Neuropsychology最新文献

Objective: Neuropsychological assessment of social cognition has traditionally focused on mentalizing and emotions recognition. Recently developed digital measures allow clinicians to capture direct markers of abnormal social interactions, but they have not yet been used to distinguish neurological from psychiatric populations. This study examined prosodic alterations and explored structural neural correlates in behavioral variant frontotemporal degeneration (bvFTD) versus late-onset or atypical psychiatric disorders (LOAPD) and healthy controls (HCs).

Method: We analyzed audio recordings from 31 patients with bvFTD, 15 patients with LOAPD, and 39 HCs across two speech samples: an anamnestic interview and a narrative task. Fundamental frequency (f₀) metrics were extracted to assess between-group differences and to identify voxel-based morphometry correlates of prosodic alteration.

Results: Compared with HCs, patients with bvFTD showed a reduced f₀ range in both the anamnestic interview (p = .025, η² = .09, 95% CI [-23.83, -1.04]) and the narrative task (p = .002, η² = .14, 95% CI [-36.21, -4.74]). In the anamnestic interview, both bvFTD (p = .010, 95% CI [-36.59, -6.23]) and LOAPD (p = .012, 95% CI [-46.30, -8.81]) groups exhibited lower f₀ variability than HCs; no differences were observed during the narrative task. In bvFTD, reduced prosodic measures correlated with atrophy in the left superior frontal gyrus and the right middle and inferior temporal gyri (p < .05, family-wise error corrected).

Conclusions: Patients with bvFTD demonstrate a narrowed pitch span and reduced intonational variability, linked to disruptions in frontotemporal networks integrating emotional and semantic cues into speech. These findings highlight the relevance of prosodic alterations as a target for further research in bvFTD and assessment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Mobile cognitive testing, particularly within an ecological momentary assessment paradigm, is increasingly used for cognitive assessments outside laboratory settings. However, the relationship between mobile cognitive tests and standardized lab-based neuropsychological testing among Spanish speakers remains understudied. This study investigated associations between performance on the National Institutes of Health Toolbox Cognition Battery and a suite of NeuroUX mobile tests among adolescents in rural Ecuador.

Method: The Study of Secondary Exposures to Pesticides among Children, Adolescents, and Adults participants completed Spanish versions of the National Institutes of Health Toolbox Cognition Battery and NeuroUX tests as a single session in the summer of 2022 (n = 488). NeuroUX tests were repeated across a 10-day burst 2.5-4 months later (n = 323).

Results: The mean age of participants was 20.3 years (SD = 1.8; range = 16-25 years), and 50.1% identified as female. Burst administration scores improved for one working memory test (Memory Matrix) but declined for a response inhibition test (Quick Tap 2). Positive associations were observed between mobile test performance and tablet-based neuropsychological scores across both testing formats, with an association identified between the Toolbox Fluid Cognitive Composite and NeuroUX Composite Score (β = 0.04, 95% confidence interval [0.03, 0.05]). Demographic trends indicated that younger, male, and more educated participants performed better on some tests on both testing platforms.

Conclusions: Mobile cognitive testing shows considerable promise for assessing cognition among Spanish-speaking Latin American adolescents and young adults, revealing significant associations with tablet-based cognitive assessments, and may be generalizable to other Latin American populations. These findings underscore the value of mobile cognitive tests as a viable alternative or complement to lab-based assessments, especially in culturally diverse and rural populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Alzheimer's disease (AD) causes increasing cognitive and functional impairments, yet if and how cognition impacts functioning remains unclear. Here, we assessed the relationship between cognitive domains and everyday functioning in participants with AD.

Method: In this cross-sectional study, we included participants with biomarker-confirmed AD with subjective cognitive decline (SCD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or dementia from the Amsterdam Dementia Cohort. Cognition was assessed with a standardized neuropsychological test battery divided into domains using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). These were used as input for structural equation modeling (SEM) to calculate the unique associations with everyday functioning, measured with the well-validated study partner-based Amsterdam Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Questionnaire (A-IADL-Q). Model fit of the SEM and its associations were described in standardized paths (std.lv).

Results: A total of 613 participants were included, mean age ± SD = 65 ± 8 years, 310(51%) female, with a mean A-IADL-Q of 50.2 ± 9.3. The majority had a diagnosis of dementia (n = 443, 72%), followed by MCI (n = 100, 16%) and SCD (n = 70, 11%). SEM analysis, χ²(137, N = 613) = 1072.17, p < .001, showed that, of the four cognitive domains identified using EFA, "memory" (std.lv = 0.33) and "visual attention, mental flexibility, and visuoconstruction" (std.lv = 0.29) were related to A-IADL-Q, while "working memory, shifting, fluency, and inhibition" and "naming" were not.

