Neuropsychological functioning in childhood-onset psychosis and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

BACKGROUND: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and childhood-onset psychosis (COP) are chronic, heterogeneous disorders with symptoms that frequently co-occur, but the etiology of their comorbidity is unknown. Studies of each disorder indicate that both ADHD and COP are associated with a range of neuropsychological weaknesses, but few neuropsychological studies have directly compared groups with ADHD and COP. METHODS: Groups with ADHD only (32 F, 48 M), COP only (5 F, 5 M), ADHD + COP (9 F, 21 M), and a control group with neither disorder (25 F, 44 M) completed a neuropsychological battery that included measures of verbal working memory, response inhibition, response speed and variability, and selective attention. RESULTS: All three clinical groups exhibited significantly lower performance versus the control group on all neuropsychological measures, whereas the only significant difference between the clinical groups was a significantly larger weakness in verbal working memory in the groups with COP. CONCLUSIONS: The frequent co-occurrence between COP and ADHD may reflect shared neuropsychological weaknesses that are most pronounced on measures of working memory and response variability.

The Postoperative Effects of Anesthesia Exposure on Cognitive Decline in Older Adults: A Narrative Review.

BACKGROUND: As modern medicine continues to make strides in effective surgical treatments, we must also consider the critical impact of anesthesia on neuropsychological outcomes. Recent evidence suggests that anesthesia exposure may be a risk factor for postoperative cognitive decline and the eventual development of dementia. OBJECTIVES: To explore the vulnerability of the aging brain in the context of anesthesia exposure in surgery, studies will be reviewed, and pertinent findings will be highlighted and explored to better understand risks and possible factors that need to be considered when contemplating surgery. METHODS: A narrative review was conducted using a combination of MEDLINE and APA PsycINFO databases to shed light on themes across studies assessing general trends regarding the influence of anesthesia on postoperative cognitive decline. RESULTS: A search of relevant literature identified 388 articles. Excluding results outside the parameters of this study, the review includes quality assessments for 24 articles. CONCLUSION: While findings are inconclusive, suggestions for further investigation into the relationship between anesthesia exposure and increased risk for postoperative cognitive decline are discussed, in addition to factors that may allow for greater informed disclosure of potential risks of anesthesia in older adults.

Untreated prenatal maternal depression and the potential risks to offspring: a review.

Research exploring the effects of prenatal maternal depression on a developing fetus and child is underrepresented in the literature. Empirical papers have typically focused on the effects of postpartum depression (after birth) instead of prepartum depression (before birth). Disparate empirical findings have produced ongoing debate regarding the effects of prenatal depression on a developing fetus and later in infancy and early childhood. Even more controversial is determining the role of antidepressant medication on offspring outcomes and whether research that does not include the proper control population (e.g., unmedicated depressed participants) can adequately address questions about risks and benefits of treatment during pregnancy. The current review systematically summarizes the literature focusing on unmedicated prenatal depression and offspring outcome and concludes that prepartum depression is highly prevalent, is associated with negative outcomes in offspring, and remains understudied.

Feasibility of an adaptive riding pilot study and acceptability to dementia care partners: "Your spirits are lifted".

OBJECTIVES: We sought to assess the feasibility and acceptability of an adaptive riding program with dyads (persons living with dementia, family care partners) and a gardening comparison condition. DESIGN: This is a two-arm (adaptive riding and adaptive gardening), mixed methods, convergent, feasibility study that occurred February 2019-June 2019. INTERVENTIONS: Upon enrollment, dyads (n=9) self-selected into either community-based adaptive riding (n=5) or adaptive gardening (n=4), two complementary interventions in Northern Colorado. Interventions occurred for hour-long, weekly sessions for eight weeks. OUTCOME MEASURES: Feasibility was measured with recruitment (actual/planned, response rate, participants enrolled/month) retention, adherence to study procedures (attendance, retention, fidelity), and data collection processes (planned versus collected); and analyzed with descriptive statistics. Acceptability of adaptive riding was measured with pre/post care partner interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. Afterwards, findings were converged. RESULTS: We recruited n=10/24 dyads (6 dyads per month), with the highest response rates for referrals and in-person events, n=9 dyads enrolled. We adhered to study procedures with attendance (6/8 gardening, 8/8 riding), retention (100%), fidelity (100%) and data collected (98%). Care partners (n=5) found the adaptive riding intervention acceptable with two themes Overall hopes: "Joy in the present moment" and "Experience as a Whole: "Your spirits are lifted," affirming quantitative attendance and retention data. CONCLUSION: Findings underscore the feasibility and acceptability of including care partners of persons living with dementia in complementary interventions involving horsemanship activities. Feasibility data can guide study designs and implementation processes for other nature-based complementary interventions for this population.

