Phonological Fluency Research Articles

Determinants of Adherence to a "GRADIOR" Computer-Based Cognitive Training Program in People with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Mild Dementia.

Background: Computer-based programs have been implemented from a psychosocial approach for the care of people with dementia (PwD). However, several factors may determine adherence of older PwD to this type of treatment. The aim of this paper was to identify the sociodemographic, cognitive, psychological, and physical-health determinants that helped predict adherence or not to a “GRADIOR” computerized cognitive training (CCT) program in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild dementia. Method: This study was part of a randomized clinical trial (RCT) (ISRCTN: 15742788). However, this study will only focus on the experimental group (n = 43) included in the RCT. This group was divided into adherent people (compliance: ≥60% of the sessions and persistence in treatment up to 4 months) and non-adherent. The participants were 60–90 age and diagnosed with MCI and mild dementia. We selected from the evaluation protocol for the RCT, tests that evaluated cognitive aspects (memory and executive functioning), psychological and physical health. The CCT with GRADIOR consisted of attending 2–3 weekly sessions for 4 months with a duration of 30 min Data analysis: Phi and Biserial-point correlations, a multiple logical regression analysis was obtained to find the adherence model and U Mann–Whitney was used. Results: The adherence model was made up of the Digit Symbol and Arithmetic of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III) and Lexical Verbal Fluency (LVF) -R tests. This model had 90% sensitivity, 50% specificity and 75% precision. The goodness-of-fit p-value of the model was 0.02. Conclusions: good executive functioning in attention, working memory (WM), phonological verbal fluency and cognitive flexibility predicted a greater probability that a person would be adherent.

Parents and Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Early ‎Reading Intervention Implemented as a Curriculum for ‎Children with Learning Disability

Stakeholder and parent preceptive have an influence on children’s educational performance of early reading stages. The purpose of this study was to understand stakeholders’ perspectives of early reading skills as a curriculum for early readers with learning disabilities. This study used a quantitative method to identify perspectives of stakeholders and parents. Data were collected from 25 public elementary in the metropolitan area of Hail City. Data were analyzed with Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) to investigate effects and interactions between variables. The results indicated that 93% of parents and stakeholders strongly agreed on the importance of reading skills as follows: phonological awareness, phonics, and fluency. Also, participants’ role had a significant impact on the variables of perspective while age of participants had non-significant impact. Also, educational levels of participants had no significant affect and impact on the perspective. But, when grouped two variables, participants’ role by Age interaction had a significant effect on the combined dependent variables. Also, participants’ role by education level interaction had significant impact on participant’s perspective. Participants’ role’s by age by educational level interaction had significant impact on the perspective.

LSD, afterglow and hangover: Increased episodic memory and verbal fluency, decreased cognitive flexibility

Psychedelics acutely impair cognitive functions, but these impairments decline with growing experiences with psychedelics and microdoses may even exert opposing effects. Given the recent evidence that psychedelics induce neuroplasticity, this explorative study aimed at investigating the potential of psychedelics to sub-acutely change cognition. For this, we applied a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study with 24 healthy volunteers receiving 50 μg lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or an inactive placebo. Sub-acute changes in cognition were measured 24 h after dosing, including memory (Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure, ROCF; 2D Object-Location Memory Task, OLMT; Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning Test, RAVLT), verbal fluency (phonological; semantic; switch), design fluency (basic; filter; switch), cognitive flexibility (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, WCST), sustained and switching attention (Trail Making Test, TMT), inhibitory control (Stroop Task) and perceptual reasoning (Block Design Test, BDT). The results show that when compared to placebo and corrected for Body Mass Index (BMI) and abstinence period from psychedelics, LSD sub-acutely improved visuospatial memory (ROCF immediate recall points and percentage, OLMT consolidation percentage) and phonological verbal fluency and impaired cognitive flexibility (WCST: fewer categories achieved; more perseveration, errors and conceptual level responses). In conclusion, the low dose of LSD moderately induced both “afterglow” and “hangover”. The improvements in visuospatial memory and phonological fluency suggest that LSD-assisted therapy should be explored as a novel treatment perspective in conditions involving memory and language declines such as brain injury, stroke or dementia.

