-
Brain Impairment : a Multidisciplinary... Dec 2023Deficits in decision-making are a common consequence of moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Less is known, however, about how individuals with TBI perform on...
BACKGROUND AND AIM
Deficits in decision-making are a common consequence of moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Less is known, however, about how individuals with TBI perform on moral decision-making tasks. To address this gap in the literature, the current study probed moral decision-making in a sample of individuals with TBI using a widely employed experimental measure.
METHODS/HYPOTHESIS
We administered a set of 50 trolley-type dilemmas to 31 individuals with TBI and 31 demographically matched, neurotypical comparison participants. We hypothesized that individuals with TBI would be more likely to offer utilitarian responses to personal dilemmas than neurotypical peers.
RESULTS
In contrast to our hypothesis, we observed that individuals with TBI were not more likely to offer utilitarian responses for personal dilemmas.
CONCLUSION
Our results suggest that moral decision-making ability is not uniformly impaired following TBI. Rather, neuroanatomical (lesion location) and demographic (age at injury) characteristics may be more predictive of a disruption in moral decision-making than TBI diagnosis or injury severity alone. These results inform the neurobiology of moral decision-making and have implications for characterizing patterns of spared and impaired cognitive abilities in TBI.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Decision Making; Cognition; Brain Injuries, Traumatic; Morals
PubMed: 38124901
DOI: 10.1017/BrImp.2022.11 -
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Dec 2021Students consistently report multitasking (e.g., checking social media, texting, watching Netflix) when studying on their own (e.g., Junco & Cotton, Computers &...
Students consistently report multitasking (e.g., checking social media, texting, watching Netflix) when studying on their own (e.g., Junco & Cotton, Computers & Education, 59[2], 505-514, 2012). Multitasking impairs explicit learning (e.g., Carrier, Rosen, Cheever, & Lim, Developmental Review, 35, 64-78, 2015), but the impact of multitasking on metacognitive monitoring and control is less clear. Metacognition may compete with ongoing cognitive processing for mental resources (e.g., Nelson & Narens, The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 26, 125-141, 1990) and would be impaired by dividing attention; alternatively, metacognition may require little attention (e.g., Boekaerts & Niemivirta, Handbook of Self-Regulation [pp. 417-450], 2000) and would not be impacted by dividing attention. Across three experiments, we assessed the influence of divided attention on metacognition. Participants made item-by-item judgements of learning (JOLs) after studying word pairs under full or divided attention (Experiment 1) and made restudy choices (Experiments 2 & 3). Dividing attention had little impact on the resolution of learners' metacognitive monitoring, but significantly impaired calibration of monitoring, the relationship between monitoring and control, and the efficacy of metacognitive control. The data suggest that monitoring may require few cognitive resources, but controlling one's learning (e.g., planning what to restudy and implementing a plan) may demand significant mental resources.
Topics: Attention; Humans; Judgment; Learning; Metacognition; Students
PubMed: 34131889
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-021-01950-9 -
Neuropsychologia Jan 2021Evidence from psycholinguistic research indicates that sentence processing is impaired in Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), and more so in individuals with agrammatic...
Evidence from psycholinguistic research indicates that sentence processing is impaired in Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), and more so in individuals with agrammatic (PPA-G) than logopenic (PPA-L) subtypes. Studies have mostly focused on offline sentence production ability, reporting impaired production of verb morphology (e.g., tense, agreement) and verb-argument structure (VAS) in PPA-G, and mixed findings in PPA-L. However, little is known about real-time sentence comprehension in PPA. The present study is the first to compare real-time semantic, morphosyntactic and VAS processing in individuals with PPA (10 with PPA-G and 9 with PPA-L), and in two groups of healthy (22 young and 19 older) individuals, using event-related potentials (ERP). Participants were instructed to listen to sentences that were either well-formed (n = 150) or contained a violation of semantics (e.g., *Owen was mentoring pumpkins at the party, n = 50), morphosyntax (e.g., *The actors was singing in the theatre, n = 50) or VAS (*Ryan was devouring on the couch, n = 50), and were required to perform a sentence acceptability judgment task while EEG was recorded. Results indicated that in the semantic task both healthy and PPA groups showed an N400 response to semantic violations, which was delayed in PPA and older (vs. younger) groups. Morphosyntactic violations elicited a P600 in both groups of healthy individuals and in PPA-L, but not in PPA-G. A similar P600 response was also found only in healthy individuals for VAS violations; whereas, abnormal ERP responses were observed in both PPA groups, with PPA-G showing no evidence of VAS violation detection and PPA-L showing a delayed and abnormally-distributed positive component that was negatively associated with offline sentence comprehension scores. These findings support characterizations of sentence processing impairments in PPA-G, by providing online evidence that VAS and morphosyntactic processing are impaired, in the face of substantially preserved semantic processing. In addition, the results indicate that on-line processing of VAS information may also be impaired in PPA-L, despite their near-normal accuracy on standardized language tests of argument structure production.
