Resting-state networks and their relationship with MoCA performance in PD patients.

Although mild cognitive impairment is a common non-motor symptom experienced by individuals with Parkinson's Disease, the changes in intrinsic resting-state networks associated with its onset in Parkinson's remain underexamined. To address the issue, our study sought to examine resting-state network alterations and their association with total performance in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and its cognitive domains in Parkinson's by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging of 29 Parkinson's patients with normal cognition, 25 Parkinson's patients with mild cognitive impairment, and 13 healthy controls. To contrast the Parkinson's groups with each other and the controls, the images were used to estimate the Z-score coefficient between the regions of interest from the default mode network, the salience network and the central executive network. Our first finding was that default mode and salience network connectivity decreased significantly in Parkinson's patients regardless of their cognitive status. Additionally, default mode network nodes had a negative and salience network nodes a positive correlation with the global assessment in Parkinson's with normal cognition; this inverse relationship of both networks to total score was not found in the group with cognitive impairment. Finally, a positive correlation was found between executive scores and anterior and posterior cortical network connectivity and, in the group with cognitive impairment, between language scores and salience network connectivity. Our results suggest that specific resting-state networks of Parkinson's patients with cognitive impairment differ from those of Parkinson's patients with normal cognition, supporting the evidence that cognitive impairment in Parkinson's Disease displays a differentiated neurodegenerative pattern.

Adiposity affects emotional information processing.

Obesity is a worldwide epidemic associated with severe health and psychological wellbeing impairments expressed by an increased prevalence of affective disorders. Emotional dysfunction is important due to its effect on social performance. The aim of the present narrative review is to provide a general overview of human research exploring emotional information processing in overweight and obese people. Evidence suggests that obesity is associated with an attenuation of emotional experience, contradictory findings about emotion recognition, and scarce research about automatic emotional information processing. Finally, we made some concluding considerations for future research on emotional information processing in overweight and obese people.

Frontostriatal Circuits Alterations Associated with Cognitive Flexibility Deterioration in Huntington's Disease.

BACKGROUND: Recent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have reported abnormal functional connectivity (FC) in the prefrontal cortex (PFC)-striatum circuit in patients with premanifest Huntington's disease (HD). However, there is a lack of evidence showing persistence of abnormal frontostriatal FC and its relation to cognitive flexibility performance in patients with clinically manifest HD. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the resting-state FC integrity of the frontostriatal circuit and its relation to cognitive flexibility in HD patients and healthy controls (HCs). METHOD: Eighteen patients with early clinical HD manifestation and 18 HCs matched for age, sex, and education participated in this study. Both groups performed the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) Intra-Extra Dimensional (IED) set-shift task, which measures cognitive flexibility. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance images were also acquired to examine the FC in specific frontostriatal circuits. Eight regions of interest were preselected based on regions previously associated with extradimensional (ED) shifting in patients with premanifest HD. RESULTS: Significant negative correlations between the number of attentional set-shifting errors and the ventral striatum-ventrolateral PFC FC were found in the HD group. This group also showed negative FC correlations between the total errors and the FC between right ventral striatum-right ventrolateral PFC, left ventral striatum-left ventrolateral PFC, and right ventral striatum-left ventrolateral PFC. Negative correlations between the ED errors and left ventral striatum-left ventrolateral PFC and right ventral striatum-right ventrolateral PFC FC were also found. Finally, a positive correlation between the number of stages completed and left ventral striatum-left ventrolateral PFC FC was found. CONCLUSIONS: Manifest HD patients show significant cognitive flexibility deficits in attentional set-shifting that are associated with FC alterations in the frontostriatal circuit. These results show that FC abnormalities found in the prodromal stage of the disease can also be associated with cognitive flexibility deficits at a later clinical stage, making them good candidates to be explored in longitudinal studies.

Food Disgust Scale: Spanish Version.

