Categoría: Papers con abstracts

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Although Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by typical motor manifestations, non-motor symptoms (NMS) are an outstanding part of the disease. At present, several specific instruments for assessment of NMS are available. The objective of our study was to determine the performance of the Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS): Part I – Non-Motor Aspects of Experiences of Daily Living (nM-EDL) compared with the Non-Motor Symptoms Scale (NMSS). METHODS: To this purpose, 434 consecutive patients with PD were included in an international, observational, cross-sectional study. The association between scores of both scales was determined by the Spearman rank correlation coefficient. Equations for transformation of total score of a scale to the other were constructed from weighted regression models and both, transformed and observed score, contrasted by means of the Lin’s Concordance Correlation Coefficient (LCCC) and Bland-Altman plot. RESULTS: As a whole, the prevalence of the NMS according to each scale was quite similar, and most of the correlations between their corresponding components were high (0.60). The total score correlation of the MDS-UPDRS Part I with UPDRS Section 1 was high (0.81). Concerning the transformed scores, estimated scores only partially approach the observed ones (sharing about 60-64% of the variance) because residual variance increased with increasing magnitudes of the scores, i.e. the most severe patients (Bland-Altman plot; LCCC 0.60 for severe patients). CONCLUSIONS: (i) MDS-UPDRS Part I (nM-EDL) and NMSS showed a strong convergent validity; (ii) however, transformed scores using the equations from weighted regression models showed that for patients with the most severe NMS they are not concordant

BACKGROUND: Based on the higher frequency of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation during night and early morning hours, we sought to analyze the association between newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation and wake-up ischemic cerebrovascular events.METHODS: We prospectively assessed every acute ischemic stroke and TIA patient admitted to our hospital between 2008 and 2011. We used a forward step-by-step multiple logistic regression analysis to assess the relationship between newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation and wake-up ischemic stroke or TIA, after adjusting for significant covariates.RESULTS: The study population comprised 356 patients, 274 (77.0%) with a diagnosis of acute ischemic stroke and 82 (23.0%) with TIA. A total of 41 (11.5%) of these events occurred during night sleep. A newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation was detected in 27 patients of 272 without known atrial fibrillation (9.9%). We found an independent association between newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation and wake-up ischemic stroke and TIA (odds ratio 3.6, 95% confidence interval 1.2-7.7, p = 0.019).CONCLUSIONS: The odds of detecting a newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation were 3-fold higher among wake-up cerebrovascular events than among non-wake-up events. The significance of this independent association between newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation and wake-up ischemic stroke and TIA and the role of other comorbidities should be investigated in future studies.

Background: Interoception refers to the conscious perception of body signals. Mindfulness is ameditation that encourages individuals to focus on their internal experiences such as bodilysensations, thoughts, and emotions. In this study we selected a behavioral measure ofinteroceptive sensitivity (heartbeat detection task, HBD) to compare the effect of meditationpractice on interoceptive sensitivity among long term practitioners (LTP), short term meditators(STM, subjects that completed a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program) andcontrols (non-meditators). All participants were examined with a battery of different tasksincluding mood state, executive function and social cognition tests (emotion recognition,empathy and theory of mind).Findings: Compared to controls, both meditators’ groups showed lower levels of anxiety anddepression, but no improvement in executive function or social cognition performance wasobserved (except for lower scores compared to controls only in the personal distress dimensionof empathy). More importantly, meditators´ performance did not differ from that ofnonmeditators regarding cardiac interoceptive sensitivity.Conclusion: Results suggest no influence of meditation practice in cardiac interoception and inmost related social cognition measures. These negative results could be partially due to the factthat awareness of heartbeat sensations is not emphasized during mindfulness/vipassanameditation and may not be the best index of the awareness supported by the practice ofmeditation.

BACKGROUND: The dimensional approach to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) considers ASD as the extreme of a dimension traversing through the entire population. We explored the potential utility of electroencephalography (EEG) functional connectivity as a biomarker. We hypothesized that individual differences in autistic traits of typical subjects would involve a long-range connectivity diminution within the delta band. METHODS: Resting-state EEG functional connectivity was measured for 74 neurotypical subjects. All participants also provided a questionnaire (Social Responsiveness Scale, SRS) that was completed by an informant who knows the participant in social settings. We conducted multivariate regression between the SRS score and functional connectivity in all EEG frequency bands. We explored modulations of network graph metrics characterizing the optimality of a network using the SRS score. RESULTS: Our results show a decay in functional connectivity mainly within the delta and theta bands (the lower part of the EEG spectrum) associated with an increasing number of autistic traits. When inspecting the impact of autistic traits on the global organization of the functional network, we found that the optimal properties of the network are inversely related to the number of autistic traits, suggesting that the autistic dimension, throughout the entire population, modulates the efficiency of functional brain networks. CONCLUSIONS: EEG functional connectivity at low frequencies and its associated network properties may be associated with some autistic traits in the general population.