Topics: Aphasia, Primary Progressive; Comprehension; Electroencephalography; Evoked Potentials; Female; Humans; Language; Male; Semantics
PubMed: 33326758
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107728 -
Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive... 2021Since screening and diagnostic tests for dementia do not have perfect accuracy, >1 test is often administered when assessing patients with cognitive complaints. Use of...
BACKGROUND/AIMS
Since screening and diagnostic tests for dementia do not have perfect accuracy, >1 test is often administered when assessing patients with cognitive complaints. Use of both patient performance tests and informant questionnaires has been recommended. Combination of individual test results may be based on methods originally defined by Thomas Bayes (revision or updating of pretest probabilities to post-test probabilities given the test results) and by George Boole (application of associative "AND" or "OR" operator). This study sought to apply these methods in clinical practice.
METHODS
Using the dataset of a pragmatic test accuracy study of the Six-Item Cognitive Impairment Test (6CIT) and informant Ascertain Dementia 8 (AD8), post-test probabilities for the combination were calculated using Bayes' formula and compared to Boolean "AND" combination. Combined test sensitivity and specificity was calculated using either Boolean "AND" or "OR" operator and compared to results using equations based on individual test sensitivity and specificity.
RESULTS
Both Bayesian and Boolean methods produced similar improvements from pretest probability (0.288) to combined post-test probability for dementia (≈0.5). Likewise, the 2 different methods for calculating combined sensitivities and specificities gave similar results, with, as anticipated, the "AND" combination improving overall specificity (to ≈0.65) whereas the "OR" combination improved sensitivity (to ≈1.00).
CONCLUSION
Combination of individual screening test results using Bayesian and Boolean methods is relatively straightforward and may add to clinicians' intuitive judgements when combining test results.
Topics: Bayes Theorem; Dementia; Female; Humans; Male; Mass Screening; Middle Aged; Sensitivity and Specificity; Surveys and Questionnaires
PubMed: 33784694
DOI: 10.1159/000514063 -
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry May 2023Patients with schizophrenia differ from healthy controls in the extent that they spontaneously take another's perspective. For such effects, it is difficult to separate...
INTRODUCTION
Patients with schizophrenia differ from healthy controls in the extent that they spontaneously take another's perspective. For such effects, it is difficult to separate the influence of schizophrenia from multiple potential confounders. Here, for the first time, associations between spontaneous perspective-taking and schizotypy were investigated in a nonclinical population.
METHODS
Adult participants completed both a Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ-BRU) and a novel online adaptation of a visual perspective-taking task that required participants to make judgements both from their own perspective and that of a human avatar.
RESULTS
Response times were elevated when the avatar's perspective was inconsistent with that of the participant, providing evidence of spontaneous perspective-taking. This demonstrates that the visual perspective-taking task can be successfully implemented in an online format. However, schizotypy did not predict these spontaneous perspective-taking effects.
CONCLUSIONS
Unlike explicit mentalising, this form of implicit mentalising is not affected by nonclinical manifestations of schizotypy traits. This implies that impairment of general neurocognitive function contributes to altered spontaneous perspective-taking in schizophrenia. A novel account based on the cognitive control processes involved in perspective selection and the role of attention in perspective calculation reconciles apparently contradictory findings of earlier studies comparing patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Schizotypal Personality Disorder; Schizophrenia; Reaction Time; Personality; Attention
PubMed: 36924343
DOI: 10.1080/13546805.2023.2189575 -
Experimental Brain Research Mar 2022Temporal Binding Window (TBW) represents a reliable index of efficient multisensory integration process, which allows individuals to infer which sensory inputs from...
