Comparing experience- and description-based economic preferences across 11 countries.

Recent evidence indicates that reward value encoding in humans is highly context dependent, leading to suboptimal decisions in some cases, but whether this computational constraint on valuation is a shared feature of human cognition remains unknown. Here we studied the behaviour of n = 561 individuals from 11 countries of markedly different socioeconomic and cultural makeup. Our findings show that context sensitivity was present in all 11 countries. Suboptimal decisions generated by context manipulation were not explained by risk aversion, as estimated through a separate description-based choice task (that is, lotteries) consisting of matched decision offers. Conversely, risk aversion significantly differed across countries. Overall, our findings suggest that context-dependent reward value encoding is a feature of human cognition that remains consistently present across different countries, as opposed to description-based decision-making, which is more permeable to cultural factors.

Association of verbal and non-verbal theory of mind abilities with non-coding variants of OXTR in youth with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing individuals: a case-control study.

BACKGROUND: The ability to attribute mental states to others is called theory of mind (ToM) and is a substantial component of social cognition. This ability is abnormally developed in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Several studies over the past decade have identified the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and its variants as promising components for explaining the molecular mechanisms underlying Theory of Mind (ToM). The main aim of this study is to examine the association between rs2268498 and rs53576, two functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and verbal and non-verbal ToM in children and adolescents with ASD and a group of typically developing youth. METHODS: The study involved 44 children and adolescents with high-functioning ASD aged 8 to 18 years old and 44 TD individuals who were matched on age and sex. In all participants, blood samples were collected and rs2268498 and rs53576 were genotyped. Happe's Strange Stories test and the moving shapes paradigm were used to measure verbal and non-verbal ToM in all participants. RESULTS: The results of permutation tests and logistic regression suggested that in TD group, rs2268498 AA carriers showed significant higher scores in variables representing verbal ToM (ToM stories and appropriateness score) whereas, in ASD group, rs53576 AA carriers exhibited significant better performance in parameters related to non-verbal ToM (ToM general rule and intentionality score). The results of hierarchical clustering in both groups support the findings by distinguishing between language-related and language-independent aspects of ToM. CONCLUSIONS: In the present study, we examined the association between rs2268498 and rs53576 and social functioning in individuals with ASD and TD group. We found preliminary evidence that rs2268498 and rs53576 are associated with ToM related abilities in healthy individuals as well as in autistic individuals. Accordingly, rs2268498 and rs53576 may play an important role in predicting ToM capabilities. It will be necessary to conduct further research to address the association of genetic variants with a deficit in ToM in individuals with ASD.

Outcome context-dependence is not WEIRD: Comparing reinforcement- and description-based economic preferences worldwide.

Recent evidence indicates that reward value encoding in humans is highly context-dependent, leading to suboptimal decisions in some cases. But whether this computational constraint on valuation is a shared feature of human cognition remains unknown. To address this question, we studied the behavior of individuals from across 11 countries of markedly different socioeconomic and cultural makeup using an experimental approach that reliably captures context effects in reinforcement learning. Our findings show that all samples presented evidence of similar sensitivity to context. Crucially, suboptimal decisions generated by context manipulation were not explained by risk aversion, as estimated through a separate description-based choice task (i.e., lotteries) consisting of matched decision offers. Conversely, risk aversion significantly differed across countries. Overall, our findings suggest that context-dependent reward value encoding is a hardcoded feature of human cognition, while description-based decision-making is significantly sensitive to cultural factors.

Limits on using the clock drawing test as a measure to evaluate patients with neurological disorders.

BACKGROUND: The Clock Drawing Test (CDT) is used as a quick-to-conduct test for the diagnosis of dementia and a screening tool for cognitive impairments in neurological disorders. However, the association between the pattern of CDT impairments and the location of brain lesions has been controversial. We examined whether there is an association between the CDT scores and the location of brain lesions using the two available scoring systems. METHOD: One hundred five patients with brain lesions identified by CT scanning were recruited for this study. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) battery including the CDT were administered to all partcipants. To score the CDT, we used a qualitative scoring system devised by Rouleau et al. (1992). For the quantitative scoring system, we adapted the algorithm method used by Mendes-Santos et al. (2015) based on an earlier study by Sunderland et al. (1989). For analyses, a machine learning algorithm was used. RESULTS: Remarkably, 30% of the patients were not detected by the CDT. Quantitative and qualitative errors were categorized into different clusters. The classification algorithm did not differentiate the patients with traumatic brain injury 'TBI' from non-TBI, or the laterality of the lesion. In addition, the classification accuracy for identifying patients with specific lobe lesions was low, except for the parietal lobe with an accuracy of 63%. CONCLUSION: The CDT is not an accurate tool for detecting focal brain lesions. While the CDT still is beneficial for use with patients suspected of having a neurodegenerative disorder, it should be cautiously used with patients with focal neurological disorders.