Metacognition and depressive realism: evidence for the level-of-depression account.

Introduction. The present study examined the relationship between metacognition (i.e., "thinking about thinking") and depression. More specifically, the depressive realism hypothesis (Alloy & Abramson, 1979), which posits that depressed people have a more accurate view of reality than nondepressed people, was tested. Methods. Nondepressed, mildly depressed, and moderately depressed individuals predicted their memory performance by making judgements of learning after each studied item. These predictions were then compared with actual performance on a free recall task to assess calibration, an index of metacognitive accuracy. Results and conclusions. Consistent with the depressive realism hypothesis, mild depression was associated with better calibration than nondepression. However, this "sadder but wiser" phenomenon appears to only exist to point, as moderate depression and nondepression showed no calibration differences. Thus, the level-of-depression account of depressive realism is supported.

The impact of verbal framing on brain activity evoked by emotional images.

Emotional stimuli generally command more brain processing resources than non-emotional stimuli, but the magnitude of this effect is subject to voluntary control. Cognitive reappraisal represents one type of emotion regulation that can be voluntarily employed to modulate responses to emotional stimuli. Here, the late positive potential (LPP), a specific event-related brain potential (ERP) component, was measured in response to neutral, positive and negative images while participants performed an evaluative categorization task. One experimental group adopted a "negative frame" in which images were categorized as negative or not. The other adopted a "positive frame" in which the exact same images were categorized as positive or not. Behavioral performance confirmed compliance with random group assignment, and peak LPP amplitude to negative images was affected by group membership: brain responses to negative images were significantly reduced in the "positive frame" group. This suggests that adopting a more positive appraisal frame can modulate brain activity elicited by negative stimuli in the environment.

P50 sensory gating is related to performance on select tasks of cognitive inhibition.

P50 suppression deficits have been documented in clinical and nonclinical populations, but the behavioral correlates of impaired auditory sensory gating remain poorly understood. In the present study, we examined the relationship between P50 gating and healthy adults' performance on cognitive inhibition tasks. On the basis of load theory (Lavie, Hirst, de Fockert, & Viding, 2004), we predicted that a high perceptual load, a possible consequence of poor auditory P50 sensory gating, would have differential (i.e., positive vs. negative) effects on performance of cognitive inhibition tasks. A dissociation was observed such that P50 gating was negatively related to interference resolution on a Stroop task and positively related to response inhibition on a go/no-go task. Our findings support the idea that a high perceptual load may be beneficial to Stroop performance because of the reduced processing of distractors but detrimental to performance on the go/no-go task because of interference with stimulus discrimination.

Nicotine enhances automatic temporal processing as measured by the mismatch negativity waveform.

INTRODUCTION: Cholinergic agonists and, more specifically, nicotine, have been found to enhance a number of cognitive processes. The effect of nicotine on temporal processing is not known. The use of behavioral measures of temporal processing to measure its effect could be confounded by the general effects of nicotine on attention. Mismatch negativity (MMN) has been used as a physiological measure of automatic temporal processing to avoid this potential confound. METHODS: A total of 20 subjects (11 nonsmokers and 9 smokers following 2 hr of abstinence) participated in a two-visit single-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study of the effect of nicotine on MMN indices in response to an interstimulus interval deviant. RESULTS: Nicotine-enhanced MMN amplitudes from baseline recording to postdrug recording greater than did the placebo condition. This enhancement was seen in both nonsmokers and smokers. Nicotine had no significant effect on MMN latency or N100 amplitude or latency. DISCUSSION: This is the first study to demonstrate a nicotine-related enhancement of MMN amplitude to an interstimulus interval duration deviant and confirms our hypothesis that nicotine enhances preattentive temporal processing. Nicotinic agonists may represent a potential therapeutic option for individuals with abnormalities in early sensory or temporal processing related to cholinergic system abnormalities. Methodologically, our paradigm of nicotine administration in abstinent smokers is important because it resulted in both minimal withdrawal symptoms and meaningful data that are not attributable solely to relief of withdrawal.

