Improving practices and inferences in developmental cognitive neuroscience.

The past decade has seen growing concern about research practices in cognitive neuroscience, and psychology more broadly, that shake our confidence in many inferences in these fields. We consider how these issues affect developmental cognitive neuroscience, with the goal of progressing our field to support strong and defensible inferences from our neurobiological data. This manuscript focuses on the importance of distinguishing between confirmatory versus exploratory data analysis approaches in developmental cognitive neuroscience. Regarding confirmatory research, we discuss problems with analytic flexibility, appropriately instantiating hypotheses, and controlling the error rate given how we threshold data and correct for multiple comparisons. To counterbalance these concerns with confirmatory analyses, we present two complementary strategies. First, we discuss the advantages of working within an exploratory analysis framework, including estimating and reporting effect sizes, using parcellations, and conducting specification curve analyses. Second, we summarize defensible approaches for null hypothesis significance testing in confirmatory analyses, focusing on transparent and reproducible practices in our field. Specific recommendations are given, and templates, scripts, or other resources are hyperlinked, whenever possible.

Emerging Opportunities for Advancing Cognitive Neuroscience.

Cognitive neuroscience can be substantially advanced if structured mechanisms are created to increase its social impact and to develop synergies with some currently more distant disciplines that are developing relevant knowledge. We present such opportunities and argue that pursuing these can benefit from establishing a centralized coordinating organizational approach.

[Research domain criteria (RDoC) : Psychiatric research as applied cognitive neuroscience]. / Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) : Psychiatrische Forschung als angewandte kognitive Neurowissenschaft.

BACKGROUND: Just before the official launch of the DSM-5 in 2013, the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative of the National Institute of Mental Health was made public and is becoming increasingly more important in psychiatric research. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to clarify the conceptual approach of RDoC, to systematically discuss limitations, to present exemplary RDoC-based studies and to consider the relevance of the RDoC concepts for clinicians and scientists. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The is a qualitative introduction and review article with a critical discussion. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The RDoC initiative was not conceived as an alternative diagnostic manual to DSM-5 or IDC-10/11 for use in clinical practice. It is a new systematic framework for psychiatric research based on the most recent results of cognitive neuroscience and aims to map mental disorders dimensionally and transdiagnostically. Despite some weaknesses, it is currently the most elaborated and scientifically grounded approach for multidisciplinary research on mental disorders. In contrast to the purely symptom-based DSM and ICD approaches, which are agnostic with respect to the pathogenesis of mental diseases, the explicit aim of the RDoC initiative is to systematize biological knowledge about risk factors and causes of mental disorders; therefore, it has a much greater potential to develop new and individualized therapeutic strategies based on disease mechanisms.

A potential role of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism in self-reported executive functioning

Intense effort is directed toward searching for associations between genes and neuropsychological measures of executive functions. In contrast, the impact of genetic polymorphisms on self-rating of everyday executive functioning has not been investigated so far. This study was designed to test associations of self-reported executive functioning, measured with the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF-A), with dopaminergic and serotoninergic genes in non-clinical population and to assess impact of neuropsychological and personality characteristics on these associations. One hundred healthy adults completed the BRIEF-A, personality inventories SPQ-74, STAI, MMPI, and neuropsychological tests for executive functions. Polymorphisms in the DRD4, COMT, DRD2, HTR2A, and SLC6A4 genes were genotyped. We revealed a significant main effect of the SLC6A4’s 5-HTTLPR polymorphism on BRIEF-A scores (F = 2.21, P = .018, η2 = .24). Among the BRIEF-A measures, the genotype effect was significant for the Plan/Organize (F = 7.34, P = .008, η2 = .07) and Task Monitor scales (F = 4.33, P = .04, η2 = .04), and the Metacognition index (F = 4.21, P = .043, η2 = .04). Carriers of the short allele reported fewer problems than homozygotes for the long allele. Correlations of the BRIEF-A measures with neuropsychological variables were weak, while those with personality characteristics were strong, with trait anxiety being the most powerful predictor of the BRIEF-A scores. However, the relationship between the 5-HTTLPR and BRIEF-A scores remained significant when trait anxiety was controlled for. The results suggest a potential role of the 5-HTTLPR in self-reported everyday task planning and monitoring (AU)

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Neurociencia cognitiva aplicada / Applied cognitive neuroscience

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Evaluación cognitiva en niños que presentaron gastrosquisis: estudio de casos y controles / Cognitive assessment in children who presented gastroschisis: a case-control study

Introducción. La gastrosquisis es una malformación de la pared abdominal que se corrige mediante cirugía y requiere cuidados hospitalarios especiales, como inmovilización, restricción alimenticia y separación de la madre durante tiempo variable, entre otros; para analizar las posibles repercusiones cognitivas se aplicó la prueba de Bayley III a 14 niños. Sujetos y métodos. Siete casos (nacidos con gastrosquisis) y siete controles, en los hospitales civiles de Guadalajara, en el período enero-abril de 2013. Resultados. Los casos no evidenciaron retraso en las evaluaciones relacionadas con la cognición, el lenguaje y la conducta motora, en tanto que en las asociadas a la conducta socioemocional y adaptativa las puntuaciones favorecieron al grupo control, lo que refleja que poseen mejores estrategias de adaptación e interacción respecto al grupo de casos. Conclusiones. La gastrosquisis no afectará el neurodesarrollo ulterior, por lo menos en este grupo que presentó esta única anormalidad y déficits explicables por sus circunstancias perinatales, sin que este pronóstico pueda generalizarse a otros casos con un cuadro clínico más grave, mayor duración de la estancia hospitalaria y comorbilidad asociada. De cualquier forma, es importante informar a los padres desde la etapa prenatal respecto a las consecuencias esperadas de esta patología (AU)

Introduction. Gastroschisis is a malformation of the abdominal wall that is corrected by surgery and requires special hospital care, such as immobilisation, dietary restriction and separation from the mother for a variable period of time, among others. To analyse the possible cognitive repercussions, the Bayley III test was administered to 14 children. Subjects and methods. The study was conducted with seven cases (born with gastroschisis) and seven controls, in civil hospitals in Guadalajara, over the period January-April 2013. Results. No evidence of retardation was found in the cases in the cognition, language and motor conduct assessments, whereas in those associated with socio-emotional and adaptive behaviour the scores favoured the control group. This shows that the latter have better adaptation and interaction strategies with respect to the cases group. Conclusions. Gastroschisis will not affect later neurodevelopment, at least in this group which presented only this abnormality and deficits that can be explained by their perinatal circumstances. Nevertheless, this prognosis cannot be generalised to other cases with a more severe clinical picture, a longer stay in hospital and associated comorbidity. In any case, it is important to inform the parents as of the prenatal stage about the expected consequences of this pathology (AU)