The cognitive architecture of verbal humor in schizophrenia.

Previous literature showed that people with schizophrenia have difficulties in humor comprehension and might differ from controls in the appreciation of humor, i.e., in perceived funniness.

Neuroinflammation and kynurenines in schizophrenia: Impact on cognition depending on cognitive functioning and modulatory properties in relation to cognitive remediation and aerobic exercise.

Background: In the last decade, the kynurenine pathway (KP) has gained attention in the pathogenesis of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia being at the croassroad between neuroinflammation and glutamatergic and cholinergic neurotransmission. However, clinical findings are scarse and conflicting, and the specific contributions of these two systems to the neurobiology of cognitive symptoms are far from being elucidated. Furthermore, little is known about the molecular underpinnings of non-pharmacological interventions for cognitive improvement, including rehabilitation strategies.

Cognitive remediation in schizophrenia: What happens after 10 years?

Cognitive Remediation Therapy (CRT) represents the gold standard treatment for cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, but the permanence of its effects over time have been poorly investigated. Our study aims to evaluate long lasting cognitive and functional effects of CRT together with standard rehabilitation interventions (SRT) in a group of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, 10 years after the end of the treatment. Forty patients, previously included in a 5-year follow-up study evaluating the effects of CRT combined with SRT, were revalued 10 years after the complete of the intervention.

Get up! Functional mobility and metabolic syndrome in chronic schizophrenia: Effects on cognition and quality of life.

Low mobility and poor physical health, especially metabolic syndrome, are frequently reported in patients with schizophrenia and tend to increase with age. Recent evidence suggests that metabolic syndrome may affect cognition and quality of life, while the role functional mobility is still less addressed and their interplay needs to be further explored. This study aims to analyze the effects of functional mobility on cognitive performance, symptoms and quality of life, taking into account age and also modeling it relationship with metabolic syndrome in a sample of 103 adults with chronic schizophrenia.

Disentangling Cognitive Heterogeneity in Psychotic Spectrum Disorders.

Neuropsychological impairments represent a central feature of psychosis-spectrum disorders. It is characterized by a great both within- and between-subjects variability (i.e.

Clozapine tolerability in Treatment Resistant Schizophrenia: exploring the role of sex.

Clozapine is the only evidence-based drug indicated for Treatment Resistant Schizophrenia but it is largely underprescribed, partially due to its life-threatening adverse effects (AEs). However, clozapine treatment is burdened by other common AEs as constipation, hypersalivation, postural hypotension, tachycardia and metabolic abnormalities. Few studies have investigated sex-related differences in clozapine's tolerability, reporting women to experience more frequently weight gain, hyperglycemia and constipation, while men hypertension and dyslipidemia.

Cognition in Schizophrenia: Modeling the Interplay between Interleukin-1β C-511T Polymorphism, Metabolic Syndrome, and Sex.

Introduction: Cognitive deficits and metabolic disturbances are among the main determinants of functional impairment and reduced life expectancy in patients with schizophrenia, and they may share underlying biological mechanisms. Among these, interleukin-1β (IL-1β), a key mediator of inflammatory response, is of particular interest. IL-1β C-511T polymorphism has been associated with neuropsychiatric conditions and, in the general population, with cognitive and metabolic alterations.

Communicative-pragmatic abilities mediate the relationship between cognition and daily functioning in schizophrenia.

Objective: Pragmatics refers to the capacity to understand the speaker's meaning and thus to appropriately engage in a conversation. This study aims at establishing the role of communicative-pragmatic abilities in functioning, defined as a set of daily activities, in schizophrenia. This would contribute to enrich current models of the neurocognitive predictors of functioning, which have so far neglected pragmatics.

Cognitive Remediation for Inpatients With Schizophrenia: Effects of a Brief and Intensive Training.

Computer-assisted cognitive remediation (CACR) is a computer-based rehabilitation treatment aimed at improving cognition and at developing strategies that can be applied to various functional areas. Different protocols are currently used with great variability over the intensity and duration of treatments. In this study, we evaluated the effects of a brief and intensive CACR training (i.

