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PubMed2025

Mediterranean and standard American diet consumption in psychosis and non-psychosis affective disorders groups: Symptoms and cognition.

UNLABELLED: Research supports an association between diet and health, and emerging evidence suggests that diet is associated with neuropsychiatric symptoms. However, no human study has examined an anti-inflammatory diet across rigorously defined psychiatric diagnoses and its associations with symptom severity and cognition. As inflammation is implicated in mental illness, we investigated adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD), an anti-inflammatory diet, and the standard American diet (SAD), and examined cross-sectional relationships with psychiatric symptoms and cognition. METHOD: Participants included 54 individuals with psychotic disorders, 30 with non-psychosis affective disorders and 40 healthy controls. Participants underwent diagnostic interviews, PANSS symptom ratings, and MATRICS cognitive assessments. The self-report GBAQ was used to assess adherence to the MD versus SAD. RESULTS: The psychosis group was significantly more likely to consume the SAD than healthy controls (p = 0.007), with MD adherence predicting better working memory (r = 0.461, p < 0.001). In the non-psychosis affective disorders group, MD adherence predicted slower processing speed (r = -0.376, p = 0.049). In the non-psychosis affective disorders group, MD predicted reduced PANSS General Psychopathology scale (r = -0.449, p = 0.013), as well as the Activation (r = -0.362, p = 0.049), and Dysphoric Mood factors (r = -0.403, p = 0.027). DISCUSSION: This first-of-its kind study identified poor dietary choices in persons with psychosis, showing significantly lower symptoms and better cognition in association with the MD in transdiagnostic analyses. It supports the study of dietary interventions for prevention and treatment of psychiatric conditions.

Humans↗

PubMed1987

The cuing and priming of cognitive operations.

The effect on performance of advance information about the specific cognitive operations to be performed on a stimulus was investigated in two experiments using cues (information useful and necessary for performance) and primes (information useful but not necessary for performance). In the first experiment, a cue presented prior to a digit stimulus indicated whether the digit was to be classified as odd or even, or low (less than 6) or high (greater than 5). Results showed that performance improved with increasing time between cue and digit and with practice. A stroop-like asymmetric interference of the low-high operation on the odd-even operation was also observed. In the second experiment, a prime that matched the cue, mismatched it, or was neutral was presented before the cue. Results showed facilitatory and inhibitory priming effects, as well as a distance effect based on the position of a digit relative to the boundary between 5 and 6. The results of both experiments were discussed in terms of a model based on relative processing speeds of the two relevant properties of the digits.

Attention↗

PubMed1990

Conceptual knowledge in the interpretation of idioms.

The authors examined how people determine the contextual appropriateness of idioms. In Experiment 1, idioms referring to the same temporal stage of a conceptual prototype were judged to be more similar in meaning than idioms referring to different temporal stages. In Experiment 2, idioms in a prototypical temporal sequence were more meaningful than idioms in sentences that violated the temporal sequence. In Experiment 3, idioms referring to the same stage of a conceptual prototype were differentiable on the basis of conceptual information. The conceptual coherence between idioms and contexts facilitated the processing speed of idioms in Experiment 4. Experiment 5 showed that speakers can recover the underlying conceptual metaphors that link an idiom to its figurative meaning. Experiment 6 showed that the metaphoric information reflected in the lexical makeup of idioms also determined the metaphoric appropriateness of idioms in certain contexts.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Category knowledge in Alzheimer's disease: normal organization and a general retrieval deficit.

Three hypotheses that could account for deficits in the retrieval of category information in Alzheimer's disease (AD) were evaluated: abnormal organization, class- or category-specific vulnerability, and limitation by general factors, such as decreased processing speed. Relative to 18 elderly control subjects, 18 patients with AD produced fewer items in a category fluency task and had longer reaction times in a category decision task. The pattern of performance across categories on both tasks was normal in the AD group: The same categories elicited the most (or fastest) responses in both the control group and the AD group. AD patients showed normal performance in ranking of category exemplars by typicality. There was no evidence for differential accessibility by category or by class of information (animate vs. inanimate). The authors conclude that a general factor or factors limit(s) retrievability equally across all categories.