Acquiring the language of instruction: Effect of home language experience

AbstractThe study followed 6-year-old children in Canadian French Immersion for three years to investigate the effect of home language background on acquisition of French, the language of schooling. None of the children knew French before beginning the program. French proficiency was indicated by French vocabulary and verbal fluency tasks. A language background questionnaire was used to (a) assign children to monolingual or bilingual groups and (b) provide a continuous score for degree of bilingual experience. Categorical analyses showed bilingual children had smaller English vocabulary than monolingual children when they entered the program. For French vocabulary, categorical comparisons revealed no language group differences in the first two years but higher French scores for bilingual children in the third year. In contrast, analyses of the continuous scores revealed a relation between more bilingual experience and higher French vocabulary throughout. Similarly, categorical analyses of verbal fluency results indicated no significant language group differences for either semantic or phonological fluency, but continuous analyses of semantic fluency showed an association between more bilingual experience and better outcomes in each year. These results suggest that language experience impacts progress in learning the language of schooling and that different analytic approaches reveal different aspects of the pattern.

Cognición social y funcionamiento ejecutivo en los trastornos del espectro autista: ¿Qué hace la diferencia?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent challenges in social interaction, speech and nonverbal communication, and restricted/repetitive behaviors. The level varies depending on the impact and persistence of the symptoms in the person’s daily life. Some level 3 cases have a full dependence on their caregivers, while level 1, the other side of the spectrum, includes what used to be known as Asperger’s Syndrome (AS), who usually have a normal IQ and high language skills. The prevalence varies depending on the country and type of methodology for the estimation; at present it has been estimated that approximately 1 in 59 children presented this condition according to the study of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In Colombia, a high prevalence of the disorder has been found: from 1/87 to 1/91 according to the screening instrument. The objective of this work is to determine the relationship between social cognition (SC), that focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations, and executive functioning (EF), that are skills we use every day to learn, work and manage daily life, in a sample of children with level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder. An observational, cross-sectional, correlational analytical methodology was designed with two independent groups, ASD (n = 39) and control (n = 39) between 8 and 16 years of age, all of them enrolled in school. Both groups were assessed by neurodevelopmental experts to determine the presence or absence of ASD symptoms. For the components of the EF, the card classification subtests, regression digit span and phonological fluency of the Infant Neuropsychological Assessment (ENI) were used to evaluate the capacity for abstraction, the formation of concepts and the change of cognitive strategies in response to the changes that occur in environmental contingencies, as well as the initiation, efficient organization of verbal recovery, inhibition and self-monitoring. For the SC, the first and second order false beliefs were used to evaluate the ability of subjects to infer that someone has a belief that is different from their own and a third party; the Facial Expressions Test, to assess facial emotional recognition; and advanced tests such as Happé’s Strange Stories, the Faux Pas test and Reading the mind in the eyes test to assess understanding of covert language, detection of lies or deception, and attribution of cognitive emotions through inference from beliefs or intentions of others. This study found that the SC test, Happé’s strange stories and Reading the mind in the eyes test were able to discriminate both groups and confirm that ASD subjects have an alteration in emotional Theory of Mind. Although no differences were found in EF between the two groups, the hypothesis that there are alterations in EF in ASD is not rejected; on the contrary, the importance of carrying out a complete evaluation with sensitive instruments is emphasized, it suggests reviewing the evaluation of executive functioning to better delineate the interaction between EF and SC in ASD, expanding the measurement of EF of more emotional domain including some “hot” EF measures; outlining new strategies to understand the interaction between the cognitive and social domains, advancing neurocognitive intervention and prognosis in this syndrome. In future phases of this line of research, a better choice of instruments should be considered, including the Theory of Mind Inventory-2 (ToMi-2), a questionnaire filled out by caregivers that allows obtaining information on factors and domains evaluated by the applied tests that also has a pragmatic subscale. https://doi.org/10.16888/interd.2022.39.2.12

