Cognitive Neuropsychiatry最新文献

Among people with schizophrenia (PSZ), positive symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions are often conceptualised as resulting from abnormal top-down modulation of sensory information. PSZ often exhibit reduced susceptibility to visual illusions compared to healthy control subjects (HCS), suggesting that top-down impairments yield enhanced perception of stimuli that would otherwise be distorted by contextualising visual elements. However, it remains unknown whether resistance to illusions is uniquely associated with positive symptoms, or if it is associated with some other aspect of serious mental illness. To examine this question, 77 PSZ, 50 HCS, and 40 individuals who hear voices and hold unusual beliefs but do not have a psychiatric illness (nonclinical voice hearers; NCVH) completed a hollow mask illusion task. HCS reported experiencing the illusion significantly more often than PSZ and more often than NCVH at the trend level, whereas the latter two groups did not differ from one another. Additionally, there was no consistent association between illusion perception and symptom severity for either PSZ or NCVH. We interpret these results to indicate that resistance to visual illusions may mark a vulnerability for experiencing voices and holding unusual beliefs; however, it may not be associated with the severity of these symptoms.

Introduction: With an increasingly ageing population, understanding sensory impairments and their consequences in older adults is important.

Methods: The current study sought to examine the contemporaneous relationships between subjective sensory functioning (vision and hearing) and different types of anomalous perceptions (anomalous body-centred self-experiences and anomalous external experiences) in community-dwelling older adults (N = 244, M_age = 71.86 ± 7.65, range = 52-91, 67.6% female) using structural equation modelling.

Results: Poorer self-reported visual functioning was associated both with more anomalous body-centred self-experiences and more anomalous external experiences. However, no associations between self-reported hearing function and anomalous perceptions of any kind were found. Further, those reporting higher levels of loneliness self-reported poorer visual functioning and more anomalous body-centred self-experiences. The potential mediating role of loneliness was also explored. However, the relationship between self-reported visual function and anomalous perceptual experiences was not mediated by loneliness.

Conclusions: The current cross-sectional findings suggest that poorer self-reported visual-but not hearing-function may be a risk factor for the experience of anomalous perceptions in older adults. Future research should examine these associations using objective measures of hearing and vision and longitudinal designs.

Introduction: Apathy is one of the common neuropsychiatric symptoms in people with dementia (PwD). The aim of this study is to determine the impact of apathy on the patient's quality of life (QoL) and caregiver's burden among PwD.

Methods: Sample of this cross-sectional descriptive study consisted of 88 PwD attending the outpatient clinic of a university hospital in Istanbul and their family caregivers. The evaluation battery included Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES), Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI) and Quality of Life in Alzheimer's Disease Scale (QoL-AD).

Results: The mean age of the patients was 73.1 ± 11.7, and the time since diagnosis was 3.9 ± 3.1 years; 64.8% had Alzheimer's type dementia, and 53.4% (n = 47) had mild dementia. The mean AES-C score was 52.9 ± 10.2, QoL-AD score was 28.4 ± 5.6 and CBI score 32.6 ± 25.9. Apathy was associated with medical comorbidity, stage of dementia, neuropsychiatric symptoms, functional status and depression. Apathy was found to be predictor of the QoL-AD and also related with CBI.

Conclusions: In dementia patients, apathy was associated with patients' functional status, quality of life, and caregiver burden. It is recommended that patients be evaluated for apathy and its impact on activities of daily living, quality of life and caregiver burden.

Introduction: In this paper, we present a new way of thinking about what is going on in cases of Capgras delusion which is a more varied presentation than represented in the literature. We do this by reflecting on the fundamental nature of identification, and then draw some lessons from this for understanding misidentification in general and Capgras delusion cases in particular. What emerges, through the conceptual tool of "mental files", is a unified, yet pluralistic, account of delusional misidentification of the Capgras type. In other words, it allows us to see the delusion for what it really is and to understand what all such instances have in common (hence unified), while also accommodating the great heterogeneity in cause, aetiology and clinical presentation (hence pluralistic).

Methods: We apply the innovation of mental files and the idea that misidentification is fundamentally about file mismanagement to provide a better understanding of Capgras delusion.

Results: We demonstrate how the mental files account allows us to more plausibly accommodate the variety of clinical cases that more traditional approaches fail to account for. It also points us in the direction of as-yet-undeveloped aetiological models.

Conclusions: The mental files approach provides us with a unified, yet flexible, framework, and as such furthers our understanding of misidentification and the Capgras delusion.