Temporal Binding Window (TBW) represents a reliable index of efficient multisensory integration process, which allows individuals to infer which sensory inputs from different modalities pertain to the same event. TBW alterations have been reported in some neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders and seem to negatively affects cognition and behavior. So far, it is still unknown whether deficits of multisensory integration, as indexed by an abnormal TBW, are present even in Multiple Sclerosis. We addressed this issue by testing 25 participants affected by relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS) and 30 age-matched healthy controls. Participants completed a simultaneity judgment task (SJ2) to assess the audio-visual TBW; two unimodal SJ2 versions were used as control tasks. Individuals with RRMS showed an enlarged audio-visual TBW (width range = from - 166 ms to + 198 ms), as compared to healthy controls (width range = - 177/ + 66 ms), thus showing an increased tendency to integrate temporally asynchronous visual and auditory stimuli. Instead, simultaneity perception of unimodal (visual or auditory) events overall did not differ from that of controls. These results provide first evidence of a selective deficit of multisensory integration in individuals affected by RRMS, besides the well-known motor and cognitive impairments. The reduced multisensory temporal acuity is likely caused by a disruption of the neural interplay between different sensory systems caused by multiple sclerosis.
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Auditory Perception; Humans; Judgment; Multiple Sclerosis; Multiple Sclerosis, Relapsing-Remitting; Photic Stimulation; Visual Perception
PubMed: 35094114
DOI: 10.1007/s00221-022-06310-0 -
Frontiers in Oncology 2020The current study aimed to investigate whether childhood-onset craniopharyngioma patients are impaired in social-cognitive skills, and whether individual differences in...
The current study aimed to investigate whether childhood-onset craniopharyngioma patients are impaired in social-cognitive skills, and whether individual differences in task performance are modulated by the neurohormone oxytocin. We tested 31 adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma patients with and without hypothalamic lesions and 35 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. To test for between-group differences in social-cognitive skills, we experimentally assessed participants' abilities to interpret social signs or dispositions and to understand others' thoughts, feelings, and intentions. Associations between fasting oxytocin saliva concentrations and task performance were analyzed across the whole group of participants. Compared to controls, patients with hypothalamic lesions were significantly less able to identify the correct emotional content of vocal expressions and to understand others' mental states. Judgements of trustworthiness were not different between patients and controls. There were no correlations between the primary measures of task performance and fasting oxytocin saliva concentrations. This is the first study to show that craniopharyngioma patients with hypothalamic lesions are impaired in some aspects of social cognition, which are of high relevance for everyday social interactions. These deficits suggest a disruption of the normal functionality of hypothalamic-fronto-limbic networks and/or additional areas of the social brain, which are at particular risk by hypothalamic location of the tumor and its treatment.
PubMed: 32714861
DOI: 10.3389/fonc.2020.01014 -
Dementia & Neuropsychologia 2023Increased longevity and subsequent increase in older populations emphasize the importance of assisting older people to continue living in safe and residential situations...
UNLABELLED
Increased longevity and subsequent increase in older populations emphasize the importance of assisting older people to continue living in safe and residential situations for as long as possible. Judgement, an important aspect of cognition, and a predictor of function may become impaired and compromise safe living. Yet, judgement is difficult to assess, and few valid instruments are utilized in clinical settings that accurately evaluate judgement in older people.
OBJECTIVES
This pilot study aimed to translate, culturally adapt, and initiate the validation of the Hebrew version of the verbal practical judgement (VPJ) assessment among community-dwelling older people.
METHODS
A total of 50 older adults, aged over 65 years, living in the community in Israel, half of whom were independent (n=27, 54%), and the rest dependent participants in a day centre with some level of cognitive/functional decline, completed the VPJ evaluation and comparison assessments.