B Sharp-The cognitive effects of a pilot community music program for people with dementia-related disorders.

INTRODUCTION: Dementia has been described as the greatest global challenge for healthcare in the 21st century. Pharmaceutical interventions have dominated dementia treatment despite limited efficacy. There is increasing interest in alternatives to delay the progression of cognitive decline, such as community-based programs, promoting social and stimulating experiences. This article discusses a pilot music-based community program (B Sharp) for persons with dementia-related disorders. METHOD: In the pilot study, we assessed 23 persons with dementia-related disorders who, with their caregivers, attended the symphony season and accompanying social hours over a 10-month period. Participants completed a baseline and follow-up brief neuropsychological test to assess cognitive changes. RESULTS: Significant improvements were observed between the pre- and post-B Sharp program assessments (P < .010). DISCUSSION: Results support the feasibility of the B Sharp program as a community-based program to target cognitive decline. Additional research is needed to understand the mechanisms involved in the improvements observed in this program.

Attentional and Neural Processing of Affective and Alcohol-Related Images in University-Attending Emerging Adults.

High-risk drinking is prevalent in university-attending emerging adults. This coincides with a critical time for the development of higher level cognitive and emotional processing and underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Cognitive and emotional processing seems to have a particularly sensitive relationship with alcohol. The current study sought to examine the relationship between alcohol use and neurophysiology in an emerging adult, university-attending population. Neurophysiological response, defined as event-related potentials, to alcohol-related and emotionally affective images were evaluated in 23 drinkers and 21 nondrinkers. Drinkers had a greater attentional response to alcohol, positive, and negative images compared to nondrinkers. No differences were found between groups for attentional response (P2) to neutral images or for later emotional processing (late positive potential) for any stimuli type. These data suggest that this drinking population processes alcohol stimuli and affective images similarly and more robustly than nondrinking peers. These data support a relationship between alcohol and emotional processing in emerging adults.

Increased hemodynamic response in the hippocampus, thalamus and prefrontal cortex during abnormal sensory gating in schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: Deficits in sensory gating are a common feature of schizophrenia. Failure of inhibitory gating mechanisms, shown by poor suppression of evoked responses to repeated auditory stimuli, has been previously studied using EEG methods. These methods yield information about the temporal characteristics of sensory gating deficits, but do not identify brain regions involved in the process. Hence, the neuroanatomical substrates of poor sensory gating in schizophrenia remain largely unknown. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the functional neuroanatomy of sensory gating deficits in schizophrenia. METHODS: Twelve patients with schizophrenia and 12 healthy comparison subjects were scanned at 3 Tesla while performing a sensory gating task developed for fMRI. P50 EEG evoked potential recordings from a paired-stimulus conditioning-test paradigm were obtained from the same subjects. RESULTS: Compared to healthy comparison subjects, patients with schizophrenia exhibited greater activation in the hippocampus, thalamus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during the fMRI sensory gating task. No group difference was observed in the superior temporal gyrus. Schizophrenia subjects also showed decreased P50 suppression as measured with EEG. Hemodynamic response in the fMRI measure was positively correlated with test/conditioning ratios from the EEG sensory gating measure. CONCLUSIONS: Poor sensory gating in schizophrenia is associated with dysfunction of an apparent network of brain regions, including the hippocampus, thalamus and DLPFC. Greater activation of these regions is consistent with evidence for diminished inhibitory function in schizophrenia.

Age differences in Stroop interference: contributions of general slowing and task-specific deficits.

This study examined the contributions of general slowing and task-specific deficits to age-related changes in Stroop interference. Nine hundred thirty-eight participants aged 20 to 89 years completed an abbreviated Stroop color-naming task and a subset of 281 participants also completed card-sorting, simple reaction time, and choice reaction time tasks. Age-related increases in incongruent color-naming latency and card-sorting perseverative errors were observed. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that the processing speed measures accounted for significant variance on both dependent measures, but that there was also a significant residual effect of age. An additional regression analysis showed that some of the variance in incongruent color-naming, after controlling for processing speed, was shared with the variance in perseverative errors. Overall, findings suggest that the age difference in Stroop interference is partially attributable to general slowing, but is also attributable to age-related changes in task-specific processes such as inhibitory control.

