Neuropsychology最新文献

Objective: Earlier research on fatigue in post-COVID-19 condition (PCC) has mainly studied subjective fatigue, either over a prolonged period (trait fatigue) or in relation to a certain situation (state fatigue) in the form of perceived fatigability. Another aspect of state fatigue, cognitive performance fatigability, defined as a decline in performance over time in cognitively demanding tasks, has not been the focus of PCC research. We aimed to examine performance fatigability and the associations between these three fatigue domains.

Method: Thirty-four individuals with PCC and 36 controls who recovered from COVID-19 without PCC performed cognitive tests repeated twice during the test session to assess performance fatigability. Self-reports were used to assess perceived fatigability (repeated Visual Analogue Scales) and trait fatigue (Fatigue Severity Scale, Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory).

Results: Analysis of covariance showed significant interactions in two tests measuring processing speed: coding (p < .001, η_p² = .17) and a speed composite score derived from Color-Word Interference Test (p = .031, η_p² = .08), where the controls improved their performance more on the repeated tests compared with the PCC group, indicating performance fatigability in the PCC group. For the PCC group, no correlations were found between fatigue domains (r < 0.34).

Conclusions: The PCC group exhibited performance fatigability in measures of processing speed. There were no correlations between fatigue domains, suggesting that the domains might represent separate constructs. The results highlight the need to differentiate between various types of fatigue in research and clinical practice and to assess performance fatigability in addition to using self-reports to obtain a comprehensive understanding of fatigue and fatigability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: The treatment of dementia is increasingly likely to focus on dementia-related biomarkers. Unfortunately, there is variability with regard to biomarker-related effects. This analysis tests an algorithm capable of identifying persons adversely impacted by any dementia-related biomarker in this case, amyloidopathy as estimated by positron emission tomography (PET).

Method: N = 1,737 subjects of the Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative were assigned to amyloidopathy-affliction classes. Moderation effects were tested by chi-square difference.

Results: 39.3% of subjects with (+) PET results were assigned to the afflicted class. The afflicted subjects had greater dementia severity and higher amyloid burdens. These effects persisted at 36 months. Furthermore, the association between amyloid burden and dementia severity was moderated by affliction class. Afflicted nondemented cases with positive PET findings were more likely to convert to clinical "Alzheimer's disease" over 48 months, by Cox's F: F(312, 154) = 1.27, p = .05. PET assessed amyloid burden was not related to dementia severity in resilient PET (+) cases.

Conclusion: Our approach could allow for more accurate prediction of biomarker effects and guide precision interventions against specific biomarkers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Individuals with psychotic disorders routinely display anhedonia when rated on clinical interviews that rely on retrospective reports of pleasure; however, hedonic response is intact on laboratory paradigms measuring self-reported in-the-moment (i.e., consummatory) pleasure. It is currently unclear how to reconcile this apparent discrepancy. In the present study, we examined the possibility that clinician-rated anhedonia is associated with impaired memory for positive information across two experiments.

Method: In Experiment 1, individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (SZ; n = 28) and healthy controls (CN: n = 21) completed valence and arousal ratings of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral photograph stimuli, followed by an unprompted recognition test after a 1-week delay. In Experiment 2, individuals with SZ (n = 102) and CN (n = 60) completed the Emotional Verbal Learning Test, which assesses memory for word stimuli from happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety conditions over five immediate free-recall trials, short-delay free recall, 20-min long-delay free recall, and long-delay yes/no recognition conditions.

Results: Results of Experiment 1 indicated that SZ and CN reported similar levels of valence and arousal to visual stimuli; however, SZ had poorer recognition memory for both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli compared with CN. In Experiment 2, CN demonstrated preferential recall for happiness over sadness, anger, and anxiety stimuli. However, this preferential recall advantage for happiness stimuli was less evident in SZ.

Conclusions: Across both studies, reduced recall or recognition for positive stimuli was associated with greater severity of anhedonia. Collectively, findings from these two experiments suggest that clinical ratings of anhedonia are associated with memory deficits for positive stimuli in SZ. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: The Modified Taylor Complex Figure-Recognition Trial (MTCF-RT) is a visual recognition memory measure that consists of a recognition trial to be administered after the copy and the delayed reproduction of the Modified Taylor Complex Figure Test. The aim of this study was to validate the MTCF-RT in differentiating amnestic patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) from patients with memory deficits due to Parkinson's disease (PD) or subcortical ischemic vascular dementia (SIVD).

Method: The MTCF-RT was administered to 25 amnestic patients with AD and 25 patients with memory deficits due to SIVD (n = 18) or PD (n = 7). Additionally, the recognition trial was administered to 40 neurologically unimpaired individuals. All patients were tested on a brief neuropsychological battery, and their magnetic resonance scans were assessed for medial temporal lobe atrophy.