INTRODUCTION: The Food Disgust Scale (FDS) was recently developed and validated in Swiss adult population. This study aims to: (1) validate the FDS for the first time in a Spanish-speaking Mexican population, (2) correlate food disgust sensitivity with picky eating measures, and (3) explore the association between food disgust sensitivity and body mass index (BMI). MATERIALS AND METHODS: A Spanish version of the FDS (FDS-Sp) and its short version (FDS-Sp short) were tested with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in order to test the original item/factor structure. Bivariate correlations were performed to determine the association between FDS-Sp/FDS-Sp short scores and picky eating. Lastly, hierarchical linear regression analysis was carried out to determine the relationship between food disgust sensitivity and BMI. RESULTS: The factor structure of the FDS was replicated and acceptable internal consistency values were observed for FDS-Sp subscales (α varied between 0.781 and 0.955). Moreover, FDS-Sp subscales and FDS-Sp short were correlated with picky eating. Higher score in VEGI subscale of the FDS-Sp was a significant predictor for higher BMI, explaining 4% of the variance. CONCLUSION: FDS-Sp is a useful, reliable and robust psychometric instrument to measure the sensitivity to unpleasant food situations in a Mexican adult Spanish-speaking population. A relationship between food disgust sensitivity and picky eating, selective eating behaviors and neophobia in Mexicans was confirmed. BMI is multifactorial and only one subscale of FDS-Sp is a significant predictor for BMI status. These results are helpful to continue exploring food disgust in diverse populations.

Neuroanatomical features and its usefulness in classification of patients with PANDAS.

OBJECTIVE: An obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) subtype has been associated with streptococcal infections and is called pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococci (PANDAS). The neuroanatomical characterization of subjects with this disorder is crucial for the better understanding of its pathophysiology; also, evaluation of these features as classifiers between patients and controls is relevant to determine potential biomarkers and useful in clinical diagnosis. This was the first multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) study on an early-onset OCD subtype. METHODS: Fourteen pediatric patients with PANDAS were paired with 14 healthy subjects and were scanned to obtain structural magnetic resonance images (MRI). We identified neuroanatomical differences between subjects with PANDAS and healthy controls using voxel-based morphometry, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and surface analysis. We investigated the usefulness of these neuroanatomical differences to classify patients with PANDAS using MVPA. RESULTS: The pattern for the gray and white matter was significantly different between subjects with PANDAS and controls. Alterations emerged in the cortex, subcortex, and cerebellum. There were no significant group differences in DTI measures (fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, radial diffusivity, and axial diffusivity) or cortical features (thickness, sulci, volume, curvature, and gyrification). The overall accuracy of 75% was achieved using the gray matter features to classify patients with PANDAS and healthy controls. CONCLUSION: The results of this integrative study allow a better understanding of the neural substrates in this OCD subtype, suggesting that the anatomical gray matter characteristics could have an immune origin that might be helpful in patient classification.

Neural Modulation in Aversive Emotion Processing: An Independent Component Analysis Study.

Emotional processing has an important role in social interaction. We report the findings about the Independent Component Analysis carried out on a fMRI set obtained with a paradigm of face emotional processing. The results showed that an independent component, mainly cerebellar-medial-frontal, had a positive modulation associated with fear processing. Also, another independent component, mainly parahippocampal-prefrontal, showed a negative modulation that could be associated with implicit reappraisal of emotional stimuli. Independent Component Analysis could serve as a method to understand complex cognitive processes and their underlying neural dynamics.