Cognitive functioning, aging, and work: A review and recommendations for research and practice.

There is a larger proportion and number of older adults in the labor force than ever before. Furthermore, older adults in the workforce are working until later ages. Although a great deal of research has examined physical health and well-being of working older adults, less research has focused on cognitive functioning. The purpose of this article is to provide a broad contemporary and multidisciplinary review of the intersection between cognitive functioning, aging, and work as a follow-up to a paper previously written by Fisher et al. (2014). We begin by providing definitions and background about cognitive functioning and how it changes over the life span. Next we discuss theories relevant to the intersection of cognitive functioning and work, including the use-it-or-lose-it hypothesis, the cognitive reserve hypothesis, hypotheses regarding environmental influences on intellectual functioning, and the job-demands-resources model. Then we summarize recent research about the effects of work on cognitive functioning, as well as ways that cognitive functioning may influence work motivation, learning, development, training, and safety. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of person-environment fit, suggesting avenues for future research, and discussing practical implications for the field of occupational health psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record

Age-related change in neural processing of time-dependent stimulus features.

Aging is associated with changes in automatic processing of task-irrelevant stimuli, and this may lead to functional disturbances including repeated orienting to nonnovel events and distraction from task. The effect of age on automatic processing of time-dependent stimulus features was investigated by measurement of the auditory mismatch negativity (MMN) in younger (18-23) and older (55-85) adults. Amplitude of MMN recorded during a paradigm involving low-probability deviation in interstimulus interval (from 500 ms to 250 ms) was found to be reduced in the older group at fronto-central sites. This effect was paralleled by, and correlated to, decreased sensory gating efficiency for component N1 recorded during a separate paradigm involving alternate presentation of auditory stimuli at long (9 s) and short (0.5 s) interstimulus intervals. Further, MMN amplitude was correlated to behavioral performance on a small subset of neuropsychological tests, including the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, within a group of healthy older adults. The results support the hypothesis that aging is associated with declines in automatic processing of time-dependent stimulus features, and this is related to cognitive function. These conclusions are considered in the context of age-related declines in prefrontal cortex function and associated increases in susceptibility to task-irrelevant stimuli.

Effects of perceived parental school support and family communication on delinquent behaviors in latinos and white non-latinos.

The authors examined the roles of perceived parental school support and family communication in the context of delinquent behaviors in Mexican American and White non-Latino adolescents. Family communication was defined as the degree to which adolescents endorsed that they communicated with their parents about a variety of topics. The Parental School Support scale was administered to assess adolescents' perceptions of parental support for academic pursuits. Data analysis included the relationship between these variables and their predictive relationship to delinquency, and the relationship to gender and ethnicity. Results demonstrated that adolescents' perceptions of family communication and parental school support were related to the likelihood of committing delinquent acts. There were no significant differences in gender or ethnicity in perceived levels of family communication and parental school support.

Levels of attention and task difficulty in the modulation of interval duration mismatch negativity.

Time perception has been described as a fundamental skill needed to engage in a number of higher level cognitive processes essential to successfully navigate everyday life (e.g., planning, sequencing, etc.) Temporal processing is often thought of as a basic neural process that impacts a variety of other cognitive processes. Others, however, have argued that timing in the brain can be affected by a number of variables such as attention and motivation. In an effort to better understand timing in the brain at a basic level with minimal attentional demands, researchers have often employed use of the mismatch negativity (MMN). MMN, specifically duration MMN (dMMN) and interval MMN (iMMN) have been popular methods for studying temporal processing in populations for which attention or motivation may be an issue (e.g., clinical populations, early developmental studies). There are, however, select studies which suggest that attention may in fact modify both temporal processing in general and the MMN event-related potential. It is unclear the degree to which attention affects MMN or whether the effects differ depending on the complexity or difficulty of the MMN paradigm. The iMMN indexes temporal processing and is elicited by introducing a deviant interval duration amid a series of standards. A greater degree of difference in the deviant from the standard elicits a heightened iMMN. Unlike past studies, in which attention was intentionally directed toward a closed-captioned move, the current study had participants partake in tasks involving varying degrees of attention (passive, low, and high) with varying degrees of deviants (small, medium, and large) to better understand the role of attention on the iMMN and to assess whether level of attention paired with changes in task difficulty differentially influence the iMMN electrophysiological responses. Data from 19 subjects were recorded in an iMMN paradigm. The amplitude of the iMMN waveform showed an increase with attention, particularly for intervals that were the most distinct from a standard interval (p < 0.02). Results suggest that the role of attention on the iMMN is complex. Both the degree of attention paid as well as the level of difficulty of the MMN task likely influence the neuronal response within a timing network. These results suggest that electrophysiological perception of time is modified by attention and that the design of the iMMN study is critical to minimize the possible confounding effects of attention. In addition, the implications of these results for future studies assessing interval duration-based MMN in clinical populations is also addressed.

