Biomedical subjects

Olalla Robles

Publications and source records attributed to Olalla Robles.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Deficits on the Continuous Performance Test within the schizophrenia spectrum and the mediating effects of family history of schizophrenia.

Individuals with schizophrenia spectrum personality disorders (SSPD) and schizophrenia show similar cognitive impairments. The authors examined the contributions of SSPD symptoms and familial risk for schizophrenia to impairments on the Continuous Performance Test--Identical Pairs Version. Participants included 103 schizophrenia patients, 66 first-degree relatives (29 SSPD), and 103 community controls (26 SSPD) screened for family history of psychosis. Patients and SSPD relatives performed significantly worse than non-SSPD relatives and SSPD and non-SSPD community controls. No differences in performance were observed among non-SSPD relatives and SSPD and non-SSPD community controls. Results suggest a continuum in which risk for schizophrenia-related cognitive impairments is highest among patients and SSPD relatives, intermediate among non-SSPD relatives, and lowest among SSPD and non-SSPD community controls. Results suggest that SSPD in the absence of a family history of psychosis may be a phenocopy.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Neurological soft signs in adolescents with first episode psychosis.

The purpose of this study is to determine the decrease of neurological soft signs (NSS) during adolescence and to compare this evolutionary process in two groups of adolescents with first episode psychosis: a) schizophrenia and b) non-schizophrenia patients. The structured neurological evaluation scale (NES) was administered to 24 adolescents with first episode psychosis. The number of NSS, the total and subscales scores were correlated with age in patients and in 39 healthy controls. Adolescents with first-episode psychosis had a higher prevalence of NSS than healthy controls; the schizophrenia patients (N=9) scored higher than non-schizophrenia patients (N=15). The number of NSS, total score and the scores on three of the four NES subscales correlated inversely with age in the healthy control group. No correlation was found for the schizophrenia group. For the non-schizophrenia group, a significant negative correlation was found only in one subscale. The decrease of NSS during adolescence in the healthy population but not in the patient groups with psychosis may be an indicator of a disturbance of brain processes that occurs during development. We did not find a clear pattern of NSS that distinguished schizophrenia from other psychoses.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Nicotine improves delayed recognition in schizophrenic patients.

RATIONALE: Nicotine has been shown to enhance some aspects of memory, attention and cognition in normal subjects and in some patient populations such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease groups. OBJECTIVES: Memory disorders are consistently observed in schizophrenic patients, so it is of interest to determine whether nicotine might improve memory performance in these patients. METHODS: Delayed recognition was assessed using yes/no recognition of visuospatial designs. Working memory was assessed in a delayed match-to-sample paradigm using unfamiliar faces. Nicotine (1.0 mg delivered via nasal spray) was administered to schizophrenic patients and normal volunteers prior to testing in the nicotine condition. Results were compared to a baseline condition in which no nicotine was given. RESULTS: On both tasks, normal volunteers performed better overall than schizophrenic patients. Significant improvement following nicotine administration was obtained only on the delayed recognition task and only for the subset of schizophrenic patients who were smokers. This improvement reflected a reduction in false alarm rates in the nicotine condition; hit rates were unaffected by nicotine. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that nicotine enhances delayed recognition memory in schizophrenic patients who smoke, but that similar performance enhancement is not observed for working memory.

Adult↗