Funciones cognoscitivas en la orientación sexual / Cognitive functions in sexual orientation

En México existe poca evidencia respecto a cognición y orientación sexual, por lo tanto, el objetivo de esta investigación fue describir y comparar el desempeño cognoscitivo de atención, memoria y Funciones Ejecutivas (FE) de personas con diversas Orientaciones Sexuales. Participaron en total setenta y tres personas divididas (edad= 20.7+/-2.4)en cinco grupos: Hombres heterosexuales (H), Mujeres heterosexuales (M), Hombres Homosexuales (HH), Mujeres Homosexuales (MH) y Mujeres Bisexuales (MB). Evaluados individualmente con la prueba NEUROPSI Atención y Memoria. Los resultados (p<.05) mostraron diferencias en las subpruebas: funciones motoras en el cambio de la mano derecha, lectura congruente de Stroop, memoria en la etapa de codificación en las subpruebas de: memoria verbal en resencia, figura de Rey-Osterreith; asimismo en memoria lógica. Estos hallazgos indican que la evocación de información episódica de eventos o sucesos sin un vínculo autobiográfico y la codificación de información visoespacial tienen una influencia del sexo y la orientación sexual en esta muestra. Finalmente,los procesos de atención, memoria y FE en personas con diversa orientación sexual son normales.

In México there are few sexual orientation evidences related to cognition, therefore the aim of the study was to describe and compare the cognitive performance of attention, memory and executive functions in different sexual orientations. Total sample were seventy-three people divided (age=20.7+/-2.4) in five groups: heterosexual Men (M), heterosexual Women (W), Homosexual Men (HM), Homosexual Women (HW) and Bisexual Women (BW). Participants were individually assessed with the NEUROPSI Attention and Memory. The results (p<.05) showed differences in subtests: motor functions in the change of the right hand, congruent reading Stroop, encoding memory subtests: verbal memory resence, figure of Rey-Osterreith; retrieval logical Memory. These findings indicate that the retrieval of episodic event information (without an autobiographical link) and visuospatial coding information have an influence of sex and sexual orientation in this sample. Finally, attentional processes, memory and executive functions in people with different sexual orientation are normal.

Asociaciones implícitas como método para la detección de violencia y psicopatía / Implicit associations as a method for detection of violence and psychopathy

La psicopatía es un trastorno de la personalidad que caracterizado por rasgos interpersonales, afectivos, conductuales y de estilo de vida. Está asociada con conducta violenta, existen pocos estudios que evalúen la tendencia hacia la violencia en psicópatas mediante técnicas de asociaciones implícitas como el Test de Asociaciones Implícitas (IAT). Se desarrolló el IAT-violencia, para evaluar las distorsiones cognitivas acerca de la violencia en 195 reos de acuerdo al nivel de psicopatía y al tipo de delito, se exploró el desempeño en la prueba de acuerdo a los niveles de los factores 1 y 2 de psicopatía. Los resultados indican que los sujetos violentos con alta psicopatía presentan distorsiones cognitivas acerca de la violencia. Aquellos con alto factor 2 de psicopatía presentan distorsiones cognitivas acerca de la violencia. Se discute la relación entre los factores 1 y 2 con la conducta violenta y la importancia de contar con instrumentos breves, confiables y objetivos. Las entrevistas semi-estructuradas requieren 1.5-3.5 horas, un entrenamiento especializado para evaluar el grado de psicopatía. Se discute el potencial para detectar sujetos que estén en riesgo de cometer alguna ofensa violenta mediante el IAT-violencia que toma 15 minutos y cuya calificación es automatizada.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by interpersonal, affective, behavioral and life-style traits. There is a relationship between psychopathy and violent behavior but few studies assess the tendency toward violence in psychopaths by implicit association methods like the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The violent-IAT was developed to assess the cognitive distortions about violence of 195 male inmates according to their psychopathy level and the offense committed, in addition, the performance in the test according to the factor level 1 and 2 of psychopathy was assessed. The results showed that psychopath-violent inmates had cognitive distortions about violence; and those with high factor 2 of psychopathy level inmates had a tendency toward violence. The discussion focused in the relationship between both psychopathy factors and violent behavior; and the importance to have reliable, objective and brief instruments like violent-IAT to measure the tendency toward violent behavior. The semi-structured interviews need a long time and a specialized training to assess the psychopathy level. The potential to detect subjects in high risk of committing extreme violent offenses by violent-IAT, that only need 15 minutes and gives an automatic-scored, is also discussed.