Results: MTCF-RT performance was significantly lower in the group of amnestic patients with AD than in the group of amnestic patients with non-AD disorders, whereas healthy subjects performed significantly better than the two experimental groups. The MTCF-RT allowed identifying amnestic patients with AD with 92% sensitivity and 96% specificity using a cutoff of ≤7.358, showing a higher discriminant power with respect to other long-term memory measures. Finally, MTCF-RT scores showed a high negative correlation with medial temporal lobe atrophy and a positive correlation with other long-term memory measures.

Conclusions: MTCF-RT could be a useful tool, as part of a larger neuropsychological battery, for discriminating patients with AD from those with memory deficits due to PD or SIVD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: There is a need for effective cognitive assessment tools to evaluate the development of very young children in resource-limited low- and middle-income country settings. Our objective was to evaluate the field usability of a computer-based attention test and its concurrent validity with a caregiver-reported screener of neurodevelopment in rural, Ecuadorian children.

Method: To assess a computer-based attention test in a resource-limited setting, 41 Ecuadorian children between 2 and 4 years of age were evaluated once with the Early Childhood Vigilance Test (ECVT) of attention adapted to eye-tracking instrumentation. To evaluate the validity of the ECVT, results were compared with the Ages and Stages Questionnaire-3, measured 3-4 times between 21 and 48 months of age.

Results: ECVT measures were collected successfully for 97.6% of children (40/41), suggesting good field usability of the test in this resource-limited setting. An increase in 1 SD in child attention, as measured by the ECVT average fixation duration, was associated with a 7.9-point increase in the overall Ages and Stages Questionnaire-3 score (95% CI [1.5, 14.2], p = .015).

Conclusions: A computer-based attention assessment in early childhood was usable in a resource-limited setting and predictive of a caregiver-reported screener of child neurodevelopment. The ECVT, therefore, can be used to assess the effects of early risk factors and resilience in brain/behavior development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Slower and more variable reaction time is one of the most prominent cognitive signatures in childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, standard use of tasks that involve motor responses to index "speed" potentially confounds fine-motor coordination with central cognitive processing speed. One promising alternative is a vocal articulation task, which provides a measure of speeded performance that is independent of fine-motor coordination.

Method: The present study applies an ex-Gaussian decomposition to preparatory interval (the time to initiate a vocal response) and speech rate on a speeded articulation task among children aged 8-12 with and without ADHD (N = 119).

Results: There was substantial evidence that the tail of the distribution, as indexed by the tau parameter (which is linked to the rate of information accumulation), was larger in children with ADHD and among children with low working memory capacity (regardless of ADHD status). Variance in tau was also greater among children with ADHD, and the greater variance was not fully explained by individual differences in working memory.

Conclusions: Results highlight the importance of adopting analytic methods that can more accurately describe performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Cannabis has become increasingly accessible to populations living with chronic health conditions such as HIV. Many people living with HIV are turning to cannabis for symptom relief despite the unclear risks to neurocognitive health. Our study sought to replicate and extend prior research by examining global and domain-specific neurocognitive performance between four groups stratified by use of cannabis (CB; CB+/CB-) and HIV serostatus (HIV+/HIV-).

Method: Our demographically diverse community sample (N = 269) underwent exclusion and inclusion criteria to isolate the effects of cannabis use (CU) and HIV on neurocognition. We explored between-group comparisons of neurocognitive performance, probability of neurocognitive impairment, and interactive effects of CU/HIV serostatus.

Results: Between-group comparisons revealed nonsignificant differences in global or domain-specific neurocognitive performance. However, the CB+/HIV+ group was three times (99% CI [1.18, 9.57]) more likely to be labeled with a memory impairment compared to the control (CB-/HIV-), and the CB+/HIV- group was twice (99% CI [.14, 7.47]) as likely to be labeled with an executive functioning impairment compared to the control. We also identified an interactive effect between the past 30-day CU and HIV serostatus for global (b = -.026, 99% CI [-.04, -.01]) and motor (b = -.052, 99% CI [-.07, -.03]) neurocognitive performance. Findings support a nuanced relationship between CU and HIV, which may partly explain mixed literature.

Conclusions: Although we conclude that recent and heavy CU poses risk of neurocognitive decline among people living with HIVs, this effect is modest. Physicians and patients must weigh a possible decrease in global and motor neurocognition against the severity of symptoms being treated. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Neuropsychological norms serve to identify cognitive impairment and monitor neurodegenerative disease progression. However, longitudinal data are limited, and conventional approaches do not account for biomarkers to exclude underlying Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology, reducing sensitivity to detect subtle cognitive decline in preclinical AD. To address these limitations, this research provides robust longitudinal neuropsychological norms derived from Spanish individuals with nonpathological levels of AD biomarkers.