Chronic fatigue syndrome and cognitive deficit are associated with acute-phase neuropsychiatric manifestations of COVID-19: A 9-month follow-up study.

The preva lence of long-COVID symptoms is rising but it is not still possible to predict which patients will present them, and which types of symptoms they will present. We followed up 95 patients with confirmed COVID-19 for 9 months to identify and characterize long-COVID symptoms. Easy fatigability was the most common symptom (51.04%), followed by anxiety (38.54%), dyspnea (38.54%), and new-onset headache (38.54%). There was no association between COVID-19 severity in the acute phase and the number of long-COVID symptoms (F(1,93) = 0.75, p = 0.45), and cognitive function (MoCA) scores (F(1,90) = 0.073, p = 0.787) at follow-up. Being female (F(1,92) = - 2.27, p = 0.02), having a higher number of symptoms (F(1,93) = 2.76, p = 0.0068), and experiencing constitutional neuropsychiatric symptoms (F(1,93) = 2.529, p = 0.01) in the acute phase were associated with having chronic fatigue syndrome at follow-up. Moreover, constitutional neuropsychiatric symptoms in the acute phase were associated with a lower MoCA score (F(1,93) = 10.84, p = 0.001) at follow-up. Specific clinical presentations such as constitutional neuropsychiatric symptoms in the acute phase might be predictors of debilitating long-COVID symptoms such as chronic fatigue syndrome and cognitive deficits.

Neuropsychiatric manifestations of COVID-19 can be clustered in three distinct symptom categories.

Several studies have reported clinical manifestations of the new coronavirus disease. However, few studies have systematically evaluated the neuropsychiatric complications of COVID-19. We reviewed the medical records of 201 patients with confirmed COVID-19 (52 outpatients and 149 inpatients) that were treated in a large referral center in Tehran, Iran from March 2019 to May 2020. We used clustering approach to categorize clinical symptoms. One hundred and fifty-one patients showed at least one neuropsychiatric symptom. Limb force reductions, headache followed by anosmia, hypogeusia were among the most common neuropsychiatric symptoms in COVID-19 patients. Hierarchical clustering analysis showed that neuropsychiatric symptoms group together in three distinct groups: anosmia and hypogeusia; dizziness, headache, and limb force reduction; photophobia, mental state change, hallucination, vision and speech problem, seizure, stroke, and balance disturbance. Three non-neuropsychiatric cluster of symptoms included diarrhea and nausea; cough and dyspnea; and fever and weakness. Neuropsychiatric presentations are very prevalent and heterogeneous in patients with coronavirus 2 infection and these heterogeneous presentations may be originating from different underlying mechanisms. Anosmia and hypogeusia seem to be distinct from more general constitutional-like and more specific neuropsychiatric symptoms. Skeletal muscular manifestations might be a constitutional or a neuropsychiatric symptom.

An information-based approach to handle various types of uncertainty in fuzzy bodies of evidence.

Fuzzy evidence theory, or fuzzy Dempster-Shafer Theory captures all three types of uncertainty, i.e. fuzziness, non-specificity, and conflict, which are usually contained in a piece of information within one framework. Therefore, it is known as one of the most promising approaches for practical applications. Quantifying the difference between two fuzzy bodies of evidence becomes important when this framework is used in applications. This work is motivated by the fact that while dissimilarity measures have been surveyed in the fields of evidence theory and fuzzy set theory, no comprehensive survey is yet available for fuzzy evidence theory. We proposed a modification to a set of the most discriminative dissimilarity measures (smDDM)-as the minimum set of dissimilarity with the maximal power of discrimination in evidence theory- to handle all types of uncertainty in fuzzy evidence theory. The generalized smDDM (FsmDDM) together with the one previously introduced as fuzzy measures make up a set of measures that is comprehensive enough to collectively address all aspects of information conveyed by the fuzzy bodies of evidence. Experimental results are presented to validate the method and to show the efficiency of the proposed method.