Categoría: Papers con abstracts

Mapping memory binding onto the connectome’s temporal dynamics: Towards a combined biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease. Autores Ibanez A, Parra M.  Año 2014 Journal  Ibanez A, Parra M.  Volumen 8:237. Abstract   Otra información  En este trabajo proponemos que tras la caída de la hipótesis de cascada amiloide en al enfermedad del Alzheimer (EA), la conectividad cerebral distribuida … Leer más

In the present work we analyzed the effect of contextual word predictability on the eye movement behavior of patients with mild Alzheimer disease (AD) compared to age-matched controls, by using the eyetracking technique and lineal mixed models. Twenty AD patients and 40 age-matched controls participated in the study. We first evaluated gaze duration during reading low and highly predictable sentences. AD patients showed an increase in gaze duration, compared to controls, both in sentences of low or high predictability. In controls, highly predictable sentences led to shorter gaze durations; by contrary, AD patients showed similar gaze durations in both types of sentences. Similarly, gaze duration in controls was affected by the cloze predictability of word N and N+1, whereas it was the same in AD patients. In contrast, the effects of word frequency and word length were similar in controls and AD patients. Our results imply that contextual-word predictability, whose processing is proposed to require memory retrieval, facilitated reading behavior in healthy subjects, but this facilitation was lost in early AD patients. This loss might reveal impairments in brain areas such as those corresponding to working memory, memory retrieval, and semantic memory functions that are already present at early stages of AD. In contrast, word frequency and length processing might require less complex mechanisms, which were still retained by AD patients. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study measuring how patients with early AD process well-defined words embedded in sentences of high and low predictability. Evaluation of the resulting changes in eye movement behavior might provide a useful tool for a more precise early diagnosis of AD.

Methodological considerations regarding cognitive interventions in dementia. Autores Ibanez A, Richly P, Roca M, Manes F. Año 2014 Journal  Ibanez A, Richly P, Roca M, Manes F. Volumen 6:212. Abstract   Otra información  Las intervenciones cognitivas en la demencia son un aspecto esencial en la rehabilitación. Sin embargo sus efectos no han sido adecuadamente respaldados en la mayoría de las investigaciones … Leer más

La neuroeducación busca detectar problemas en las prácticas escolares y proponer soluciones guiadas por evidencia neurocognitiva. En este sentido, la acumulación de conocimientos sobre el cerebro bilingüe permite reflexionar sobre las propuestas de enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras. El presente artículo aborda dicha temática mediante una lectura crítica de los Diseños Curriculares (DCs) para la Educación Básica de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Específicamente, se consideran hallazgos neurolingüísticos para analizar los DCs en lo concerniente a la enseñanza de la gramática inglesa y sugerir modificaciones generales para superar las inconsistencias advertidas.

Bridging psychiatry and neurology through social neuroscience. Autores Ibanez A, Kuljis R, Matallana D, Manes F.  Año 2014 Journal  Ibanez A, Kuljis R, Matallana D, Manes F.  Volumen 13(2): 148-149 Abstract   Otra información  En este trabajo se resalta el rol multinivel de la neurociencia social para construir puentes entre los cuadros psiquiátricos y neurológicos a través de la presentación de … Leer más

Los pacientes con lesiones de la ínsula (al igual que las de áreas frontales) presentan un desempeño muy variable respecto el reconocimiento de las emociones, la empatía y la cognición social, que va desde la total afección a la total preservación. Dicha variabilidad podría explicarse por neuroplasticidad, procesos compensatorios y remapeo funcional. En este trabajo proponemos que la conectividad efectiva y el modelo de predictive coding representan una nueva aproximación para comprender dicha variabilidad a partir de las conexiones direccionales con otras áreas.

Psychiatrists’ approach to vascular risk assessment in Latin America. Autores Richly P, López PL, Gleichgerrcht E, Flichtentrei D, M Prats, R Mastandueno, Bustin J, Cetkovich M.  Año 2014 Journal  Richly P, López PL, Gleichgerrcht E, Flichtentrei D, M Prats, R Mastandueno, Bustin J, Cetkovich M.  Volumen 4(3): 56-61 Abstract   Otra información    

The preserved «implicit awareness » in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) presenting anosognosia has opened a new branch of research regarding explicit-implicit integration. The behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), contrary to AD, would present impaired anosognosia-related implicit awareness due to a dysfunctional implicit integration of contextual information caused by an abnormal fronto-insular-temporal network. Loss of insight and anosognosia are pervasive in bvFTD, but no reports have assessed the implicit emotional awareness in this condition. We emphasize the need to investigate and extend our knowledge of implicit contextual integration impairments and their relation with anosognosia in bvFTD vs AD.

To better understand clinical empathy and what factors can undermine its experience and outcome in care-giving settings, a large-scale study was conducted with 7,584 board certified practicing physicians. Online validated instruments assessing different aspects of empathy, distress, burnout, altruistic behavior, emotional awareness, and well-being were used. Compassion satisfaction was strongly associated with empathic concern, perspective taking and altruism, while compassion fatigue (burnout and secondary traumatic stress) was more closely related to personal distress and alexithymia. Gender had a highly selective effect on empathic concern, with women displaying higher values, which led to a wide array of negative and devalued feelings. Years of experience did not influence dispositional measures per se after controlling for the effect of age and gender. Participants who experienced compassion fatigue with little to no compassion satisfaction showed the highest scores on personal distress and alexithymia as well as the strongest indicators of compassion fatigue. Physicians who have difficulty regulating their negative arousal and describing and identifying emotions seem to be more prone to emotional exhaustion, detachment, and a low sense of accomplishment. On the contrary, the ability to engage in self-other awareness and regulate one’s emotions and the tendency to help others, seem to contribute to the sense of compassion that comes from assisting patients in clinical practice.

Although neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is classically recognized as an affectation of optic nerves and spinal cord, recent reports have shown brain atrophy and cognitive dysfunction in this condition. Importantly, femotion-related brain regions appear to be impaired in NMO. However, no studies of NMO’ emotional processing have been published. The goal of the current study was to investigate facial emotion recognition in 10 patients with NMO and 10 healthy controls by controlling for relevant cognitive factors. Consistent with previous reports, NMO patients performed poorly across cognitive domains (divided attention, working memory, and information-processing speed). Our findings further evidence the relative inability of NMO patients to recognize negative emotions (disgust, anger, and fear), in comparison to controls, with these deficits not explained by other cognitive impairments. Results provide the first evidence that NMO may impair the ability to recognize negative emotions. These impairments appear to be related to possible damage in brain regions underling emotional networks, including the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala, and medial prefrontal cortex. Findings increased both our understanding of NMO’s cognitive impairment, and the neural networks underlying negative emotions.