Cockayne syndrome (CS) is an autosomal recessive disease associated with premature aging, progressive multiorgan degeneration, and nervous system abnormalities including cerebral and cerebellar atrophy, brain calcifications, and white matter abnormalities. Although several clinical descriptions of CS patients have reported developmental delay and cognitive impairment with relative preservation of social skills, no previous studies have carried out a comprehensive neuropsychological and social cognition assessment. Furthermore, no previous research in individuals with CS has examined the relationship between brain atrophy and performance on neuropsychological and social cognition tests. This study describes the case of an atypical late-onset type III CS patient who exceeds the mean life expectancy of individuals with this pathology. The patient and a group of healthy controls underwent a comprehensive assessment that included multiple neuropsychological and social cognition (emotion recognition, theory of mind, and empathy) tasks. In addition, we compared the pattern of atrophy in the patient to controls and to its concordance with ERCC8 gene expression in a healthy brain. The results showed memory, language, and executive deficits that contrast with the relative preservation of social cognition skills. The cognitive profile of the patient was consistent with his pattern of global cerebral and cerebellar loss of gray matter volume (frontal structures, bilateral cerebellum, basal ganglia, temporal lobe, and occipito-temporal/occipito-parietal regions), which in turn was anatomically consistent with the ERCC8gene expression level in a healthy donor’s brain. The study of exceptional cases, such as the one described here, is fundamental to elucidating the processes that affect the brain in premature aging diseases, and such studies provide an important source of information for understanding the problems associated with normal and pathological aging.

Converging neuroscientific evidence suggests the existence of close links between language and sensorimotor cognition. Accordingly, during the comprehension of meaningful actions, our brain would recruit semantic-related operations similar to those associated with the processing of language information. Consistent with this view, electrophysiological findings show that the N400 component, traditionally linked to the semantic processing of linguistic material, can also be elicited by action-related material. This review outlines recent data from N400 studies that examine the understanding of action events. We focus on three specific domains, including everyday action comprehension, co-speech gesture integration, and the semantics involved in motor planning and execution. Based on the reviewed findings, we suggest that both negativities (the N400 and the action-N400) reflect a common neurocognitive mechanism involved in the construction of meaning through the expectancies created by previous experiences and current contextual information. To shed light on how this process is instantiated in the brain, a testable contextual fronto-temporo-parietal model is proposed.

Many adult ADHD patients with a convincing history of real-life executive deficits perform entirely within normal limits or with minimally impaired performance in classical executive tests. The authors assessed a group of high cognitive functioning adult ADHD participants on «ecological»and «highly demanding» executive tasks. METHOD: A total of 117 adult ADHD participants were classified as showing either a high-functioning (Hi-ADHD) or a low-functioning (Lo-ADHD) neuropsychological profile based on standard assessment. Their performance was compared with healthy controls (n = 21) on an ecological task of executive function (the hotel task) and computerized tasks of high cognitive demand. RESULTS: ADHD significantly differed from controls on multiple standard neuropsychological variables as well as on the experimental tasks. Hi-ADHD and healthy controls did not differ significantly on any of the standard neuropsychological variables, but a significant difference was found between the groups on measures of the experimental tasks. CONCLUSION: Real-life executive dysfunction of patients with ADHD who perform within normal range on standard assessment can be detected with the use of more ecological and highly demanding tasks.

The relationship between decision making and theory of mind (TOM) has been hardly investigated in patients with Asperger Syndrome (AS). Here, we show that the AS group (n=25) exhibited deficits on a complex TOM task, yet were unimpaired in a decision-making test. No association was found between these two domains.

Psychiatric Conditions That Can Mimic Early Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia: The Importance of the New Diagnostic Criteria. Autores Manes F, Báez S, Couto JB, Herrera E, Trujillo-Orrego N, Cardona JF, Ibanez A.  Año 2012 Journal  Manes F, Báez S, Couto JB, Herrera E, Trujillo-Orrego N, Cardona JF, Ibanez A.  Volumen 14(5): 450-452 Abstract   Otra información  La publicación trata sobre la importancia de los nuevos criterios en … Leer más

The significance of social situations is commonly context-embedded. Although the role of context has been extensively studied in basic sensory processing or simple stimulus-response settings, its relevance for social cognition is unknown. We propose the social context network model (SCNM), a fronto-insular-temporal network responsible for processing social contextual effects. The SCNM may 1) update the context and use it to make predictions, 2) coordinate internal and external milieus, and 3) consolidate context-target associative learning. We suggest the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) as a specific disorder in which the reported deficits in social cognition (e.g., facial recognition, empathy, decision-making, figurative language, theory of mind) can be described as context impairments due to deficits in the SCNM. Disruption of orbitofrontal-amygdala circuit, as well as the frontal, temporal, and insular atrophy in bVFTD, suggests a relationship between context-sensitive social cognition and SCNM. In considering context as an intrinsic part of social cognition, we highlight the need for a situated cognition approach in social cognition research as opposed to an abstract, universal, and decontextualized approach. The assessment of context-dependent social cognition paradigms, the SCNM, and their possible application to neuropsychiatric disorders may provide new insight into bvFTD and other related frontal disorders.