Aged↗

PubMed1994

Memory knowledge and memory monitoring in adulthood.

Age differences in 2 specific processing dimensions of metamemory, namely memory knowledge and memory monitoring, were examined. Young and old Ss recalled lists of words paired with letter, rhyme, and meaning cues over 2 trials. On both trials, Ss made predictions of recall likelihood on presentation of each word-cue pair. No age differences in initial predictions (i.e., prior memory knowledge) were apparent, whereas age-based performance differences were observed. On Trial 2, both young and old Ss significantly revised their predictions; however, old adults monitored only global discrepancies between previous expectation and performance. Young adults raised and lowered expectations across cue types in accordance with their previous performance. Age differences in processing speed accounted for some but not all of the memory-monitoring differences.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[The "Lower Saxony/Northern Rhine-Westphalia" Neuroblastoma Screening Project: on the need for epidemiologic comparison].

The proof for the general evolution of metastatic neuroblastoma from localized disease by a low-speed process is lacking. The epidemiological approach would require the decrease of neuroblastoma related mortality by reduction of the number of metastatic cases per population unit as a result of a screening program. During 1983 through 1990 the neuroblastoma incidence in the FRG was 0.85-1.09 cases per 100,000 children less than 15 years of age. The mortality rate ranged between 0.25 and 0.49 deaths per 100,000 children. The project "Niedersachsen/Nordrhein-Westfalen" started April 1st, 1992 and is investigating urinary catecholamine metabolite excretion in infants at the age of 10-12 months and for a second time in toddlers at 17-19 months. The target population includes 24.7 million inhabitants with 267,000 births per year. The urine sampled on filter paper is analyzed using thin layer chromatography. Positive and questionable positive results are confirmed by HPLC and GC-MS. The aim of the study is to demonstrate the feasibility of the chosen approach. Furthermore first epidemiological data will be obtained. Until a population-based study on neuroblastoma mortality in screened versus controlled populations has proven the usefulness of the screening it cannot be recommended as a general service to the public.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1991

Chronic occupational exposure to manganese and neurobehavioral function.

Comprehensive examinations of neurobehavioral function were performed in two groups of workers with chronic exposure to industrial manganese, and two control groups. Group 1 included 17 exposed workers without parkinsonism while Group 2 consisted of four exposed workers with parkinsonian syndrome resulting from chronic manganese poisoning. Group 3 was composed of eight idiopathic parkinsonian patients while Group 4 included 19 control subjects. Age, sex, and educational level of these four groups were matched. The neuropsychological battery consisted of tests of orientation, intelligence, learning and memory, language and communication, visuospatial and visual perception, visual attention, manual dexterity, and information processing speed. There was no evidence of neurobehavioral impairment in the non-parkinsonian workers whereas impaired general intelligence, visuoperceptive impairment and defective manual dexterity, as well as slowdown in response speed were manifested in the parkinsonian workers.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Picture and motor sequencing in multiple sclerosis.

Previous studies consistently report that patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) perform poorly on the Picture Arrangement subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence test. Although this finding implies that MS causes difficulties in cognitive sequencing, the Picture Arrangement test taps many cognitive abilities in addition to sequencing, and the reported deficits by MS patients could reflect difficulties in other skills such as information processing speed or visual acuity and scanning. To circumvent some of these interpretive problems, we used an untimed test of sequencing that required arranging relatively large drawings of familiar scenarios. The MS patients were impaired on this picture sequencing test, but they performed normally on the Luria three-step test of motor sequencing. Correlational analyses showed that picture and motor sequencing were highly correlated, and that performance on both sequencing tests was related to performance on a global mental status exam, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Benton's Facial Recognition Test, but not to upper limb speed and dexterity. These findings demonstrate a relatively specific deficit in cognitive sequencing by MS patients, that can be partially dissociated from impairment in performing simple motor acts.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

The nature of memory impairments in multiple sclerosis: acquisition versus retrieval.