Conclusions: Lower performance in memory and visual attention, mental flexibility, and visuoconstruction was related to more difficulties in everyday functioning. A better understanding of how cognition relates to everyday functioning has important implications for personalized care strategies and trial outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: The California Verbal Memory Learning Test, second edition (CVLT-II) is used to assess learning and memory impairment. However, CVLT psychometric validity is not established for American Indian populations, who have high risk, as well as important sociocultural considerations in standardized testing.

Method: The Strong Heart Study conducted repeated CVLT-II short form testing among American Indian Elders across 3 U.S. regions in 2010-2013 (n = 801) and 2017-2019 (N = 386), in addition to sociodemographics and other neuropsychological testing. CVLT-II short form provides four main indices of delayed memory: 30-s (short), 10-min (long), cued, and recognition-discrimination. Statistical analyses examined inferences of CVLT-II short form delayed memory score validity with confirmatory factor analysis, generalizability and test-retest reliability with Pearson correlations, and extrapolation with path analysis.

Results: Participants were generally older (age 65-95), majority female, and majority with education 12-14 years. Fewer than 5% had missing data. Unidimensional single factor model fits were adequate (RMSEA 0.07, 90% CI 0.03-0.11; comparative fit index 0.99). Within-group and within-visit raw score comparisons were statistically significant for age, sex, and education, suggesting important score differences. Primary path analysis model suggested that age, sex, education, bilingual, and depression accounted for 16% of variance in test performance.

Conclusions: Overall, these findings suggest that CVLT-II short form has good test structure in American Indian elders, but with needed contextualization by age, sex, and education. These findings offer support for CVLT in clinical and research use but also need for further research on cultural and community factors affecting standardized cognitive testing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: The aim of the study was to investigate the trajectories of phonemic verbal fluency (PVF) and semantic verbal fluency (SVF) across the lifespan in the Greek language and explore the effect of age, gender, and education on individuals' performance.

Method: To this end, a total of 1,426 native speakers of Greek, ranging from 4 to over 75 years old, participated in the study. The sample was organized into 25 distinct age groups to ensure a detailed analysis across developmental stages.

Results: The results indicated a similar developmental trajectory for both PVF and SVF. Moreover, a strong effect of all three variables on individuals' performance was demonstrated. More specifically, verbal fluency performance increased steadily during childhood and adolescence, reaching a peak around the age of 40 (∂SVF∂Age = 0,Age = 39.98;∂PVF∂Age = 0,Age = 40.1), and followed by a gradual decline in later adulthood. Women (∂SVF∂Age = 0,Age = 42.98;∂PVF∂Age = 0,Age = 42.07) revealed a better performance (p < .001) than men (∂SVF∂Age = 0,Age = 39.23;∂PVF∂Age = 0,Age = 38.86), especially after the age of 40-45 years, while higher levels of education were associated with better performance in adults.

Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of demographic factors in shaping verbal fluency abilities and underscore the need for age-, gender-, and education-sensitive assessments in clinical and educational contexts. Further research, however, is needed to explore the cognitive mechanisms underlying these effects and especially the timing of the beginning of cognitive decline. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Previous research suggested that Recognition Memory Test-Words (RMT-W) scores may be confounded by gender and handedness. This study was designed to examine its classification accuracy as a performance validity test (PVT) and susceptibility to demographic characteristics.

Method: Archival data were collected from a consecutive sequence of 310 diagnostically heterogeneous examinees (181 men; M_Age = 41.4; M_Education = 12.9). The RMT-W's classification accuracy was computed against psychometrically operationalized criterion groups.

Results: Optimal RMT-W cutoffs (≤ 42 to ≤ 40) produced a good combination of sensitivity (.62-.70) and specificity (.90-.96), correctly classifying 85.6%-87.7% of the sample. Women scored 1.5 points higher. RMT-W scores were unrelated to handedness but were correlated with education. A linear relationship emerged between level of education and the cutoff needed to achieve ≥ .90 specificity: ≤ 43 for ≥ 13 years of education, ≤ 41 for 12 years of education, and ≤ 39 for ≤ 11 years of education. RMT-W ≤ 45 had .91 specificity in women with postsecondary education.