Method: We analyzed 3-year follow-up data from 350 cognitively unimpaired individuals (Alzheimer's and Families+ cohort). A subset of 228 individuals with normal cerebrospinal fluid amyloid-β42/40, phosphorylated-tau181, and total-tau biomarkers defined the robust reference group. Neuropsychological assessment encompassed the Trail Making Test, Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test, Memory Binding Test, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV, Wechsler Memory Scale-IV, Semantic Fluency Test, and Judgment of Line Orientation from the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status. Using the Reliable Change Index and Standardized Regression-Based methods, robust longitudinal neuropsychological norms were derived from the reference group. Validation analysis assessed the sensitivity of robust versus conventional normative procedures.

Results: Models, equations, percentiles, and cutoffs for identifying significant cognitive decline were provided. Robust norms showed modestly greater sensitivity in certain measures, particularly in episodic memory. The Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test: Total Free Delayed Recall showed the most notable result at the 5th percentile in Reliable Change Index (χ² = 16.06, p = 6.15E-05).

Conclusions: Robust longitudinal neuropsychological norms may improve the detection of subtle cognitive decline, modestly enhancing sensitivity at the lower ends of distributions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objectives: Crowding refers to the phenomenon whereby small visual objects above the acuity threshold are detected but unrecognizable when surrounded by nearby stimuli. It affects reading in healthy individuals and can be enhanced in reading impairments. By increasing the interletter space, crowding decreases. Previous evidence on patients with unilateral spatial neglect (USN) and peripheral dyslexia has shown a dissociation in sensitivity to spacing manipulation between those who mainly produced omissions and those characterized by substitutions in reading. Here, we wanted to verify the hypothesis that the reading impairment mainly characterized by substitutions is dissociated from USN, unlike the one characterized by omissions.

Method: In a retrospective study, we collected 38 right-brain-damaged patients, 21 with USN. We analyzed the number and types of errors in reading single words and pseudowords, spaced and unspaced, comparing patients with and without USN.

Results: USN patients showed significantly more omissions than patients without USN and increased omissions with letter spacing. Substitutions were more frequent in USN patients but did not increase with spacing. Performance of patients mainly characterized by substitutions revealed a reduction of errors with spaced pseudowords and a double dissociation from USN. Lesion overlap analysis suggested that the two deficits could depend on different components of visuospatial attention networks.

Conclusions: We claim that proper neglect dyslexia is characterized by omission errors and has USN as a necessary mechanism, even if not sufficient. Conversely, acquired crowding dyslexia is a different reading deficit, characterized by substitutions due to an enhanced crowding phenomenon, independent of USN. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Self-appraisal of cognitive performance, a potentially useful marker of brain functioning, is typically assessed at a single time point where tests are naïve to what constitutes "good" or "bad" performance. Here, we determine whether familiarizing individuals with self-appraisal with daily memory testing for 7 days provide a more accurate estimate of cognitive functioning and mood.

Method: Two hundred twenty-five participants (M_age ± SD: 74.1 ± 8.3 years; 66% female; median education 16.0 years) completed the online Boston Remote Assessment for NeuroCognitive Health, which included two associative memory tasks, for seven consecutive days. Each day, participants self-appraised their performance. At baseline, they completed various cognitive and mood measures. We computed Pearson's correlations between task performance and self-appraisal on Days 1 and 7 and used linear models to examine the relationship between self-appraisal scores and clinical measures.

Results: Accuracy (Day 1: 0.44 ± 0.12; Day 7: 0.81 ± 0.16) and self-appraisal (Day 1: 0.36 ± 0.15; Day 7: 0.70 ± 0.21) increased, as did the association between accuracy and self-appraisal, Day 1: correlation coefficient (r) = 0.22, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) [0.09, 0.34], p = .001; Day 7: r = 0.69, 95% CI [0.62, 0.76], p < .001. Self-appraisal scores on Day 7, but not Day 1, showed significant relationships with in-clinic measures.

Conclusions: Repeated remote cognitive assessments may help elucidate individuals' capacities to refine their self-perception of cognitive performance during multiday learning. The weak association between accuracy and test-naïve self-appraisal warrants caution about using this metric cross-sectionally. Experienced self-appraisal could be especially relevant at the early stages of neurodegenerative diseases when subtle learning difficulties emerge and could improve our capacity to detect early meta-cognitive changes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).