Background: Cognitive flexibility (CF) is defined as the ability to switch efficiently between different concepts or tasks. Empirical evidence of CF in individuals with bulimia nervosa (BN), offers conflicting conclusions, attributed to how CF is conceptualized and operationalized. The aims of the current study were to compare CF performance of women with BN to healthy controls, utilising a CF model that includes three subtypes termed: task switching, switching sets and stimulus-response mapping. In addition, to examine the association between CF subtypes and BN clinical characteristics.

Methods: Sixty-two women (twenty-eight with BN and thirty-four healthy controls) with a mean age of 24.4, completed a CF cognitive battery. Performance was measured by response time and accuracy.

Results: The BN group's response time was worse only on task switching, but was significantly more accurate on stimulus-response mapping. There was no significant correlation between CF scores and BN clinical characteristics.

Conclusions: Women with BN present with an impairment only on higher CF demands, whereas their performance at lower-level CF tends to be more accurate. Additionally, CF is independent of clinical characteristics, thus supporting evidence that it may reflect a trait nature in BN.

Background: Recent studies reveal increasing interest in the link between Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), prompting a systematic review and meta-analysis of their co-occurrence.

Method: The review covered a comprehensive literature search across multiple databases up to November 2024, focusing on peer-reviewed studies of ASD and FND co-occurrence. Twenty-four studies qualified for inclusion.

Results: The study included 11,324 participants, predominantly female (73.4%). It estimated the proportion of ASD in FND populations to be 0.10 (95% CI: 0.07-0.15), with significant heterogeneity (I² = 97%, p < 0.01). Subgroup analysis showed variation among different age groups and diagnoses. The proportion of ASD was 0.09 in adults and 0.10 in children with FND, 0.15 in adults and 0.19 in children with Functional Tic-Like Behaviours (FTLB), and 0.07 in children with Functional Seizures (FS).

Conclusion: Many studies have reported the co-occurrence of ASD in FND, suggesting a higher-than-expected rate of 10%. Emerging themes exploring the overlapping determinants of FND and ASD, are discussed. However, the significance of this correlation and the overlapping determinants that might explain it, require further research due to the heterogeneity in methodologies, settings, conditions studied and findings. The presence of publication bias warrants cautious interpretation of the results.

Objective: Paranoid ideation underlies numerous psychological disorders and has debilitating effects on daily life. Deficits in neurocognition are highlighted as a contributing factor to paranoid-related disorders, but the impact on the symptom-level experience of paranoid ideation is unclear. This study aimed to employ a dimensional approach to understand the association between neurocognition and the severity and presence of paranoid ideation.

Methods: 400 participants, representative of the general population of the USA, completed an online questionnaire consisting of the Brief Symptom Inventory-53, and demographic and clinical questions. The participants then completed four computerised neurocognitive tasks measuring working memory, shifting, inhibition, and speed of processing.

Results: Speed of processing accounted for unique variance in the severity of paranoid ideation with a small effect size, after controlling for covariates. Working memory, shifting, and inhibition could not uniquely or collectively, account for paranoid ideation. Neurocognitive performance could not distinguish between individuals with and without paranoid ideation experiences.

Conclusions: This research supports the body of literature that speed of information processing may be a key feature of paranoid ideation. Future research should employ non-linear dynamic methods to better understand the potential interactions between neurocognitive components and how this may relate to paranoid ideation.

Background: People with higher levels of autistic traits are shown to be more likely to endorse conspiracy theories and misinformation on traditional methods of measurement (e.g., self-report). However, such research has been limited by the lack of a naturalistic measure of misinformation and conspiracy theory endorsement that resembles social media platforms.

Method: This study included measures of autistic traits, performance measures of critical reasoning and other notable covariates, to assess how participants performed in a simulated social media environment via the Misinformation Game, and whether they actively engaged with misinformation content.

Results: The results confirmed via a multiple mediation model (i.e., path analysis) that particular autistic traits, such as a lower ability to engage with imagination and higher attention to detail, were directly associated with false post engagement on the Misinformation Game and conspiracy theories. The relationship between autistic traits, conspiracy theories and misinformation was also partially mediated by scientific reasoning skills.

Limitations: This study was partially based on self-report methodology and did not use an entirely clinical sample.

Conclusion: There are particular autistic traits associated with the endorsement of misinformation and conspiracy theories which illustrate tendencies that could be focussed upon in future research to how best avoid misbeliefs.