Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Chalder Fatigue Scale in clinical and general populations / Propiedades psicométricas de la versión española de la Escala de Fatiga de Chalder en población clínica y general

Objetivo: La Escala de Fatiga de Chalder (CFS) es una escala breve para evaluar fatiga que se utiliza en España, pero que no ha sido validada en su población. El objetivo del estudio fue adaptar y evaluar las propiedades psicométricas de la versión española de la CFS (Sp-CFS). Método: La muestra la conformaron 3,671 participantes (3.190 de la población general y 481 pacientes), con edades entre 18 y 86 años (M = 28.43; DT = 12.71), siendo el 67.6% mujeres. Las propiedades psicométricas de la escala se probaron en un diseño transversal utilizando validación cruzada (análisis factorial exploratorio y confirmatorio) y estimación de la invarianza (sexo y condición clínica). Resultados: Un modelo de cuatro factores (baja energía, problemas de sueño, problemas de concentración y disfunción cognitiva subjetiva) en lugar de un modelo original de dos factores (fatiga física y mental) proporcionó mejores índices de bondad de ajuste a los datos. La consistencia interna y la estabilidad de la escala fueron excelentes. Su validez convergente se apoyó en su asociación significativa con la ansiedad, la depresión, el estrés y los síntomas positivos y negativos del espectro de la psicosis. El instrumento no mostró diferencias significativas entre sexos ni condiciones clínicas, y discriminó entre la población general y los pacientes, obteniendo estos últimos puntajes significativamente mayores. Conclusiones: Sp-CFS es una escala fiable y válida para medir la fatiga en población general y clínica española.(AU)

Objective:The Chalder Fatigue Scale (CFS) is a brief self-report screening scale for fatigue that is used in Spain but has not been validated for the Spanish population. The aim of this study was to adapt and evalu-ate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the CFS (Sp-CFS). Method:The sample consisted of 3,671 participants (3,190 from the general population and 481 patients), aged 18 to 86 years (M=28.43; DT=12.71), 67.6% of whom were women. Psychometric properties of the scale were tested in a cross-sectional design using cross-validation (explora-tory and confirmatory factor analysis) and estimation of invariance (sex and clinical condition). Results:A four-factor model (low energy, sleep problems, concentration problems and subjective cognitive dysfunction) rather than an original two-factor model (physical and mental fatigue) pro-vided better indices of goodness of fit to the data. The internal consistencyand stability of the scale were excellent. Its convergent validity was sup-ported by its significant association with anxiety, depression, stress, and the positive and negative symptoms of the psychosis spectrum. The instru-ment did not show significant differences between sexes or clinical condi-tions, and it discriminated between the general population and the patients, with the latter obtaining significantly greater scores. Conclusions: Sp-CFS is a reliable and valid scale for measuring a transdiagnostic construct such as fatigue in Spanish general and clinical populations.(AU)

Memory representations during slow change blindness.

Classic change blindness is the phenomenon where seemingly obvious changes that coincide with visual disruptions (such as blinks or brief blanks) go unnoticed by an attentive observer. Some early work into the causes of classic change blindness suggested that any pre-change stimulus representation is overwritten by a representation of the altered post-change stimulus, preventing change detection. However, recent work revealed that, even when observers do maintain memory representations of both the pre- and post-change stimulus states, they can still miss the change, suggesting that change blindness can also arise from a failure to compare the stored representations. Here, we studied slow change blindness, a related phenomenon that occurs even in the absence of visual disruptions when the change occurs sufficiently slowly, to determine whether it could be explained by conclusions from classic change blindness. Across three different slow change blindness experiments we found that observers who consistently failed to notice the change had access to at least two memory representations of the changing display. One representation was precise but short lived: a detailed representation of the more recent stimulus states, but fragile. The other representation lasted longer but was fairly general: stable but too coarse to differentiate the various stages of the change. These findings suggest that, although multiple representations are formed, the failure to compare hypotheses might not explain slow change blindness; even if a comparison were made, the representations would be too sparse (longer term stores) or too fragile (short-lived stores) for such comparison to inform about the change.

Visual event boundaries trigger forgetting despite active maintenance in visual working memory.