The present study was designed to examine whether verbal memory impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS) is attributable to impaired information acquisition or compromised retrieval. Twenty-three MS and 23 control subjects were administered a 10-item verbal list-learning task. Subjects were trained to a specific criterion on the verbal test in order to assure equal information acquisition. Following a 30-min delay, retrieval and recognition performance was evaluated. MS subjects required significantly more trials to reach criterion on the task relative to controls, but the groups did not differ on tests of recall and recognition. Performance was correlated with rate of information processing speed. These results suggest that verbal memory impairment among MS subjects is a consequence of inadequate initial learning and not a function of impaired retrieval.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Cognitive deficits and personality patterns in maternally versus paternally inherited myotonic dystrophy.

Neuropsychological functioning was compared between 7 myotonic dystrophy (MD) patients with maternal inheritance (mMD), 14 MD patients with paternal (pMD) inheritance, and 10 normal controls. Both groups evidenced slowed performance on a measure of information processing speed. However, the pMD group had an otherwise normal neuropsychological profile. In contrast, the mMD group exhibited abnormal scores on measures of intelligence, visual-construction, and some, albeit not all, measures of frontal functioning. No significant differences between the three groups were detected on measures of verbal or visual memory, or on measures of visual-perception. Overall, these findings suggest that inheritance pattern is one important moderating variable in determining the impact of the MD gene on cognitive functioning. Personality assessment revealed a relatively high incidence of dependent tendencies and depressive symptoms, even among pMDs. Given the generally normal cognitive functioning among pMDs, personality/emotional disturbance observed among MD patients may largely reflect their adjustment to having a progressively disabling medical condition, rather than being a direct expression of MD related brain dysfunction.

Adult↗

PubMed1986

The Physician Data Query (PDQ) cancer information system.

PDQ is an online database that provides information about the prognosis and treatment of all major types of cancer. It represents a major effort by the NCI to communicate advances in cancer treatment using computer technology, and serves as a major component of the Institute's program to reduce cancer mortality nationwide. PDQ utilizes a modern large-scale computer to provide processing speed, a general purpose database management system to provide retrieval and display functions, and commercial telecommunication networks to provide online access to up-to-date information on cancer treatment. A series of user-friendly menus allow searching, browsing, and displaying without having to learn a specialized search language. PDQ is accessible through the National Library of Medicine's computer system via a computer terminal or personal computer and is available to the medical community at over 2000 medical libraries and centers and through individual access codes. PDQ is also available as an online database under a special license agreement with NCI through two medical information systems produced by commercial database vendors: BRS/Saunders' COLLEAGUE and Mead Data Central's MEDIS.

Drugs, Investigational↗

PubMed1992

Acute optic neuritis. A cognitive and magnetic resonance imaging study.

Forty-two patients with acute optic neuritis (ON) (mean duration of symptoms 14.5 d) were compared with a matched, normal control group on a battery of tests of attention and information processing speed. Approximately half the sample (55%) had brain abnormalities shown by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and were more impaired across a variety of tests compared with those patients without brain lesions or normal controls. There was no difference in psychometric performance other than the pegboard task between the normal control group and those ON patients without brain involvement. Significant correlations were found between total lesion area in the brain and some tests of attention. Results from the Symbol Digit-Substitution Test were particularly sensitive in this regard and could correctly identify 70% of the sample with brain lesions.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

Genetic and environmental influences on functional age: a twin study.

Twin analyses were conducted to determine the relative influence of genetic and environmental factors on functional aging. As part of the ongoing Minnesota Twin Study of Adult Development and Aging (MTSADA), measures of 30 demographic, cognitive, physiological, personality, and behavioral variables were available from 140 monozygotic twin pairs and 97 dizygotic twin pairs ranging in age from 27 to 88 years. Functional age was based on a general linear regression model with chronological age as the dependent variable. Stepwise regression determined the subset of variables by MTSADA providing the best prediction of chronological age. Factor analysis of these 12 variables resulted in three factors: physiological measures, cognitive abilities, and processing speed. When entered into, a regression equation, the three factors accounted for 66% of the variance in chronological age. Analysis of twin similarity for components of functional age suggested the relative influence of genetic and environmental factors varies greatly for different components of functional aging. In addition, the genetic and shared environmental influences on the three components were common to all three, while the nonshared environmental influences were specific to each component.

