Association of Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia Assessed by the BNSS and SNS Scales With Neuropsychological Performance: A Gender Effect

Objective: The relationship between negative symptoms and neurocognitive performance in schizophrenia is well documented, but the mechanism of these connections remains unclear. The study aims to measure the relationship between the results on the new scales for the assessment of negative symptoms such as Brief Negative Symptom Scale (BNSS) and Self-evaluation of Negative Symptoms (SNS), and the results of some neurocognition tests. The second aim is to assess a possible gender effect on these associations.Methods: The study included 80 patients (40 men, 40 women) with schizophrenia, aged 19–63 (mean 38 years), during the improvement period (total PANSS score <80, unchanged pharmacological treatment in the last 3 weeks). They were assessed using the BNSS, SNS, Personal and Social Performance (PSP) scales, and the tests for neuropsychological performance such as the Trail Making Test (TMT-A, TMT-B), Stroop Color-Word Interference Test, Verbal fluency tests (VFT), Category fluency test (CFT), and Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST).Results: Male patients obtained higher scores than females on some PANSS and BNSS items. No gender differences were observed for the SNS scale. Female patients scored better in the PSP and CFT. In male patients, a significant positive correlation between the intensity of negative symptoms measured by the BNSS and the results of PSP with the Trail Making Test was observed. In female patients, we found a positive correlation between the results of BNSS and PSP with the Stroop Color-Word Interference Test.Conclusion: The obtained results confirm the relationship between negative symptoms and neurocognition in schizophrenia patients. However, in male and female patients such association was observed for different cognitive domains. Further research is needed to explain the nature of these differences.

Executive Functioning, Emotion Regulation, and Negative Emotion in Suicidal Older Adults

Deficits in executive functioning, emotion regulation, and negative emotion have all been linked to suicidality. Yet, the complex interactions between these three factors and their relationships to suicidal behavior in older adults remain unclear. Participants (N = 39) were depressed middle and older adult (M = 62.0, SD = 9.41) inpatients with recent suicidal attempt or ideation, without psychotic depression or moderate or greater cognitive impairment (DRS>90). Participants were administered measures of executive functioning (Stroop and COWAT), emotion regulation (ERQ Suppression and Reappraisal; RRS-Brooding; UPPS- Premediation Scale), and negative emotion (PANAS-X), in addition to measures of depression (MADRS) and suicidality (C-SSRS). Results indicated that executive functioning was not significantly related to emotion regulation or negative affect, but measures of emotion regulation were related to negative emotion and frequency of suicidal ideation in bivariate analyses. Lower ERQ reappraisal tended to be associated with negative emotion (ß = -.392, p = .067) in multivariate analyses. Although comparisons were non-significant, effect sizes revealed that those who experienced daily suicidal ideation (C-SSRS) had lower reappraisal and higher brooding scores (Cohen’s d = 1.014 - 1.456), as well as higher executive functioning (Stroop Color-Word trial) and overall cognition (DRS) scores (Cohen’s d = 0.625 – 0.792) than less frequent ideators. Findings suggest that older inpatients with frequent suicidal ideation have poorer emotion regulation but may have more intact cognition and executive functioning than those with less frequent suicidal ideation.

EXPRESS: The Dominance of Item Learning in the Location-Specific Proportion Congruence Paradigm

Prior research has shown that various cues are exploited to reactively adjust attention and such adjustments depend on learning associations between cues and proportion congruence. This raises the intriguing question of what will be learned when more than one cue is available, a question that has implications for understanding which cue(s) will dominate in guiding reactive adjustments. Using a picture-word Stroop task, Bugg, Suh, Colvett, and Lehmann (2020) provided initial evidence that item learning dominated over location learning in a location-specific proportion congruence (LSPC) paradigm, a pattern that may explain the difficulty researchers have faced in replicating and reproducing the LSPC effect. One goal was to reproduce this pattern using a non-overlapping two-item sets design that more closely matched prior studies, and another goal was to examine generalizability of the pattern to two other tasks. Using a prime-probe, color-word Stroop task (Experiment 1) and a flanker task (Experiment 2), we again found clear dominance of item learning. In Experiment 3, we attempted to disrupt item learning and promote location learning by using a counting procedure that directed participants’ attention to location. Once again, we found the same pattern of item dominance. Additionally, in none of the experiments did we find evidence for conjunctive (location-item) learning. Collectively, the findings suggest item learning is neither design- or task-specific; rather, it is robust, reliable, and not easily disrupted. Discussion centers on factors dictating dominance of item- over location-based adjustments and implications for the broader literature on LSPC effects.

Effects of Orienteering Game on Directional Relationships and Inhibitory Control in Children 7-8 Aged

The spatial orientation, ability is very important for the child, for the development of its executive functions such as inhibitory control and directional skills. In fact, the role of play as a locomotive for learning and motivation is very imperative in this age group. Our methodological choice consists of offering a teaching program around the orientation game (OG) that takes place in the school playground. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of OG on directional skills and inhibitory control. The assessment was respectively conducted by Topological and Directional Relation (RTD) and Stroop Color-Word Test -Victoria version (SCWT). Primary school students (N = 40; 7.3 years) participated in this study. They were divided into two groups: an experimental group (20 students) and a control group (20 students). The first group followed a 12-week orienteering game (OG) program with 3 sessions of 40 minutes per week and the second a regular physical education program. The results of the experimental group show a clear improvement in most of the study variables.