The contents of visual perception are inherently dynamic-just as we experience objects in space, so too events in time. The boundaries between these events have downstream consequences. For example, memory for incidentally encountered items is impaired when walking through a doorway, perhaps because event boundaries serve as cues to clear obsolete information from previous events. Although this kind of "memory flushing" can be adaptive, work on visual working memory (VWM) has focused on the opposite function of active maintenance in the face of distraction. How do these two cognitive operations interact? In this study, observers watched animations in which they walked through three-dimensionally rendered rooms with picture frames on the walls. Within the frames, observers either saw images that they had to remember ("encoding") or recalled images they had seen in the immediately preceding frame ("test"). Half of the time, a doorway was crossed during the delay between encoding and test. Across experiments, there was a consistent memory decrement for the first image encoded in the doorway compared to the no-doorway condition while equating time elapsed, distance traveled, and distractibility of the doorway. This decrement despite top-down VWM efforts highlights the power of event boundaries to structure what and when we forget.

Auditory objects in working memory include task-irrelevant features.

Object-based attention operates both in perception and visual working memory. While the efficient perception of auditory stimuli also requires the formation of auditory objects, little is known about their role in auditory working memory (AWM). To investigate whether attention to one object feature in AWM leads to the involuntary maintenance of another, task-irrelevant feature, we conducted four experiments. Stimuli were abstract sounds that differed on the dimensions frequency and location, only one of which was task-relevant in each experiment. The first two experiments required a match-nonmatch decision about a probe sound whose irrelevant feature value could either be identical to or differ from the memorized stimulus. Matches on the relevant dimension were detected more accurately when the irrelevant feature matched as well, whereas for nonmatches on the relevant dimension, performance was better for irrelevant feature nonmatches. Signal-detection analysis showed that changes of irrelevant frequency reduced the sensitivity for sound location. Two further experiments used continuous report tasks. When location was the target feature, changes of irrelevant sound frequency had an impact on both recall error and adjustment time. Irrelevant location changes affected adjustment time only. In summary, object-based attention led to a concurrent maintenance of task-irrelevant sound features in AWM.

An attentional mechanism model for segmenting multiple lesion regions in the diabetic retina.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR), a leading cause of blindness in diabetic patients, necessitates the precise segmentation of lesions for the effective grading of lesions. DR multi-lesion segmentation faces the main concerns as follows. On the one hand, retinal lesions vary in location, shape, and size. On the other hand, the currently available multi-lesion region segmentation models are insufficient in their extraction of minute features and are prone to overlooking microaneurysms. To solve the above problems, we propose a novel deep learning method: the Multi-Scale Spatial Attention Gate (MSAG) mechanism network. The model inputs images of varying scales in order to extract a range of semantic information. Our innovative Spatial Attention Gate merges low-level spatial details with high-level semantic content, assigning hierarchical attention weights for accurate segmentation. The incorporation of the modified spatial attention gate in the inference stage enhances precision by combining prediction scales hierarchically, thereby improving segmentation accuracy without increasing the associated training costs. We conduct the experiments on the public datasets IDRiD and DDR, and the experimental results show that the proposed method achieves better performance than other methods.

Opposing neural processing modes alternate rhythmically during sustained auditory attention.

During continuous tasks, humans show spontaneous fluctuations in performance, putatively caused by varying attentional resources allocated to process external information. If neural resources are used to process other, presumably "internal" information, sensory input can be missed and explain an apparent dichotomy of "internal" versus "external" attention. In the current study, we extract presumed neural signatures of these attentional modes in human electroencephalography (EEG): neural entrainment and α-oscillations (~10-Hz), linked to the processing and suppression of sensory information, respectively. We test whether they exhibit structured fluctuations over time, while listeners attend to an ecologically relevant stimulus, like speech, and complete a task that requires full and continuous attention. Results show an antagonistic relation between neural entrainment to speech and spontaneous α-oscillations in two distinct brain networks-one specialized in the processing of external information, the other reminiscent of the dorsal attention network. These opposing neural modes undergo slow, periodic fluctuations around ~0.07 Hz and are related to the detection of auditory targets. Our study might have tapped into a general attentional mechanism that is conserved across species and has important implications for situations in which sustained attention to sensory information is critical.