Three tasks for the exploration of verbal fluency: evidence of test-retest reliability in Argentine adults

The phonological and semantic verbal fluency tasks are frequently used in neuropsychological assessment due to their easy application and good sensitivity to dementia. In Argentina, the psychometric evidence for these tasks is limited, with a special lack of knowledge of the temporal stability of its measurements. The psychometric production is even lower for the action fluency variant (emission of verbs in the infinitive in one minute). In effect, this research analyzes the test-retest reliability of three verbal fluency tasks in Argentine adults. The sample was made up of 85 Argentine (average age, 63.7 years), 75,3% women and with a medium-high educational level. A prospective longitudinal design was carried out, administering phonological, semantic and action fluency tasks at two different times with an interval of up to four months. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), a statistical method suggested for test-retest reliability studies, was analyzed. For the interpretation of the ICC, the Fleiss criteria were adopted. The phonological and semantic fluency tasks showed good reliability, with ICCs of 0.77 and 0.79. The fluidity of action variant yielded ICC of 0.90, indicating excellent reliability. All fluency tasks have appropriate temporal stability, and their use is recommended when prospective neuropsychological research is planned (with language evaluation at different times) or as a method of monitoring the evolution of aphasic patients undergoing neurorehabilitation. Based on its excellent reliability, it is recommended to use the action variant more frequently.

The Effect of Education and Gender on Language Proficiency: A Study of Multilingual Hungarian Young Adults’ Verbal Fluency

Recent developments in the field of multilingual processing have led to a renewed interest in exploring the effect of verbal fluency tasks from a new perspective (Shishkin & Ecke, 2018). This Hungarian case study intends to investigate the effect of verbal fluency tasks on multilingual participants’ language proficiency with special attention to gender differences and educational background. Six participants were recruited to take part in the study: three males and three females. Respondents’ first language (L1) was Hungarian while their two foreign languages include English (L2/ L3) and German (L2/ L3). Data for this study were collected by using verbal fluency tasks, namely phonological and semantic fluency tests. Data management and analysis were performed using SPSS 22. The results suggest that students outperformed their graduate peers. The majority of the participants obtained better scores in English in terms of semantic fluency meanwhile most of the subjects achieved greater results in German as for the phonemic category. Female participants outperformed males both in the majority of phonemic and semantic tasks.

A comparative study of 18F‐FDG PET brain metabolism and cognitive performance between normal controls and amnestic Alzheimer’s disease patients

AbstractBackground18F‐fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography (18F‐FDG PET) allows the measurement of brain metabolism in vivo. In neurodegenerative diseases, hypometabolism´s topography patterns usually correlate with certain types of cognitive dysfunction. In the amnestic presentation of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), the temporoparietal hypometabolism is the typical 18F‐FDG PET signature. However, much less is known about its spatial correlation with other cognitive manifestations typically seen in the clinical setting. Objectives: To compare the distribution of 18F‐FDG PET between Normal Controls (NC), patients with Mild Cognitive impairment due to AD (MCI‐AD), and patients with AD Dementia (ADD) and to analyze each cognitive test as a covariate.MethodCross‐sectional study, including 14 NC (13 PET‐PIB ‐, 1 PET‐PIB +), 25 MCI, and 28 ADD patients, (all PET‐PIB +) matched by age and education. Images were normalized to a template using non‐linear methods. The metabolic differences between the 3 groups were evaluated by a voxel‐wise analysis based on Statistical Parametric Mapping. Statistical models were applied using neuropsychological tests as covariates, and VOIS statistics were generated using the Boogle‐DKT atlas.ResultDifferences were observed between the groups analyzed in middle and inferior temporal, posterior parietal, posterior cingulate, and precuneus cortical regions, among other areas of interest (p <0.005). Some of these areas correlated with a worse performance in verbal episodic memory tests (left temporoparietal regions), visuospatial tests (right parietal regions) and phonological fluency tests (left frontal and temporoparietal regions), among other results (p<0.005).ConclusionIn this study, 18F‐FDG PET voxel‐wise analysis showed metabolic differences between the groups included, following the severity spectrum of each amnestic AD stage considered. Although these differences correlated with some cortical areas usually reported as the “AD metabolic signature”, some cortical regions were associated with cognitive functions that weren´t previously reported, allowing a better understanding of the cortical networks involved in the clinical manifestations of AD.