The association of autistic traits with Theory of Mind and its training efficacy in patients with schizophrenia.

Literature has recently identified a discrete subgroup of patients affected by schizophrenia that also present autistic traits (ATs), showing a peculiar cognitive, clinical and functional profile. Theory of Mind (ToM) represents a core, impaired feature in both schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), ToM in patients with schizophrenia and ATs has yet to be investigated. Thus, this study aims, on the one hand, to assess differences among patients with and without ATs on clinical, cognitive and ToM abilities as well as in daily functioning; on the other hand, to compare the efficacy on mentalizing abilities of a specific ToM training in these two groups.

The Influence of Premorbid Adjustment and Autistic Traits on Social Cognitive Dysfunction in Schizophrenia.

Objectives: Premorbid dysfunction during childhood and adolescence is well documented in patients with schizophrenia. Literature pointed out multiple premorbid trajectories leading to different patients' cognitive status, symptomatology, and global functioning after disease onset. This study aimed at identifying groups of premorbid trajectories and disentangling between group differences in clinical and cognitive measures, focusing on theory of mind (ToM) and autistic traits (ATs).

Stability and generalization of combined theory of mind and cognitive remediation interventions in schizophrenia: Follow-up results.

Objective: Daily functional impairment is a main target of treatment in schizophrenia. Multiple rehabilitation treatments have been developed to improve patients' sociocognitive and neurocognitive abilities and to generalize the benefits to functioning. However, whether the effects of these treatments can be generalized and maintained remains equivocal.

Daily Functioning in Schizophrenia: Is There Room for Anxiety?

The present study aims at evaluating the impact of anxiety on functional outcome in patients with schizophrenia, also taking into account the other main predictors of functioning identified by literature, to disentangle specific subcomponents which contribute to functional outcome. One hundred five patients with DSM-IV-TR schizophrenia were recruited and underwent a broad functional, psychopathological, and clinical-neuropsychological battery. A forward stepwise regression model was used to assess the predictive effect of anxiety and other factors on daily functioning, showing significant results only for global neurocognitive status and anxiety.

Schizophrenia, cannabis use and Catechol-O-Methyltransferase (COMT): Modeling the interplay on cognition.

Cognitive impairments are considered core features of schizophrenia and are recognized as the most important predictors of functional outcome and quality of life. A better study of the mechanisms underlying the cognition is of extreme relevance. Literature has shown that several genetic and environmental factors affect cognitive performance.

Improving Cognition to Increase Treatment Efficacy in Schizophrenia: Effects of Metabolic Syndrome on Cognitive Remediation's Outcome.

Cognitive impairment, typically more severe in treatment resistant patients, is considered a hallmark of schizophrenia and the prime driver of functional disability. Recent evidence suggests that metabolic syndrome may contribute to cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, possibly through shared underlying mechanisms. However, results are still contradictory and no study has so far examined the influence of metabolic syndrome on cognitive outcome after cognitive remediation therapy (CRT).

Neurobiology of cognitive remediation in schizophrenia: Effects of EAAT2 polymorphism.

Cognitive deficits represent core features of schizophrenia, affecting quality of life and functioning. The excitatory amino acid transporter 2 (EAAT2) is responsible for the majority of glutamate reuptake and its activity is crucial for glutamatergic neurotransmission, prevention of excitotoxic damage and cerebral metabolism. Different studies reported that EAAT2 rs4354668 (-181 T/G) influences cognitive functions and brain structures in patients with schizophrenia.

From cognitive and clinical substrates to functional profiles: Disentangling heterogeneity in schizophrenia.

The relationship between neurocognition and functioning among patients with schizophrenia is well documented. However, integrating neuropsychological, clinical and psychopathological data to better investigate functional outcome still constitutes a challenge. Artificial neural network-based modeling might help to better capture clinical heterogeneity by analyzing the non-linear relationships among multiple variables.

Exploring anxiety in schizophrenia: New light on a hidden figure.