Beyond Distracted Eating: Cognitive Distraction Downregulates Odor Pleasantness and Interacts with Weight Status.

Considering the widespread issue of distracted eating, our study investigates how cognitive distraction influences the sensory perception of food-related odors among individuals with varying weight statuses. We conducted an exploratory, randomized, and cross-sectional experimental study, using the Tetris game to simulate real-life cognitive distraction, incorporating two distraction levels (low and high) and presenting five distinct odors. A total of 59 participants, categorized into a lean (n = 30) and overweight/obese group (n = 29) based on their body mass index (BMI), received odor stimuli while playing Tetris at low and high difficulty, corresponding to low and high distraction levels, respectively. Participants subsequently rated odor intensity and pleasantness under the two cognitive distraction conditions. Respiratory movements were monitored to ensure accurate olfactory stimulation. Our findings revealed no significant difference in odor intensity ratings across distraction levels (p = 0.903). However, there was a significant reduction in odor pleasantness under high cognitive distraction (p = 0.007), more pronounced in lean participants compared to those with an overweight status (p = 0.035). Additionally, an interaction between gender and cognitive distraction effects was observed in odor pleasantness perception. The differential effects of distraction across weight-status groups and genders are discussed in the context of hedonic motivation and compensatory mechanisms. This study sheds light onto the sensory mechanisms underlying distracted eating and could inform more personalized strategies for promoting healthier eating habits in a world dominated by distractions.

Leader-follower dynamics during early social interactions matter for infant word learning.

We know little about the mechanisms through which leader-follower dynamics during dyadic play shape infants' language acquisition. We hypothesized that infants' decisions to visually explore a specific object signal focal increases in endogenous attention, and that when caregivers respond to these proactive behaviors by naming the object it boosts infants' word learning. To examine this, we invited caregivers and their 14-mo-old infants to play with novel objects, before testing infants' retention of the novel object-label mappings. Meanwhile, their electroencephalograms were recorded. Results showed that infants' proactive looks toward an object during play associated with greater neural signatures of endogenous attention. Furthermore, when caregivers named objects during these episodes, infants showed greater word learning, but only when caregivers also joined their focus of attention. Our findings support the idea that infants' proactive visual explorations guide their acquisition of a lexicon.

Effects of acute stress on biological motion perception.

Biological motion perception is an essential part of the cognitive process. Stress can affect the cognitive process. The present study explored the intrinsic ERP features of the effects of acute psychological stress on biological motion perception. The results contributed scientific evidence for the adaptive behavior changes under acute stress. After a mental arithmetic task was used to induce stress, the paradigm of point-light displays was used to evaluate biological motion perception. Longer reaction time and lower accuracy were found in the inverted walking condition than in the upright walking condition, which was called the "inversion effect". The P2 peak amplitude and the LPP mean amplitude were significantly higher in the local inverted perception than in the local upright walking condition. Compared to the control condition, the stress condition induced lower RT, shorter P1 peak latency of biological motion perception, lower P2 peak amplitude and LPP mean amplitude, and higher N330 peak amplitude. There was an "inversion effect" in biological motion perception. This effect was related to the structural characteristics of biological motion perception but unrelated to the state of acute psychological stress. Acute psychological stress accelerated the reaction time and enhanced attention control of biological motion perception. Attention resources were used earlier, and less attentional investment was made in the early stage of biological motion perception processing. In the late stage, a continuous weakening of inhibition was shown in the parieto-occipital area.

When Nurses in an Emergency Situation Look for a Medical Item But Fail to See It.