Glycemic Dysregulations Are Associated With Worsening Cognitive Function in Older Participants at High Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: Two-Year Follow-up in the PREDIMED-Plus Study.

IntroductionType 2 diabetes has been linked to greater cognitive decline, but other glycemic parameters such as prediabetes, diabetes control and treatment, and HOMA-IR and HbA1c diabetes-related biomarkers have shown inconsistent results. Furthermore, there is limited research assessing these relationships in short-term studies. Thus, we aimed to examine 2-year associations between baseline diabetes/glycemic status and changes in cognitive function in older participants at high risk of cardiovascular disease.MethodsWe conducted a 2-year prospective cohort study (n=6,874) within the framework of the PREDIMED-Plus study. The participants (with overweight/obesity and metabolic syndrome; mean age 64.9 years; 48.5% women) completed a battery of 8 cognitive tests, and a global cognitive function Z-score (GCF) was estimated. At baseline, participants were categorized by diabetes status (no-diabetes, prediabetes, and <5 or ≥5-year diabetes duration), and also by diabetes control. Furthermore, insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels were measured, and antidiabetic medications were recorded. Linear and logistic regression models, adjusted by potential confounders, were fitted to assess associations between glycemic status and changes in cognitive function.ResultsPrediabetes status was unrelated to cognitive decline. However, compared to participants without diabetes, those with ≥5-year diabetes duration had greater reductions in GCF (β=-0.11 (95%CI -0.16;-0.06)], as well as in processing speed and executive function measurements. Inverse associations were observed between baseline HOMA-IR and changes in GCF [β=-0.0094 (95%CI -0.0164;-0.0023)], but also between HbA1c levels and changes in GCF [β=-0.0085 (95%CI -0.0115, -0.0055)], the Mini-Mental State Examination, and other executive function tests. Poor diabetes control was inversely associated with phonologic fluency. The use of insulin treatment was inversely related to cognitive function as measured by the GCF [β=-0.31 (95%CI -0.44, -0.18)], and other cognitive tests.ConclusionsInsulin resistance, diabetes status, longer diabetes duration, poor glycemic control, and insulin treatment were associated with worsening cognitive function changes in the short term in a population at high cardiovascular risk.Clinical Trial Registrationhttp://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN89898870, identifier ISRCTN: 89898870.

Cross- and Within-Domain Associations of Early Reading and Mathematical Skills: Changes Across the Preschool Years.

Existing research has mainly examined the role of cognitive correlates of early reading and mathematics from a stationary perspective that does not consider how these skills unfold and interact over time. This approach constraints the interpretation of cross-domain associations and the specificity of domain-specific covariates. In this study, we disentangle the role of these predictors and investigate cross-domain associations between reading, math, and two related domain-specific predictors (phonological awareness and fluency with number sets) over the kindergarten years (n=512, Mage=54months, SDage=3.5, 52% females). Results reveal that the overlap between reading and math skills changes over development. Reciprocal associations between reading and math abilities are observed at earlier stages; then, reading abilities become the lead force. Findings also show that phonological awareness and fluency with number sets are domain-specific predictors that do not contribute to cross-domain gains in academic skills. Indeed, there is a trend for domain-specific skills to be more strongly related to achievement at the beginning of formal education than at the beginning of kindergarten, which suggests an increasing differentiation of domains over the kindergarten years. Such findings have implications for the timing and nature of interventions that aim to support children’s reading and mathematical development.