Adult↗

PubMed1988

Visual changes in daily life throughout adulthood.

A pair of surveys asked healthy adults about their everyday visual problems. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 100 and were screened for major visual impairment. Respondents rated the frequency of difficulty they had performing visual tasks such as reading, recognizing objects, picking out a face in a crowd, seeing in dimly lit environments, seeing moving objects, and so on. The surveys revealed five dimensions that declined with increasing age: visual processing speed, light sensitivity, dynamic vision, near vision, and visual search. The percentage of respondents reporting a decline in these visual dimensions increased two- to sixfold across the adult life span. Varying rates of visual decline for different tasks suggest that various aspects of vision age at different rates.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed1992

Four to ten milliseconds per year: age-related slowing of visual word identification.

This experiment examined the age-related slowing of visual word identification. Each of 108 subjects between 20 and 78 years of age performed a word/nonword discrimination (lexical decision) task in which the target was preceded by a single-word prime. Several aspects of the data were consistent with a generalized slowing model: There was a positive correlation between age and mean reaction time, the absolute magnitude of age differences increased as a function of task complexity, and the statistical control of a relatively task-independent index of processing speed attenuated the age-related variance in mean reaction time. The degree of age-related slowing was more pronounced for visually degraded targets (10 msec per year) than for intact targets (4 msec per year). Other aspects of lexical decision performance, however, suggested that some components of word identification, especially those involved in semantic activation, are relatively exempt from age-related slowing.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Effects of monocular occlusion on neural and motor response times for two-dimensional stimuli.

Previous studies have shown that there are advantages associated with the simultaneous use of both eyes to view two-dimensional stimuli. To investigate further this binocular advantage, three experiments were conducted using male and female names presented on a video display as stimuli. In the first experiment, simple reaction times (RT's) were found to increase by about 6% as a result of monocular occlusion. In the second experiment, visual evoked response (VER) and P300 implicit times were also found to increase as a result of occlusion. The third experiment confirmed these results and investigated the sensitivity of evoked potential techniques to changes in stimulus complexity. The three experiments demonstrate that monocular occlusion does have a significant effect on processing speed for two-dimensional visual stimuli. The major portion of this effect (62%) is manifest at the level of the visual cortex, and is not perceived by subjects as significantly increasing the mental workload associated with generating responses to these stimuli.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

Neuropsychology of multiple sclerosis.

Neuropsychological investigations have demonstrated that cognitive disorders are common (45-65%) in patients with multiple sclerosis. This review summarizes our current understanding of the nature and etiology of these disorders. Specifically, neuropsychological deficits regularly occur on measures of recent memory, attention, information-processing speed, executive functions, and visuospatial perception. In contrast, general intelligence, language, and certain aspects of memory (short-term capacity and implicit) are preserved. The degree and pattern of cognitive dysfunction is highly correlated with the amount and location of white-matter disease within the cerebral hemispheres. Natural history studies indicate that changes in cognitive test performance are correlated with increasing lesion load on magnetic resonance imaging. The development of brief cognitive-testing instruments for clinical screening and measuring treatment effects in clinical trials is underway. A clear weakness in the literature is the dearth of studies evaluating potential treatments for cognitive disorders.

Brain↗

PubMed1987

The mental status of patients with Friedreich's ataxia.

In the clinical literature, the majority of patients with Friedreich's ataxia are described as having signs of intellectual decline and serious psychiatric symptomatology. Recent studies contradict this clinical picture, but indicate some discrete mental status changes, such as slowing of information processing speed not related to motor abnormality, in a more strictly defined Friedreich's population. This study describes the mental status changes in a sample of 38 patients seen at the University of California at Los Angeles Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Ataxia Clinic. The sample was defined using strict clinical and biochemical criteria. Only one of the 38 patients showed evidence of intellectual deterioration. Ninety-two percent of the patients experienced some affective difficulty, however, ranging from major depression to normal grief. Three patients have reached their mid-forties (one is 64 years of age) without any serious mental status changes. These findings point out the importance of nurses' expecting these patients to function normally in the cognitive domain. Implications related to specific nursing interventions are discussed.

Adolescent↗