Emergency department nurses may fail to see medical items in emergency cart drawers, such as syringes and tubes, while handling emergency situations, which can often contribute to a delay in managing the case. This is a phenomenon known as Looked-but-failed-to-see (LBFTS) and occurs when the observer fails to detect a visible visual stimulus among various other stimuli. LBFTS is a group of human errors, including inattentional blindness (IB), satisfaction of search, and biased search processes, and is associated with constraints on human visual processing. LBFTS has been studied extensively in the fields of aviation, military, radiology, and road safety; however, the role of LBFTS in hospital ED has generally been overlooked. Hence, a key aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of the occurrence of LBFTS among ED nurses while searching for a particular medical item during a real-life emergency. An observational cross-sectional blinded study was conducted to determine the occurrence of LBFTS in a real-life visual search task during resuscitation cases in ED. The A-B-C (antecedent-behavior-consequence) observation and recording naturalistic observation technique was used. A total of 45 ED nurses who were assigned to either the crash cart or the intubation trolley at the time of data collection agreed to participate and were included in the analysis. The results revealed that LBFTS accounted for 66% of the cases where emergency items were brought from another location. Participants missed seeing an item, although the item was directly in front of their eyes. Factors such as the perception of cognitive workload at the time of data collection positively impacted the increase in LBFTS (P = .021). Taken together, the results of the present study and recent visual studies support the occurrence of LBFTS among nurses working in ED. Devising successful strategies to reduce this phenomenon could translate directly into saved lives.

OxcarNet: sinc convolutional network with temporal and channel attention for prediction of oxcarbazepine monotherapy responses in patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy.

Objective.Monotherapy with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) is the preferred strategy for the initial treatment of epilepsy. However, an inadequate response to the initially prescribed AED is a significant indicator of a poor long-term prognosis, emphasizing the importance of precise prediction of treatment outcomes with the initial AED regimen in patients with epilepsy.Approach. We introduce OxcarNet, an end-to-end neural network framework developed to predict treatment outcomes in patients undergoing oxcarbazepine monotherapy. The proposed predictive model adopts a Sinc Module in its initial layers for adaptive identification of discriminative frequency bands. The derived feature maps are then processed through a Spatial Module, which characterizes the scalp distribution patterns of the electroencephalography (EEG) signals. Subsequently, these features are fed into an attention-enhanced Temporal Module to capture temporal dynamics and discrepancies. A channel module with an attention mechanism is employed to reveal inter-channel dependencies within the output of the Temporal Module, ultimately achieving response prediction. OxcarNet was rigorously evaluated using a proprietary dataset of retrospectively collected EEG data from newly diagnosed epilepsy patients at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital. This dataset included patients who underwent long-term EEG monitoring in a clinical inpatient setting.Main results.OxcarNet demonstrated exceptional accuracy in predicting treatment outcomes for patients undergoing Oxcarbazepine monotherapy. In the ten-fold cross-validation, the model achieved an accuracy of 97.27%, and in the validation involving unseen patient data, it maintained an accuracy of 89.17%, outperforming six conventional machine learning methods and three generic neural decoding networks. These findings underscore the model's effectiveness in accurately predicting the treatment responses in patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy. The analysis of features extracted by the Sinc filters revealed a predominant concentration of predictive frequencies in the high-frequency range of the gamma band.Significance. The findings of our study offer substantial support and new insights into tailoring early AED selection, enhancing the prediction accuracy for the responses of AEDs.

Plan nacional para las personas con trastorno por déficit de atención e hiperactividad, en el marco de la Ley N° 30956, Ley de protección de las personas con trastorno de déficit de atención e hiperactividad (TDHA) 2024-2027 / National plan for people with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, within the framework of Law No. 30956, Law for the Protection of People with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (TDHA) 2024-2027

El plan contiene los objetivos y las actividades a desarrollar durante el periodo 2024-2027 para ofrecer servicios de detección y diagnóstico precoz, atención y tratamiento a las personas con TDAH, atención y orientación sobre el TDAH a los familiares y cuidadores de las personas que lo presentan, e inclusión social y educativa que integre la cultura, el deporte, la recreación, en el marco del modelo de atención comunitaria en salud mental

