Cognitive Neuropsychiatry最新文献

Purpose: Psychoticism is a common feature of psychological disorders. Deficits in perceptual inference have been associated with the development of psychotic symptoms. Traditional testing of perceptual inference has had low ecological validity, limiting the ability to infer functional relationships. The aims of this study were to investigate the relationship between the capacity to infer relevance in dynamic environments and dimensional psychoticism, as well as to investigate the association between inferring relevance and dimensional psychoticism.

Method: Four hundred participants, representative of the general population of the USA, completed an online questionnaire consisting of the Brief Symptom Inventory, as well as demographic and clinical questions, followed by a computerised Inferring Relevance Task.

Results: Dimensional psychoticism was not significantly associated with inferring relevance. An ability to infer relevance also did not significantly distinguish between individuals with and without symptoms of psychoticism.

Conclusions: The ability to infer relevance may not be a reliable marker of psychotic-like experiences in general population samples. Future research should use a clinical population to better understand the potential interactions between neurocognitive mechanisms and how this may be associated with psychoticism.

Introduction: Aberrant salience has been extensively studied in relation to various psychopathologies, such as psychosis. However, its role in hoarding is yet to be explored, despite evidence of associations between the development of hoarding and dysregulation in dopaminergic systems. Thus, the aim of this pre-registered study was to examine associations between self-reported experiences of aberrant salience and hoarding severity in a community sample.Methods: A correlational, cross-sectional design was employed. We presented an online survey to 214 adults (Mean age = 25.47, SD = 6.55), where they completed the negative subscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, the Aberrant Salience Inventory (ASI), and the Savings Inventory-Revised (SI-R).Results: ASI scores were significantly positively correlated with SI-R scores (r = 0.35, p < .001). In a regression analysis, ASI scores were also found to be a significant predictor of SI-R scores, independent of demographic factors and mood.Conclusions: This study serves as the first evidence of an association between aberrant salience and hoarding. Replication of these findings in a clinical sample could have significant implications for therapeutic interventions for hoarding. Open materials and open data are available at https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/zr9wy.

Introduction: Although many studies have explored theory of mind (ToM) deficits in schizophrenia, it is crucial to consider individual variations in neurocognitive and emotional functioning in subjects with schizophrenia. The purpose of the current study was to test the predictive value of several neurocognitive and emotional processes in ToM deficits, including autobiographical memory (AM, examining separately the impact of its semantic and episodic components), executive functioning, attentional capacity and facial emotion expressions (FEE) recognition abilities.

Methods: Thirty participants with schizophrenia were recruited, as well as 30 control participants, matched on age, sex and level of education. All participants were assessed on measures of ToM, AM, executive functioning, attentional resources and FEE recognition.

Results: Compared to control participants, participants with schizophrenia achieved poorer performances on tasks involving AM and ToM abilities. Multiple regression analyses revealed that episodic AM is the strongest predictor of ToM deficits in both groups. Additionally, some of the emotional and executive measures emerged as significant predictors, albeit to a lesser extent.

Conclusions: The most noticeable finding of our study relates to the significant contribution of AM in ToM performance. This finding was evidenced in both participants with schizophrenia and control participants.

Background and hypothesis: Adaptive management of guilt and shame is regulated by social approach and withdrawal and thus relates to the quantity and quality of our social interactions. People with schizophrenia (SZ) self-report reduced guilt-proneness compared to healthy controls (HC). However, previous studies have not distinguished between anticipatory and consequential guilt, nor between guilty affect and associated action tendencies.

Study design: We compared 24 SZ with 24 HC on anticipatory guilt, (TOSCA-3, GASP); consequential guilt (PFQ-2), and empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM).

Study results: Differing profiles emerged: SZ reported higher consequential relative to anticipatory guilt, while HC reported the opposite pattern. SZ self-reported reduced repair and increased withdrawal compared to HC. In SZ, anticipatory guilt was predicted by empathic concern and ToM; consequential guilt by social withdrawal and ToM skill.

Conclusion: SZ participants anticipated equal affective guilt-proneness but reduced adaptive behavioural responses to guilty feelings, resulting in more chronic guilt in daily life than would be predicted by TOSCA-3 and GASP responses. The discrepancy between emotional experience and expression may partly explain previous findings of reduced TOSCA-3 guilt-proneness, as TOSCA-3 operationalises guilt as reparative, prosocial behaviours. Results highlight perceptions of reparation potential as an intervention target, with likely downstream reductions in chronic and delusional guilt and shame.

Introduction: Depressed mood and anhedonia increase steadily through adolescence, and their associations become more tied at the transition to adulthood. However, it remains unclear whether the relationship is best explained by reciprocal influences or by a third variable.

Method: This longitudinal study investigated the co-development and bidirectional relationships between the two symptoms over three waves among first-year university students (Mean age = 18.24 years, SD = 0.80, 41% male) using latent growth models, parallel latent growth modelling and random-intercept cross-lagged panel models. The moderating effects of childhood maltreatment on their links were explored as well.

Results: In general, depressed mood and state/trait anhedonia decreased concomitantly over time after entering university. The majority of students (90%) decreased in depressed mood and anhedonia over time, while the remaining 10% progressively increased. At the between-person level, increases in depressed mood were accompanied by increases in state/trait anhedonia. However, these symptoms did not reciprocally predict each other at the within-person level. Multiple-group analyses found that depressed mood and state anhedonia reciprocally influenced among individuals with higher levels of childhood maltreatment.

Conclusion: These findings emphasised that the core elements of major depressive disorder were not directly related to each other, but rather that moderating factors play a role.

