individuals to project themselves to the past or to the future. Studies have shown that schizophrenia (SZ) patients are impaired in MTT. The present study aimed to examine whether MTT in patients with SZ can be improved through Life Review Therapy. Fifty patients with SZ were randomly assigned to the training (SZ-training) or control (SZ-control) group. Whereas the SZ-training group received four-week Life Review Therapy in addition to conventional treatment, the SZ-control group only received conventional treatment. MTT, emotional status, life satisfaction and cognitive functions were assessed before and after the training. We also recruited 25 matched healthy controls to complete all the assessments at baseline. After training, the SZ-training group showed higher specificity and more field perspective than the SZ-control group. No significant difference was found between the SZ-training group post-training assessment and the healthy controls. The SZ-training group also showed significant improvements in emotional expression, semantic memory and verbal fluency, but the SZ-control group did not show such improvements. These results indicated that Life Review Therapy is effective in improving MTT of SZ patients.

Extensive invasive extramammary Paget disease evaluated by F-18 FDG PET/CT: a case report.

Extramammary Paget disease (EMPD) is a rare cutaneous, intraepithelial adenocarcinoma. Because of its rarity, little is known about the value of fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in evaluating this disease. Our case report aims to increase current knowledge of FDG PET/CT in EMPD as a noninvasive imaging tool for assessing the extension of the disease and detecting distant metastases.We reported a 64-year-old Chinese man who presented with a slowly progressive, ill-margined erythematous lesion with a crusted, eroded, and scaly surface involving multiple sites of penis, scrotum, left pelvic wall, hip, groin, and thigh for >4 years, which became extensive in the past 1 year. He was referred for an FDG PET/CT examination to further evaluate the lesions. A following skin biopsy was performed to obtain a definitive histological diagnosis.FDG PET/CT imaging revealed mild FDG uptake at the extensive cutaneous lesion with subcutaneous invasion, involvement of lymph nodes, and multiple intense FDG-avid of skeletal metastases. According to the appearance of FDG PET/CT, a provisional diagnosis of advanced cutaneous malignancy was made. Histopathology findings indicated characteristic of EMPD. The patient was treated with radiation therapy and died from complications 2 months after the last dose of radiotherapy.Our case highlighted that a whole-body FDG PET/CT should be incorporated into the diagnostic algorithm of EMPD to give a comprehensive assessment of this disease.

Primary anorectal melanoma on FDG PET/CT.

Primary anorectal melanoma is an extremely rare, aggressive malignancy with a poor prognosis. A 76-year-old man with a 2-month history of rectal bleeding, anal pain, and tenesmus was referred for an F-FDG PET/CT examination, which revealed an abnormal focal FDG uptake on the lower rectum with multiple other intense FDG-avid regions in locoregional pelvic lymph nodes, bones, liver, and lung. It was highly suggestive of malignancy, and a provisional diagnosis of advanced rectal carcinoma was made. However, a following tissue biopsy of the lesion on the lower rectum performed by colonoscopy histopathologically indicated primary anorectal melanoma.