[CACNA1C rs58619945 genotype influences the cortical thickness of attention network among patients with Bipolar â disorder].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the impact of CACNA1C rs58619945 genotype on the cortical thickness of attentional networks in patients with Bipolar 1 disorder type (BD-Ⅰ). METHODS: From August 2013 and August 2019, a total of 155 BD-Ⅰ patients were recruited from the outpatient and inpatient Departments of the Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, along with 82 healthy controls (HC) from the community and university. Genotype for the CACNA1C rs58619945 locus was determined for all BD-I patients and HC subjects, followed by 3.0 T magnetic resonance imaging scans to measure the cortical thickness in the alert, orienting, and executive control subnetworks. General linear models (GLMs) were used to evaluate the impact of CACNA1C rs58619945 on the cortical thickness of attentional networks. Concurrently, attentional dimension functions were assessed using repeatable battery for the assessment of neuropsychological status (RBANS) and Cambridge neuropsychological test automated battery rapid visual information processing (CANTAB RVP) test. RESULTS: Compared with the HC group, the BD-I patients had shown reduced thickness in bilateral prefrontal cortex, bilateral posterior cingulate cortex, and bilateral superior temporal cortex. A significant interaction between the CACNA1C genotype and the cortical thickness of right prefrontal cortex, right posterior parietal cortex and right superior temporal cortex was noted. Partial correlation analysis has demonstrated a significant correlation between CANTAB RVP and RBANS attention indices and cortical thickness in the right prefrontal cortex, right posterior cingulate cortex, and right superior temporal cortex predominantly among carriers of the BD-I G allele. CONCLUSION: The G allele of CACNA1C rs58619945 is associated with cortical thickness of the right prefrontal cortex, right posterior cingulate cortex, and right superior temporal cortex in BD-Ⅰ, which are part of the alerting and orienting network.

What makes working memory work? A multifaceted account of the predictive power of working memory capacity.

Working memory capacity (WMC) has received a great deal of attention in cognitive psychology partly because WMC correlates broadly with other abilities (e.g., reading comprehension, second-language proficiency, fluid intelligence) and thus seems to be a critical aspect of cognitive ability. However, it is still rigorously debated why such correlations occur. Some theories posit a single ability (e.g., attention control, short-term memory capacity, controlled memory search) as the primary reason behind WMC's predictiveness, whereas others argue that WMC is predictive because it taps into multiple abilities. Here, we tested these single- and multifaceted accounts of WMC with a large-scale (N = 974) individual-differences investigation of WMC and three hypothesized mediators: attention control, primary memory, and secondary memory. We found evidence for a multifaceted account, such that no single ability could fully mediate the relation between WMC and higher order cognition (i.e., reading comprehension and fluid intelligence). Further, such an effect held regardless of whether WMC was measured via complex span or n-back. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Alpha oscillations during visual selective attention are aberrant in youth and adults with cerebral palsy.

Our understanding of the neurobiology underlying cognitive dysfunction in persons with cerebral palsy is very limited, especially in the neurocognitive domain of visual selective attention. This investigation utilized magnetoencephalography and an Eriksen arrow-based flanker task to quantify the dynamics underlying selective attention in a cohort of youth and adults with cerebral palsy (n = 31; age range = 9 to 47 yr) and neurotypical controls (n = 38; age range = 11 to 49 yr). The magnetoencephalography data were transformed into the time-frequency domain to identify neural oscillatory responses and imaged using a beamforming approach. The behavioral results indicated that all participants exhibited a flanker effect (greater response time for the incongruent compared to congruent condition) and that individuals with cerebral palsy were slower and less accurate during task performance. We computed interference maps to focus on the attentional component and found aberrant alpha (8 to 14 Hz) oscillations in the right primary visual cortices in the group with cerebral palsy. Alpha and theta (4 to 7 Hz) oscillations were also seen in the left and right insula, and these oscillations varied with age across all participants. Overall, persons with cerebral palsy exhibit deficiencies in the cortical dynamics serving visual selective attention, but these aberrations do not appear to be uniquely affected by age.

A robust brain network for sustained attention from adolescence to adulthood that predicts later substance use.

Substance use, including cigarettes and cannabis, is associated with poorer sustained attention in late adolescence and early adulthood. Previous studies were predominantly cross-sectional or under-powered and could not indicate if impairment in sustained attention was a predictor of substance use or a marker of the inclination to engage in such behavior. This study explored the relationship between sustained attention and substance use across a longitudinal span from ages 14 to 23 in over 1000 participants. Behaviors and brain connectivity associated with diminished sustained attention at age 14 predicted subsequent increases in cannabis and cigarette smoking, establishing sustained attention as a robust biomarker for vulnerability to substance use. Individual differences in network strength relevant to sustained attention were preserved across developmental stages and sustained attention networks generalized to participants in an external dataset. In summary, brain networks of sustained attention are robust, consistent, and able to predict aspects of later substance use.