The clinical relevance of formal thought disorder in the early stages of psychosis: results from the PRONIA study

BackgroundFormal thought disorder (FTD) has been associated with more severe illness courses and functional deficits in patients with psychotic disorders. However, it remains unclear whether the presence of FTD characterises a specific subgroup of patients showing more prominent illness severity, neurocognitive and functional impairments. This study aimed to identify stable and generalizable FTD-subgroups of patients with recent-onset psychosis (ROP) by applying a comprehensive data-driven clustering approach and to test the validity of these subgroups by assessing associations between this FTD-related stratification, social and occupational functioning, and neurocognition.Methods279 patients with ROP were recruited as part of the multi-site European PRONIA study (Personalised Prognostic Tools for Early Psychosis Management; www.pronia.eu). Five FTD-related symptoms (conceptual disorganization, poverty of content of speech, difficulty in abstract thinking, increased latency of response and poverty of speech) were assessed with Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS) and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS).ResultsThe results with two patient subgroups showing different levels of FTD were the most stable and generalizable clustering solution (predicted clustering strength value = 0.86). FTD-High subgroup had lower scores in social (pfdr < 0.001) and role (pfdr < 0.001) functioning, as well as worse neurocognitive performance in semantic (pfdr < 0.001) and phonological verbal fluency (pfdr < 0.001), short-term verbal memory (pfdr = 0.002) and abstract thinking (pfdr = 0.010), in comparison to FTD-Low group.ConclusionsClustering techniques allowed us to identify patients with more pronounced FTD showing more severe deficits in functioning and neurocognition, thus suggesting that FTD may be a relevant marker of illness severity in the early psychosis pathway.

Identifying Appropriate Neuropsychological Tests for Uneducated/Illiterate Older Individuals.

We investigated the utility of traditional neuropsychological tests in older uneducated/illiterate individuals without dementia to determine the possibility that they are likely not appropriate for this group. We assessed the neuropsychological performance of 1122 older adults [≥65 years old; mean age: 74.03 (SD = 5.46); mean education: 4.76 (SD = 2.5) years; women: n = 714], in the context of the Hellenic Longitudinal Investigation of Aging and Diet (HELIAD), a population-based study conducted in Greece. We based our analyses on three groups: high-functioning/cognitively healthy (i.e., without dementia) uneducated/illiterate individuals (n = 80), high-functioning/cognitively healthy educated/literate individuals (n = 932), and low-functioning/cognitively impaired educated/literate individuals (presumably with dementia; n = 110). We used binary regression analyses with Bonferroni correction to investigate whether test performance differentiated uneducated/illiterate from educated/literate individuals. Models were adjusted for age and sex; raw test scores were the predictor variables. The uneducated/illiterate cohort was at a disadvantage relative to the healthy educated/literate group on all variables but verbal memory recognition and consolidation, congruent motor responses, and phonological fluency clustering (p>.002). Moreover, only word list learning immediate and delayed free recall and delayed cued recall differentiated the high-functioning/cognitively healthy uneducated/illiterate from the low-functioning/cognitively impaired educated/literate group, favoring the former (p's<.002). Our findings suggest that only particular verbal memory test variables are fair in determining whether older uneducated/illiterate individuals have functional/cognitive impairment suggestive of a neurodegenerative process. On all other neuropsychological variables, this cohort was at a disadvantage. Therefore, we highlight the need for identifying appropriate methods of assessment for older uneducated/illiterate individuals.

Literacy Level and Executive Control in Healthy Older Peruvian Adults.