Conclusions: Results suggest that overall, the RMT-W remains an effective free-standing PVT. Gender, age, and handedness in isolation had minimal impact on RMT-W scores. However, education had a clinically significant effect. The combined effect of gender and education produced a marked shift in classification accuracy. Systematic research is needed on the relationship between demographics and PVT outcomes to ensure that cutoffs have the same clinical interpretation regardless of patient variables. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

In this editorial, the author states that editors do not assume ownership of a journal; they merely look after it for the next generation. The incoming associate editors and the author are grateful to the American Psychological Association (APA) for entrusting them to look after Neuropsychology for the next generation of clinicians and scientists. They recognize the many serious challenges that today's scientists are facing in public perception, funding, and policy. Building upon the journal's strong, 39-year foundation of scientific excellence and outstanding leadership, they aspire to leverage the journal's rigorous editorial processes, tremendous resources, and international reach for the betterment of society, scientists, and the communities of people with conditions that affect the central nervous system. In this editorial, they provide a brief history of Neuropsychology to help us plot a course for the next 5 years. From their vantage point, Neuropsychology's future is data-driven, transparent, inclusive, and community-oriented. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurological condition characterized by white and gray matter decline that leads to slower motor function and cognitive impairment. Although language remains relatively intact, individuals with MS often have word retrieval difficulties. Previous research suggests that these difficulties may be related to vocabulary, the number of words an individual knows, and other semantic aspects of language. However, few studies have examined phonological aspects of speech.

Method: We examined speech in 89 individuals with MS and 88 age-matched neurotypical adults using a phonemic verbal fluency task. We took a network science approach, building a phonological network from participants' responses and their close phonological neighbors. We then examined the local network characteristics (degree, clustering coefficient) of participants' responses to assess whether responses differed between the groups.

Results: Although individuals with MS produced fewer responses during the task, the network characteristics of their responses were similar to neurotypical adults, the control group. Moreover, lexical characteristics such as word length and lexical frequency were also similar between groups (model R² values < 1%). Finally, a forward flow analysis, which quantifies the phonological similarity between adjacent responses and provides a metric of how people search phonemic space, did not differ between groups.

Conclusions: Overall, these results suggest that phonological aspects of speech remain stable in individuals with MS. Word retrieval difficulties in MS may arise from neurological changes in semantic processes, in combination with other cognitive abilities such as speed of processing and executive function, which are common in MS. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Moral cognition has been insufficiently studied in people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). This study investigated moral decision making and judgment using ecologically valid moral dilemmas in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) and progressive MS phenotypes, exploring associations with clinical and psychological variables.

Method: Twenty-one individuals with relapsing-remitting MS and 21 with progressive MS completed a battery of moral dilemmas (instrumental, incidental, and ecological) and questionnaires assessing quality of life, mood, alexithymia, and empathy. Data from pwMS were compared to those of 56 age- and education-matched healthy controls. Group differences were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U tests, and effect sizes (r) were reported.

Results: Compared to healthy controls, pwMS showed significantly higher moral acceptability in instrumental (U = 633.0, p = .001, r = 0.39), incidental (U = 745.5, p = .035, r = 0.23), and ecological dilemmas (U = 563.0, p < .001, r = 0.44). Moral permissiveness was positively correlated with disability (Expanded Disability Status Scale: ρ = 0.36, p = .019) and negatively with physical quality of life (Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life-Physical: ρ = -0.33, p = .034) and inhibitory control (Stroop Test: ρ = 0.47, p = .002). Empathy scores were inversely correlated with moral acceptability across all dilemmas (p < .05).

Conclusions: PwMS exhibit increased moral permissiveness, particularly in relation to clinical disability, physical functioning, and executive control. These findings contribute to characterizing the sociocognitive profile of MS and support the inclusion of moral cognition in future research, though implications for patient care remain preliminary. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Remote assessment of episodic memory would be a cost-effective alternative to in-person visits for early detection of memory impairment related to Alzheimer's disease (AD), but there is a need for test development and studies in population-based samples. The aim of this study was to investigate the validity and correlates of a novel three-trial administration of 10-word list learning included in the modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status in a population-based study of 65- to 96-year-old individuals.

Method: A total of 800 participants completed telephone-administered word list learning task that yielded immediate and delayed recall measures. We compared these to corresponding measures from in-person neuropsychological assessment and tested differences between cognitively normal individuals and those with cognitive impairment or neurodegenerative disease. Furthermore, we studied the associations of age, sex, education, and genetic risk of AD with telephone-administered memory measures.

Results: Telephone-administered three-trial word list learning task yielded normally distributed immediate and delayed recall measures that performed like corresponding measures from in-person assessment. Having cognitive impairment or AD-but not genetic risk of AD-were related to poorer memory performance. Younger age, being female, and having secondary education were related to better memory performance.

Conclusion: Our study supports the validity of telephone-administered word list task with multiple learning trials. Remote assessment of memory can be used as an alternative to inviting people to in-person assessment and is also easily accessible for people living in remote areas and for those with physical disabilities or during restrictions related to in-person contact. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).