A developmental model of audio-visual attention (MAVA) for bimodal language learning in infants and robots.

A social individual needs to effectively manage the amount of complex information in his or her environment relative to his or her own purpose to obtain relevant information. This paper presents a neural architecture aiming to reproduce attention mechanisms (alerting/orienting/selecting) that are efficient in humans during audiovisual tasks in robots. We evaluated the system based on its ability to identify relevant sources of information on faces of subjects emitting vowels. We propose a developmental model of audio-visual attention (MAVA) combining Hebbian learning and a competition between saliency maps based on visual movement and audio energy. MAVA effectively combines bottom-up and top-down information to orient the system toward pertinent areas. The system has several advantages, including online and autonomous learning abilities, low computation time and robustness to environmental noise. MAVA outperforms other artificial models for detecting speech sources under various noise conditions.

Use of Virtual Reality in School-Aged Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder: A Novel Approach.

Virtual reality (VR) applications in paediatric rehabilitation are recent but promising. This brief report describes a VR rehabilitation program for a small sample of children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). The program focused explicitly on executive functions, a key area of concern for this population. It was conducted over 11 weeks in the CARE Lab. This lab was designed with appropriate structural characteristics and sophisticated technology to provide a rehabilitative setting with recreational and semi-immersive features. Before and after the VR training, the children were evaluated in terms of visual attention, inhibition, planning abilities, and visual-motor coordination. The rehabilitation programs were customised according to the clinical needs and the functional profile of each patient, proposing different games with variable complexity levels. These preliminary results showed a global and clinically significant change in executive functions, especially visual attention and inhibition skills. These findings suggest interesting implications for clinical practice, providing new information for professionals regarding the application of VR in the field of paediatric rehabilitation.

Standing Long Jump Performance Is Enhanced When Using an External as Well as Holistic Focus of Attention: A Kinematic Study.

Standing long jump is known as one of the important skills in the success of athletes in most sports. In addition, one of the most effective factors that can affect standing long jump distance and kinematics is the focus of attention used by the athlete. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to compare the effect of internal, external, and holistic focus of attention instructions on standing long jump performance and kinematics. The participants were 30 novices (all males; mean age = 21.70 ± 2.21 years; mean height = 175.73 ± 6.09 cm; and mean weight = 73.76 ± 11.77 kg) who performed 12 standing long jumps in four focus of attention conditions. Internal focus, external focus, holistic focus, and control conditions were implemented in a counterbalanced order. Jump distance and maximum knee flexion angle before take-off were recorded in all trials. The results showed that in relation to the standing long jump performance, the distance was similar in external and holistic focus conditions, and both were superior to internal or control conditions. There was no difference between control and internal focus of attention conditions. The results related to movement kinematics, however, did not report a difference between the maximum flexion angles before take-off. This study replicates the benefits of external and holistic focus instructions for jump distance, but this difference was not a product of different maximum knee flexion angles. It is suggested that coaches implement external and/or holistic focus cues to maximize athlete performance in jumping tasks.

A Bayesian inference model can predict the effects of attention on the serial dependence in heading estimation from optic flow.

It has been demonstrated that observers can accurately estimate their self-motion direction (i.e., heading) from optic flow, which can be affected by attention. However, it remains unclear how attention affects the serial dependence in the estimation. In the current study, participants conducted two experiments. The results showed that the estimation accuracy decreased when attentional resources allocated to the heading estimation task were reduced. Additionally, the estimates of currently presented headings were biased toward the headings of previously seen headings, showing serial dependence. Especially, this effect decreased (increased) when the attentional resources allocated to the previously (currently) seen headings were reduced. Furthermore, importantly, we developed a Bayesian inference model, which incorporated attention-modulated likelihoods and qualitatively predicted changes in the estimation accuracy and serial dependence. In summary, the current study shows that attention affects the serial dependence in heading estimation from optic flow and reveals the Bayesian computational mechanism behind the heading estimation.