Neuropsychological deficits in children associated with increased familial risk for schizophrenia.

By studying neuropsychological performance in children genetically at-risk for schizophrenia, greater understanding may be obtained regarding the developmental processes of schizophrenia and associated cognitive weaknesses. A variety of cognitive deficits in genetically at-risk children have been reported. The present study was designed to examine cognitive tasks that have traditionally differentiated children genetically at-risk for schizophrenia (e.g. working memory) from normal children, while also assessing abilities that have received scant attention in this population. Aspects of emotional perception, verbal abilities, inhibition, visuo-spatial skills, and working memory were assessed in children of schizophrenic parents and normal children. Significant differences in performances were identified in at-risk children on measures of verbal skills, working memory and inhibition. Findings suggest that children genetically at-risk for developing schizophrenia exhibit neurocognitive weaknesses generally consistent with those noted in the literature. However, inhibition also appeared to be a cognitive process that significantly differentiated the groups. The possibility of a developmental expression of neurocognitive deficits is discussed.

Mismatch negativity in detection of interval duration deviation in schizophrenia.

Temporal processing deficits have been noted in behavioral studies assessing patients with schizophrenia. The current study sought to explore the physiology of temporal perception while controlling the effects of motivation, attention and other cognitive processes that may contribute to behavioral measures of temporal processing. Mismatch negativity (MMN) waveforms were measured in response to variations in the temporal parameters of an ongoing train of pure tones. A standard inter-stimulus interval of 400 ms was interrupted, on average, every 20th tone by an inter-stimulus interval of 340 ms. Amplitude of MMN waveform elicited by the temporal deviance was significantly reduced in the schizophrenia group compared with controls (p = 0.016). Results suggest that behavioral difficulties on time processing tasks in schizophrenia may reflect a physiological deficit in temporal perception in this population rather than simply more general difficulties in attention or motivation.

Small changes in temporal deviance modulate mismatch negativity amplitude in humans.

The relative sensitivity of mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitude to small changes in temporal (i.e. timing) deviance of an ongoing stimulus train was investigated. MMN was measured at Fz in response to 3.75-15% decrements of inter-stimulus interval from a 400 ms standard with a deviant probability of 1/15. This parameter space represents the smallest degree of deviance and the narrowest range of variation that has been tested in the context of MMN sensitivity to temporal variables. Waveform amplitude was found to significantly increase with degree of temporal deviance even within this relatively narrow parameter space. This finding is consistent with the view that the MMN corresponds to pre-attentive neural activity that subsequently allows the conscious perception of time during temporal discrimination tasks.

Cognitive function predicts neural activity associated with pre-attentive temporal processing.

Temporal processing, or processing time-related information, appears to play a significant role in a variety of vital psychological functions. One of the main confounds to assessing the neural underpinnings and cognitive correlates of temporal processing is that behavioral measures of timing are generally confounded by other supporting cognitive processes, such as attention. Further, much theorizing in this field has relied on findings from clinical populations (e.g., individuals with schizophrenia) known to have temporal processing deficits. In this study, we attempted to avoid these difficulties by comparing temporal processing assessed by a pre-attentive event-related brain potential (ERP) waveform, the mismatch negativity (MMN) elicited by time-based stimulus features, to a number of cognitive functions within a non-clinical sample. We studied healthy older adults (without dementia), as this population inherently ensures more prominent variability in cognitive function than a younger adult sample, allowing for the detection of significant relationships between variables. Using hierarchical regression analyses, we found that verbal memory and executive functions (i.e., planning and conditional inhibition, but not set-shifting) uniquely predicted variance in temporal processing beyond that predicted by the demographic variables of age, gender, and hearing loss. These findings are consistent with a frontotemporal model of MMN waveform generation in response to changes in the temporal features of auditory stimuli.