Pet ownership and mental health during COVID-19 lockdown.

Owning a pet has often been associated with improved mental health among owners, including enhanced quality of life, and decreased levels of depression and loneliness. The aim of this study was to identify whether owning a cat and/or dog was associated with better psychological wellbeing during a strict lockdown period in Victoria, Australia, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were analysed from a large-scale mental health study: the COvid-19 and you: mentaL heaLth in AusTralia now survEy (COLLATE). The impact of pet ownership on levels of resilience, loneliness and quality of life were examined in a sample of 138 pet owners and 125 non-pet owners. Hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that pet ownership was significantly associated with poorer quality of life, but not significantly associated with resilience or loneliness, after accounting for situational factors (e.g. job loss) and mood states. Contrary to expectations, the findings suggest that during a specific situation such as a pandemic, pets may contribute to increased burden among owners and contribute to poorer quality of life.

Identifying the cognitive underpinnings of voice-hearing by comparing never, past and current voice-hearers.

OBJECTIVE: The current study aimed to compare specific cognitive profiles corresponding to auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) status and elucidate which pattern of cognitive deficits may predict voice-hearing status. METHOD: Clinical participants with schizophrenia spectrum disorders were partitioned into: (i) current voice-hearers (n = 46), (ii) past voice-hearers (n = 37) and (iii) never voice-hearers (n = 40), and compared with 319 non-clinical controls. Cognitive assessment employed the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB), supplemented by the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Colour-Word Interference Test (Stroop) as a robust measure of executive function. RESULTS: On the Visual Learning domain, current and past voice-hearers had significantly poorer performance relative to never voice-hearers, who in turn had significantly poorer performance than non-clinical controls. Current and never voice-hearers had significantly poorer performance on the Social Cognition domain relative to non-clinical controls. Current voice-hearers also had significantly poorer performance on the Inhibition domain relative to non-clinical controls. Binary logistic regression revealed that Visual Learning was the only significant cognitive predictor of AVH presence. CONCLUSION: Visual learning, and potentially inhibition, may be viable therapeutic targets when addressing cognitive mechanisms associated with AVHs. Future research should focus on investigating additional cognitive mechanisms, employing diverse voice-hearing populations and embarking on related longitudinal studies.

Deterioration of visuospatial associative memory following a first psychotic episode: a long-term follow-up study.

BACKGROUND: Cognitive deficits are a core feature of schizophrenia, and impairments in most domains are thought to be stable over the course of the illness. However, cross-sectional evidence indicates that some areas of cognition, such as visuospatial associative memory, may be preserved in the early stages of psychosis, but become impaired in later established illness stages. This longitudinal study investigated change in visuospatial and verbal associative memory following psychosis onset. METHODS: In total 95 first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients and 63 healthy controls (HC) were assessed on neuropsychological tests at baseline, with 38 FEP and 22 HCs returning for follow-up assessment at 5-11 years. Visuospatial associative memory was assessed using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery Visuospatial Paired-Associate Learning task, and verbal associative memory was assessed using Verbal Paired Associates subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale - Revised. RESULTS: Visuospatial and verbal associative memory at baseline did not differ significantly between FEP patients and HCs. However, over follow-up, visuospatial associative memory deteriorated significantly for the FEP group, relative to healthy individuals. Conversely, verbal associative memory improved to a similar degree observed in HCs. In the FEP cohort, visuospatial (but not verbal) associative memory ability at baseline was associated with functional outcome at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Areas of cognition that develop prior to psychosis onset, such as visuospatial and verbal associative memory, may be preserved early in the illness. Later deterioration in visuospatial memory ability may relate to progressive structural and functional brain abnormalities that occurs following psychosis onset.

Neurocognitive subtypes in patients with bipolar disorder and their unaffected siblings.