Introduction: Early-life educational experiences are associated with cognitive performance in aging. Early literacy seems to improve executive control mechanisms, however, it is not clear whether early education would still be an advantage in countries like Peru, where access to and quality of education is highly variable.Aim: Our objective was to analyze the association of literacy level with executive control factors.Method: We evaluated 93 healthy older adults with a clinical protocol that included the Mini-Mental State Examination, the Geriatric Depression Scale and Global Dementia Staging. We also used a neuropsychological executive function battery which included the Trail-Making Test parts A and B, the Stroop Test, phonological and semantic verbal fluency tasks, Forward and Backward Digits, Numbers and Letters of the Wechsler Scale, and the Go/No-Go task. We used a principal component analysis for the dimensional reduction of the variables. To measure the level of literacy we used the word accentuation test (WAT).Results: We observed statistically significant correlations between the principal components (PCs) of working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control with the WAT scores. Furthermore, we observed that processing speed and WAT predict the scores on PCs factors better than years of education and age.Conclusions: Literacy level correlates more closely with better cognitive performance than years of education and thus, might improve executive control factors that could compensate and protect against brain changes in cognitive decline and dementia.

El funcionamiento cognitivo como endofenotipo de la anorexia nerviosa. Estudio en familiares no afectados por la enfermedad

The cognitive profile of patients with anorexia nervosa is characterized by difficulties in central coherence and mental flexibility. Central coherence is defined by the ability to integrate incoming information in its own context, and weakness in central coherence is characterized by poor overall processing and superior detail processing. Mental flexibility is defined by the ability to change the course of a thought or action according to the demands of the environment. Alterations in this cognitive domain generate rigid and inflexible behavior. An open question in the literature is whether these cognitive characteristics are a transient state derived from the disease or whether they are stable traits associated with anorexia nervosa and endophenotypical features of this disease. The concept of endophenotype refers to the internal phenotype that is not clinically appreciable but can be observed indirectly through deficits that arise in the performance of certain neuropsychological tests. In recent years the search for endophenotypes has been renewed in the field of psychiatry as they would constitute an important route for the understanding of the biological and genetic bases of mental illnesses, constituting markers that allow a diagnosis before the onset of clinical symptomatology. For a cognitive marker to be considered an endophenotype it must meet a series of characteristics such as being measurable, inherited, found in patients with and without active disease and in first-degree relatives not affected by the disease. The aim of the present study was to assess whether difficulties in central coherence and mental flexibility are shared by unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with anorexia nervosa and thus constitute an endophenotypical feature of this disease. This is a cross-sectional, descriptive-comparative study in which 34 women participated: 17 unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with anorexia nervosa (mothers and sisters) and 17 healthy controls matched by age and education. For the study of central coherence the copy of Rey’s Complex Figure was used and to assess set-shifting the Stroop test, the Trail Making Test B and the Phonological Fluency test were used. Demographic and clinical aspects such as age, educational level, body mass index, anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive and eating disorder related symptoms were also evaluated. First-degree relatives of patients with anorexia nervosa showed lower performance on measures of central coherence (p &lt; .05) and phonological fluency (p &lt; .05) than healthy controls. A correlation was observed between the Stroop test and depression and eating disorders symptoms (p &lt; .05). The results of this study show that unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with anorexia nervosa presented alterations in central coherence and, to a lesser degree, in mental flexibility. These results, in addition to previous research in which difficulties persisted even after recovery, indicate that these alterations could be genetically mediated, constituting a characteristic trait of anorexia nervosa and therefore a possible candidate for neuropsychological endophenotype of this disease. Regarding practical implications of the study, the findings reinforce the importance of cognitive remediation treatments not only for patients with anorexia nervosa but also emphasize that they could be useful for unaffected family members. Taking into account that family intervention is a widely used tool in the psychological treatment of anorexia, improving the perception of the patient and his relatives about cognitive biases, could contribute to raising awareness of the disease, something that patients with anorexia nervosa do not usually have, and generate a positive impact on the response to treatment as a whole. https://doi.org/10.16888/interd.2022.39.1.7

Verbal Fluency Tasks: Influence of Age, Gender, and Education and Normative Data for the Spanish Native Adult Population.