Anxiety is among the least studied features of schizophrenia, despite evidence of its significant impact on disease outcome. This work aims to investigate the anxiety construct in a sample of outpatients with schizophrenia, exploring the interplay of clinical, neurocognitive and social cognitive domains, as well as adverse childhood experiences and their relative contribute in determining anxiety. A forward stepwise regression model was performed on a sample of 68 outpatients with schizophrenia, to examine the predictive effect of different variables on anxiety.

Can patients with schizophrenia have good mentalizing skills? Disentangling heterogeneity of theory of mind.

Objective: Theory of Mind (ToM) is a multifaceted construct that involves mental states attribution in social interactions. Patients with schizophrenia are impaired in ToM abilities, but recent studies showed that a non-negligible number of patients perform within normal ranges or close to normal, whereas other patients are very impaired in ToM tasks. The present study aims to comprehensively analyze differences between patients with "poor" and "fair" mentalizing abilities, as identified through a median-split procedure on mental state attribution task, and healthy controls, as well as to explore the role of clinical, demographical, and neurocognitive predictors of ToM performance within groups.

Intellectual and cognitive profiles in patients affected by schizophrenia.

Intellectual abilities display high heterogeneity in patients with schizophrenia that might depend on the interaction among neurodevelopmental processes, environmental factors and neurocognitive decline. This study aimed to disentangle the interplay between intellectual level, cognitive status and each cognitive domain, with a focus on speed-related abilities, also including pre-morbid factors. In details, by means of cluster analysis, we identified both in global sample of 452 patients affected by schizophrenia and in a subsample with high pre-morbid functioning, different profiles based on current intellectual level and global cognitive status, analysing the distribution of deficits in each cognitive domains between groups.

Cognitive Reserve Profiles in Chronic Schizophrenia: Effects on Theory of Mind Performance and Improvement after Training.

Objectives: Cognitive reserve (CR), defined as individual differences in the ability to cope with brain damage, seem to be associated to the several psychopathological features in psychiatric patients, such as the functional outcome. This study aims to identify different profiles of CR by combining intelligence quotient (IQ) and premorbid functioning, two measures independently associated to CR in previous works, as well as to explore CR effect on both Theory of Mind (ToM) baseline performance and improvement after socio-cognitive trainings.

Methods: Sixty patients with chronic schizophrenia underwent a socio-cognitive rehabilitation.

The role of premorbid adjustment in schizophrenia: Focus on cognitive remediation outcome.

Premorbid adjustment has been associated with several outcomes in schizophrenia and has been proposed as an index of cognitive reserve. This study aims to comprehensively analyse the relation between premorbid adjustment and clinical, neurocognitive, socio-cognitive and functional assessments, as well as to investigate the effect of premorbid adjustment on cognitive improvements after a cognitive remediation therapy protocol. Seventy-nine clinically stabilised outpatients with schizophrenia underwent a combined intervention consisting of cognitive remediation therapy added to standard rehabilitation therapy.

Achieving recovery in patients with schizophrenia through psychosocial interventions: A retrospective study.

Aim: Recovery, or functional remission, represents the ultimate treatment goal in schizophrenia. Despite its importance, a standardized definition of remission is still lacking, thus reported rates significantly vary across studies. Moreover, the effects of rehabilitative interventions on recovery have not been thoroughly investigated.

Integrated cognitive remediation and standard rehabilitation therapy in patients of schizophrenia: persistence after 5years.

Cognitive remediation, often used in combination with standard rehabilitation programs, represents the best available tool to treat cognitive impairments in patients with schizophrenia. However, there are still open questions about durability of effects and generalization of cognitive improvements to functional outcome. This study aims to investigate the persistence of both cognitive and functional effects of combined cognitive remediation plus standard rehabilitation interventions, 5years after completion of the intervention, also comparing different durations of the standard rehabilitation.

Exploring predictors of work competence in schizophrenia: The role of theory of mind.

In schizophrenia employment rate is dramatically low, also among patients receiving job support interventions. Recent studies showed a direct relationship between neurocognitive deficits and work functioning, as well as proving the benefits of combined neurocognitive and work interventions. Current evidence also supports a role of Theory of Mind (ToM), on work functioning.