Vitamin C supplementation promotes mental vitality in healthy young adults: results from a cross-sectional analysis and a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Purpose We aimed to investigate the link of vitamin C status with vitality and psychological functions in a cross-sectional study, and examine their causal relationship through a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Methods We first conducted a population-based cross-sectional investigation of healthy young adults (n = 214, 20–39 years), and analyzed the associations of serum vitamin C concentrations with vitality (fatigue and attention) and mood status (stress, depression, and positive and negative affect) using Pearson’s correlation and multiple linear regression analyses. Next, we performed a double-blind RCT in healthy subjects whose serum vitamin C concentrations were inadequate (< 50 μmol/L). Subjects were randomly allocated to receive 500 mg of vitamin C twice a day for 4 weeks (n = 24) or a placebo (n = 22). We assessed vitality, which included fatigue, attention, work engagement, and self-control resources, and measured mood status, including stress, depression, positive and negative affect, and anxiety. ELISA determined serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and a Stroop color–word test evaluated attention capacity and processing speed. Results In the cross-sectional data, the serum vitamin C concentration was positively associated with the level of attention (r = 0.16, p = 0.02; standardized β = 0.21, p = 0.003), while no significant associations with the levels of fatigue and mood variables being found. In the RCT, compared to the placebo, the vitamin C supplementation significantly increased attention (p = 0.03) and work absorption (p = 0.03) with distinct tendency of improvement on fatigue (p = 0.06) and comprehensive work engagement (p = 0.07). The vitamin C supplementation did not affect mood and serum concentrations of BDNF. However, in the Stroop color–word test, the subjects supplemented with vitamin C showed better performance than those in the placebo group (p = 0.04). Conclusion Inadequate vitamin C status is related to a low level of mental vitality. Vitamin C supplementation effectively increased work motivation and attentional focus and contributed to better performance on cognitive tasks requiring sustained attention. Trial registration number and date of registration Cross-sectional study: KCT0005074 (cris.nih.go.kr)/1 June, 2020 (retrospectively registered). Intervention study: KCT0004276 (cris.nih.go.kr)/4 September, 2019.

A-18 Early Pattern of Cognitive Changes Associated with Insulin Resistance in a Sample of Young Adults

Objective Insulin resistance increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and subsequently cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. It is also linked to neurocognitive disorders and accelerated cognitive aging (Ekblad et al, 2017; Levine, Harrati, & Crimmins, 2018). Using baseline data from a longitudinal study in a sample of 126 cognitively intact adults aged 25–50 years (36.5% males), we assessed cognitive performance in relation to insulin resistance to determine whether an early prodromal pattern of cognitive changes exists prior to advanced metabolic disease. Methods Steady state plasma glucose (SSPG) was used to measure insulin resistance. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted using age, years of education, body mass index (BMI), and SSPG as predictors of neuropsychological functioning. In-person and tele-neuropsychological assessment was administered using standard neuropsychological measures. Results Higher insulin resistance was associated with significantly worse attention (WAIS-III Digit Span total; B = -0.018, p = 0.03), executive functioning (D-KEFS Color-Word Inhibition/Switching; B = 0.047, p = 0.04) and dominant fine motor abilities (Purdue Pegboard; B = -0.008, p = 0.02). Higher insulin resistance was also associated with trend level worsening of other measures of executive functioning, namely D-KEFS Trails 4 (B = 0.099, p = 0.07) and DKEFS Color-Word Inhibition errors (B = 0.007, p = 0.09). Conclusions In young adults, higher insulin resistance was associated with declines in attention, executive functioning, and fine motor abilities. This early pattern of subtle cognitive changes associated with higher insulin resistance seen in this sample of younger adults is consistent with later cognitive declines found in type 2 diabetes and vascular neurocognitive disorder, namely declines in attention, executive functioning, and motor abilities with eventual memory declines in advanced disease.

Neural Dynamics of Conflict Control in Working Memory

Attention and working memory (WM) have classically been considered as two separate cognitive functions, but more recent theories have conceptualized them as operating on shared representations and being distinguished primarily by whether attention is directed internally (WM) or externally (attention, traditionally defined). Supporting this idea, a recent behavioral study documented a “WM Stroop effect,” showing that maintaining a color word in WM impacts perceptual color-naming performance to the same degree as presenting the color word externally in the classic Stroop task. Here, we employed ERPs to examine the neural processes underlying this WM Stroop task compared to those in the classic Stroop and in a WM-control task. Based on the assumption that holding a color word in WM would (pre-)activate the same color representation as by externally presenting that color word, we hypothesized that the neural cascade of conflict–control processes would occur more rapidly in the WM Stroop than in the classic Stroop task. Our behavioral results replicated equivalent interference behavioral effects for the WM and classic Stroop tasks. Importantly, however, the ERP signatures of conflict detection and resolution displayed substantially shorter latencies in the WM Stroop task. Moreover, delay-period conflict in the WM Stroop task, but not in the WM control task, impacted the ERP and performance measures for the WM probe stimuli. Together, these findings provide new insights into how the brain processes conflict between internal representations and external stimuli, and they support the view of shared representations between internally held WM content and attentional processing of external stimuli.