Phonological and semantic verbal fluency (VF) tasks are frequently used to assess language and executive functions in both clinical and research settings. F, A, and S are the most commonly used letters in phonological tasks across languages and cultures. Unfortunately, the lack of norms for the native Spanish population for these letters, and for certain semantic categories such as "proper names," may lead to misinterpretation of scores due to demographic differences. The aim of the present study was to provide normative data for F, A, and S and for "proper names," "animals," and "fruits and vegetables" for the native Spanish population. 257 healthy subjects took part in the study (ages: 17-100years, 3-20years of education). Correlation, multiple regression, and t-tests were used to select the most appropriate variables for stratification. Education was the best predictor of performance in all tasks, followed by age. Given that t-test results showed no differences related to gender, with the only exception of the semantic category "animals," this variable was not considered for stratification. Consequently, the data were stratified in two education levels (<13, ≥13years of education) and in two age levels (<60, ≥60) within the low-educational level group. Mean, standard deviation, and percentile scores for each group are provided. The present norms provide a reference for clinicians assessing VF. This data may also facilitate comparisons with other normative studies in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research.

Ejecución neuropsicológica y carga de enfermedad en sujetos en riesgo de desarrollar enfermedad de Huntington

IntroductionHuntington disease (HD) is a hereditary neurodegenerative disorder. Thanks to predictive diagnosis, incipient clinical characteristics have been described in the prodromal phase. ObjectiveTo compare performance in cognitive tasks of carriers (HDC) and non-carriers (non-HDC) of the huntingtin gene and to analyse the variability in performance as a function of disease burden and proximity to the manifest stage (age of symptom onset). MethodA sample of 146 participants in a predictive diagnosis of HD programme were divided into the HDC (41.1%) and non-HDC groups (58.9%). Mathematical formulae were used to calculate disease burden and proximity to the manifest stage in the HDC group; these parameters were correlated with neuropsychological performance. ResultsSignificant differences were observed between groups in performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Stroop-B, Symbol-Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), and phonological fluency. In the HDC group, correlations were observed between disease burden and performance on the MMSE, Stroop-B, and SDMT. The group of patients close to the manifest stage scored lowest on the MMSE, Stroop-B, Stroop-C, SDMT, and semantic verbal fluency. According to the multivariate analysis of covariance, the MMSE effect shows statistically significant differences in disease burden and proximity to onset of symptoms. ConclusionsMembers of the HDC group close to the manifest phase performed more poorly on tests assessing information processing speed and attention. Prefrontal cognitive dysfunction appears early, several years before the motor diagnosis of HD.

Neuropsychological and socio–cognitive deficits in patients with obstructive sleep apnea

ABSTRACT Introduction: Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) suffer from several neurocognitive deficits. We investigated the cognitive and socio-cognitive profiles of patients with severe OSA, controlling for potentially relevant mediating variables (i.e. age, body-mass index, cognitive reserve and depression). Moreover, we studied the neuropsychological profile of a high-risk OSA phenotype characterized by severe OSA and severe nocturnal hypoxemia. Method: We assessed 29 previously untreated severe OSA patients with a mean age of 55.6 (± 9.9 years) and a mean apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) of 53.1 (± 17.4). A control group of 34 healthy participants was also enrolled. Participants completed an extensive neuropsychological battery that included social cognition, a relatively new investigation area among OSA patients. Data analysis: Data were analyzed with a Bayesian approach. Specifically, Bayesian ANCOVA was used to investigate whether the grouping variable could predict test performance. Age, body-mass index, cognitive reserve and state of depression were added as covariates to the null model to weight the effects of these potential confounding factors. Three groups were analyzed: healthy controls (H), OSA with severe apnea and severe nocturnal oxygen desaturation (D+), and OSA with severe apnea non-desaturators (D−). Performances on the various neuropsychological tests were treated as the dependent variables. Results: The results indicate that non-verbal reasoning, the theory of mind skills, and mental shifting ability were impaired in OSA patients. Patients with severe nocturnal hypoxemia underperformed compared to patients with the same severity of apnea but non-desaturators. Additionally, we observed a trend toward a worse performance among OSA desaturator patients in the following abilities: constructional ability, short term verbal memory, phonological fluency, and the ability to inhibit automatic and dominant responses. Conclusion: The data suggest a key role of hypoxemia in affecting cognitive functioning in OSA patients. Executive functions and the concomitant involvement of social cognition are particularly affected.