Background: Capgras syndrome (CS) is a rare delusional misidentification syndrome in which individuals believe that another person has been replaced by an impostor.

Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted for all admissions to two male psychiatric inpatient departments in a tertiary hospital in Israel between August 1, 2024, and January 31, 2025. Cases with explicit documentation of CS were included. Demographic and clinical data were extracted and analyzed.

Results: Among 308 hospitalised patients, five (1.62%) met criteria for CS, with a mean age of 33.6 years. Three patients (60%) had schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and two (40%) had organic psychosis associated with left frontal brain lesions. Four patients (80%) presented during their first psychiatric admission after committing severe violence against family members perceived as impostors. Treatment response varied: CS resolved in some cases with antipsychotics alone, while others required Clozapine and adjunctive interventions.

Conclusions: CS may be underrecognized but carries significant clinical implications, particularly due to its association with violence in first-episode psychosis. Early identification and tailored treatment are critical for risk reduction.

Introduction: Approximately 6.9% to 8.9% of nongeriatric adults in the United States report persistent symptoms following SARS-CoV-2, one of which being persistent cognitive concerns. Across clinical populations, discrepancies have been identified between subjective cognitive concerns and performance on objective neurocognitive measures, such that subjective cognitive concerns often do not correlate with objective neurocognitive deficits.

Methods: The current study investigated the relationship between subjective cognitive concerns and objective neurocognitive test performance in a sample of 54 nongeriatric adults who underwent outpatient neuropsychological evaluation due to SARS-CoV-2 related persistent cognitive concerns. Multiple linear regressions analysed the relationship between reported cognitive concerns and objective neurocognitive test performance, as well as the relationship between depression and anxiety and subjective cognitive concerns.

Results: Subjective cognitive concerns did not significantly predict performance on objective neurocognitive test measures. Increased self-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety predicted the presence of subjective cognitive concerns, with depressive symptom endorsement serving as the primary predictor.

Conclusions: Results suggest that internalising psychopathology may be an important marker of subjective cognitive concerns in this population. While the origins of internalising symptoms are unclear, the impact of these factors emphasises the need for comprehensive support in addressing long-term effects experienced by individuals following SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Introduction: Individuals with schizophrenia often show impairments in emotional facial expression recognition and empathy, although the precise nature of these social cognitive deficits remains unresolved. This study aims to overcome previous assessment limitations by comparing static and dynamic emotion facial expression recognition, as well as self-reported and situational empathy tasks, in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. Correlations between these abilities and symptomatology were also explored.

Methods: This cross-sectional observational study involved 20 participants with schizophrenia and 20 controls. They completed tasks assessing facial expression recognition using static (photographs) and dynamic (videos) stimuli and empathy through a self-report (Interpersonal Reactivity Index) and situational tasks. Symptomatology was also examined for their influence on social cognitive abilities.

Results: Schizophrenia patients exhibit deficits in static facial expressions recognition and in self-reported empathic abilities. Nevertheless, performance in dynamic facial expressions recognition and situational empathy tasks was similar in both groups. No correlations were found between these abilities and symptomatology.

Conclusions: Our data suggest that the way in which emotional facial expression recognition and empathy skills are measured provide different measures of the ability of individuals with schizophrenia. This should be taken into consideration in order not to underestimate the performance of such patients.

Introduction: Methamphetamine (MA) abuse remains a critical issue in Taiwan, with impaired inhibitory control contributing to relapse. However, limited research has examined deficits in prepotent response inhibition across both "cool" (neutral) and "hot" (drug-related) contexts in MA abstainers. This study aimed to investigate these aspects of inhibitory control using a modified antisaccade task.

Methods: Twenty-four male MA abstainers and twenty-four healthy controls (HC) completed counterbalanced "cool" and "hot" antisaccade tasks. The "hot" condition used MA-related images as distractor backgrounds, while the "cool" condition featured visually similar neutral images. Prepotent response inhibition was assessed across conditions, and correlations with addiction severity, treatment duration, use history, and days of abstinence were analyzed.

Results: No significant interaction between group and condition or main effects of group and condition were found. However, in abstainers, prepotent response inhibition in both conditions positively correlated with days of abstinence but not with addiction severity, treatment duration, or use history.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that prepotent response inhibition is more closely linked to recent abstinence duration than long-term addiction severity or treatment history. Future interventions should target inhibitory control in MA abstainers to reduce relapse risk and improve long-term recovery outcomes.

Background: Psychotic-like experiences may reflect disrupted signal discrimination, whereby individuals overinterpret noisy sensory input as meaningful. Drawing on predictive coding accounts, we investigated whether increased sensory precision and reduced data-gathering relate to psychotic-like experiences in a signal discrimination task.

Methods: We fitted drift-diffusion models to Random Dot Motion (RDM) task data completed by 191 participants. We estimated drift rate and decision threshold: (1) across groups differing in psychotic phenotypes, and (2) as outcomes in regression models with psychotic-like experiences as predictors. Drift rate measures evidence gain and, in this task, can be considered an approximate measure of sensory precision. We also tested whether reduced data-gathering on the beads task replicated prior associations with psychotic phenotypes.

Results: Hallucination- and delusion-like experiences were associated with increased drift rates. Hallucination-like experiences also predicted lower decision thresholds. In the beads task, psychotic-like experiences correlated with higher confidence ratings but not with reduced data-gathering.

Conclusions: Our findings indicate that psychotic-like phenomenology is linked to increased precision of signal discrimination and reduced decision thresholds. Overprecise signal discrimination and lower decision thresholds may bias perceptual inference toward false positive detections, potentially leading to anomalous experiences.