RESULTS
Positive and significant (p<0.05) relationships between VPJ and standard assessments were found, demonstrating convergent validity. By comparing VPJ scores between independent and dependent older adults, results also supported discriminant validity. Finally, a multiple hierarchical regression demonstrated a positive relationship between instrumental activities of daily living and judgement.
CONCLUSIONS
This pilot study found the VPJ feasible, likely valid, and culturally adaptable to assess judgement in Israeli older adults. Assessing judgement will provide older adults and their families with essential information regarding function, cognition, and safety and will enable them to live/return home in accordance with their autonomy, safety, and well-being.
PubMed: 37261249
DOI: 10.1590/1980-5764-DN-2022-0047 -
Brain Communications 2022Neuralgic amyotrophy is a common peripheral nerve disorder caused by autoimmune inflammation of the brachial plexus, clinically characterized by acute pain and weakness...
Neuralgic amyotrophy is a common peripheral nerve disorder caused by autoimmune inflammation of the brachial plexus, clinically characterized by acute pain and weakness of the shoulder muscles, followed by motor impairment. Despite recovery of the peripheral nerves, patients often have residual motor dysfunction of the upper extremity, leading to persistent pain related to altered biomechanics of the shoulder region. Building on clinical signs that suggest a role for cerebral mechanisms in these residual complaints, here we show and characterize cerebral alterations following neuralgic amyotrophy. Neuralgic amyotrophy patients often develop alternative motor strategies, which suggests that (mal)adaptations may occur in somatomotor and/or visuomotor brain areas. Here, we tested where changes in cerebral sensorimotor representations occur in neuralgic amyotrophy, while controlling for altered motor execution due to peripheral neuropathy. We additionally explore the relation between potential cerebral alterations in neuralgic amyotrophy and clinical symptoms. During functional MRI scanning, 39 neuralgic amyotrophy patients with persistent, lateralized symptoms in the right upper extremity and 23 matched healthy participants solved a hand laterality judgement task that can activate sensorimotor representations of the upper extremity, across somatomotor and visuomotor brain areas. Behavioural and cerebral responses confirmed the involvement of embodied, sensorimotor processes across groups. Compared with healthy participants, neuralgic amyotrophy patients were slower in hand laterality judgement and had decreased cerebral activity specific to their affected limb in two higher-order visual brain regions: the right extrastriate cortex and the parieto-occipital sulcus. Exploratory analyses revealed that across patients, extrastriate activity specific to the affected limb decreased as persistent pain increased, and affected limb-related parieto-occipital activity decreased as imagery performance of the affected limb became slower. These findings suggest that maladaptive cerebral plasticity in visuomotor areas involved in sensorimotor integration plays a role in residual motor dysfunction and subsequent persistent pain in neuralgic amyotrophy. Rehabilitation interventions that apply visuomotor strategies to improve sensorimotor integration may help to treat neuralgic amyotrophy patients.
PubMed: 35233524
DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcac034 -
Phenomics (Cham, Switzerland) Oct 2022Despite recent advances in technology, clinical phenotyping of Parkinson's disease (PD) has remained relatively limited as current assessments are mainly based on... (Review)
Review
Despite recent advances in technology, clinical phenotyping of Parkinson's disease (PD) has remained relatively limited as current assessments are mainly based on empirical observation and subjective categorical judgment at the clinic. A lack of comprehensive, objective, and quantifiable clinical phenotyping data has hindered our capacity to diagnose, assess patients' conditions, discover pathogenesis, identify preclinical stages and clinical subtypes, and evaluate new therapies. Therefore, deep clinical phenotyping of PD patients is a necessary step towards understanding PD pathology and improving clinical care. In this review, we present a growing community consensus and perspective on how to clinically phenotype this disease, that is, to phenotype the entire course of disease progression by integrating capacity, performance, and perception approaches with state-of-the-art technology. We also explore the most studied aspects of PD deep clinical phenotypes, namely, bradykinesia, tremor, dyskinesia and motor fluctuation, gait impairment, speech impairment, and non-motor phenotypes.
PubMed: 36939759
DOI: 10.1007/s43657-022-00051-4