Comparison of Neuropsychological Assessment by Videoconference and Face to Face.

To compare the administration of neuropsychological tests by teleneuropsychology (TeleNP) and face to face (F-F) in order to determine the feasibility and reliability of TeleNP. At the inclusion visit, all participants underwent a traditional F-F neuropsychological assessment as part of their standard care. Four months after inclusion, they were randomized to undergo an additional neuropsychological assessment either by F-F administration or by TeleNP. A total of 150 adults with cognitive complaints, but with no major cognitive or sensorial impairment were included. At 4 months, 69 participants were randomized in the F-F arm and 71 in TeleNP arm (10 lost in the follow-up). The overall satisfaction was high: 87.1% in the TeleNP arm were "very satisfied", and 82.9% indicated no preference between F-F and TeleNP. In agreement with previous data from the literature, neuropsychological assessments gave similar results across both administration conditions for a large majority of tests [Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT) French version, Mahieux gestural praxis battery, Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), time of completion of the Trail making Test (TMT) A and B, number of errors of the TMT B, Rey complex figure test, categorical et phonological verbal fluency tests] and minor differences for others [80-picture naming test (DO-80), FAB, Digit Span forward and backward and number of errors in the TMT A]. TeleNP is a promising method to be able to test patients as an alternative to F-F condition. Before this procedure can be generalized, it is now necessary to standardize the adaptation of certain tests and to test them in populations with more significant cognitive disorders.

Higher maternal education is related to negative functional connectivity between attention system networks and reading-related regions in children with reading difficulties compared to typical readers

Ten to 15% of school-age children have reading difficulties (RD, or dyslexia), defined by deficits in phonological processing, fluency, and executive functions (EFs). Although RD is referred to as a genetic disorder, reading ability may also be affected by environmental factors such as inadequate exposure to literacy and a lack of parental involvement. These environmental components are a part of the socioeconomic status (SES) measure, which is defined by parental occupation, educational attainment, and household income and are positively correlated to reading ability. The goal of the current study was to relate maternal education, a construct of SES to executive functions (EFs) that relate to reading in children with RD compared to typical readers (TRs) using behavioral and neurobiological resting-state fMRI data. The results show that higher maternal education is negatively correlated to inhibitory control for TRs and not for children with RD. Higher maternal education was also associated with negative functional connectivity of the frontal-parietal network to the left central opercular cortex and left occipital gyrus for children with RD compared to TRs. These results suggest that higher maternal education has contrasting roles on the behavioral and neurobiological correlates of EFs for children with RD compared to TRs. We conclude that higher education levels for mothers may provide their children with a structured environment and educational resources that may assist their children with RD and TRs with cognitive development based on their reading profile.

Manic morbidity and executive function impairment as determinants of long-term psychosocial dysfunction in bipolar disorder.

In this study, we aimed to evaluate the role of cognitive performance and measures of clinical course-including both syndromal and subsyndromal symptomatology-as determinants of the functional outcome of patients with Bipolar Disorder (BD) during a mean follow-up period of more than 4years. Seventy patients with euthymic BD completed a neurocognitive battery at study entry. Clinical course was assessed prospectively for a period longer than 48months by two measures: time spent ill (documented using a modified life charting technique) and density of affective episodes (defined as the number of depressive and hypo/manic episodes per year of follow-up). Psychosocial functioning was assessed during euthymia using the Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST) total score at the end of follow-up period. Baseline deficits in phonological fluency, a measure of executive functions (β=-2.49; 95% CI=-3.98, -0.99), and density of hypo/manic episodes during follow-up (β=6.54; 95% CI=0.43, 12.65) were independently associated with FAST total score at the end of study. Although interrelated, manic morbidity and executive function impairments independently contribute to long-term psychosocial dysfunction in BD and could be potential targets of intervention.