BACKGROUND: Our previous work revealed substantial heterogeneity in the cognitive profile of bipolar disorder (BD) due to the presence of three underlying cognitive subgroups characterized as: globally impaired, selectively impaired, or cognitively intact. In an effort to determine whether these subgroups are differentially related to genetic risk for the illness, we investigated whether cognitive deficits were more pronounced in unaffected siblings (UAS) of BD probands within identified clusters. METHODS: Cluster analysis was used to identify cognitive clusters in BD (N = 60). UAS (N = 49) were classified into groups according to their proband sibling's cluster assignment; comparisons were made across all clusters and healthy controls (HCs; N = 71). RESULTS: Three cognitive clusters in BD emerged: a globally impaired (36.7%), a selectively impaired (30%), and a cognitively intact cluster (33.3%). UAS showed a qualitatively similar pattern to their BD siblings; UAS of the globally impaired BD cluster showed verbal memory and general cognitive impairments relative to HCs. In contrast, UAS of the other two clusters did not differ from HCs. CONCLUSIONS: This study corroborates findings from prior work regarding the presence of cognitive heterogeneity in BD. UAS of subjects in the globally impaired BD cluster presented with a qualitatively similar cognitive profile to their siblings and performed worse than all other BD clusters and UAS groups. This suggests that inherited risk factors may be contributing to cognitive deficits more notably in one subgroup of patients with BD, pointing toward differential causes of cognitive deficits in discrete subgroups of patients with the disorder.

Characterizing cognitive heterogeneity on the schizophrenia-bipolar disorder spectrum.

BACKGROUND: Current group-average analysis suggests quantitative but not qualitative cognitive differences between schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD). There is increasing recognition that cognitive within-group heterogeneity exists in both disorders, but it remains unclear as to whether between-group comparisons of performance in cognitive subgroups emerging from within each of these nosological categories uphold group-average findings. We addressed this by identifying cognitive subgroups in large samples of SZ and BD patients independently, and comparing their cognitive profiles. The utility of a cross-diagnostic clustering approach to understanding cognitive heterogeneity in these patients was also explored. METHOD: Hierarchical clustering analyses were conducted using cognitive data from 1541 participants (SZ n = 564, BD n = 402, healthy control n = 575). RESULTS: Three qualitatively and quantitatively similar clusters emerged within each clinical group: a severely impaired cluster, a mild-moderately impaired cluster and a relatively intact cognitive cluster. A cross-diagnostic clustering solution also resulted in three subgroups and was superior in reducing cognitive heterogeneity compared with disorder clustering independently. CONCLUSIONS: Quantitative SZ-BD cognitive differences commonly seen using group averages did not hold when cognitive heterogeneity was factored into our sample. Members of each corresponding subgroup, irrespective of diagnosis, might be manifesting the outcome of differences in shared cognitive risk factors.

Pathways between neurocognition, social cognition and emotion regulation in bipolar disorder.

OBJECTIVE: Converging evidence suggests that in bipolar disorder (BD), social cognition and emotion regulation are affected by the capacity for effective neurocognitive function. Adaptive emotion regulation may also rely on intact social cognition, and it is possible that social cognition acts as a mediator in its relationship with neurocognition. We aimed to address this hypothesis by explicitly examining interrelationships among neurocognition, social cognition and emotion regulation in an out-patient sample meeting criteria for a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of BD compared with controls. METHOD: Fifty-one BD patients and 52 healthy controls completed a battery of tests assessing neurocognition, social cognition (emotion perception and theory of mind) and emotion regulation. RESULTS: Path analysis revealed that in BD, neurocognition was associated with social cognition, but social cognition was not associated with emotion regulation as expected. In contrast, a component of social cognition was found to mediate the relationship between neurocognition and emotion regulation in healthy controls. CONCLUSION: These findings highlight differences in the pattern of associations between neurocognition, social cognition and emotion regulation across BD patients and controls. In the present data, these results appear to indicate that neurocognitive and social cognitive abilities generally operate in isolation from emotion regulation in BD.

Is the non-verbal behavioural emotion-processing profile of bipolar disorder impaired? A critical review.

OBJECTIVE: Growing evidence suggests that patients with bipolar disorder (BD) are impaired in their ability to process non-verbal emotion, although few comprehensive reviews of the behavioural literature exist, and there has been little consideration of methodological issues that may account for discrepant empirical findings. This review examines the behavioural facial, prosodic and multimodal processing literature in BD and discusses methodological issues in the context of this evidence. METHOD: Major computer databases including Google Scholar and PsychINFO were consulted to conduct a comprehensive review of quantitative behavioural differences in the emotion-processing literature in BD. Articles were accepted only if the target population sample met criteria for a DSM-III, DSM-IV or ICD-10 diagnosis, and they contained a healthy control group. RESULTS: The current literature suggests that facial emotion processing is impaired, and there is preliminary evidence for some behavioural impairment in the processing of emotional prosody. CONCLUSION: The specificity or generalisability of impairments in facial emotion processing and the effects of mood state are unclear. Similarly, the lack of clarity around the impact of auditory processes on emotional prosody processing warrants a comprehensive examination of the auditory profile in BD.