Diagnostic Associations of Processing Speed in a Transdiagnostic, Pediatric Sample.

Introduction: The present study examines the relationships between processing speed (PS), mental health disorders, and learning disorders. Prior work has tended to explore relationships between PS deficits and specific diagnoses in isolation of one another. Here, we simultaneously investigated PS associations with five diagnoses (i.

Development of Three Web-Based Computerized Versions of the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia Child Psychiatric Diagnostic Interview: Preliminary Validity Data.

Objective: To present initial validity data on three web-based computerized versions of the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (KSADS-COMP).

Method: The sample for evaluating the validity of the clinician-administered KSADS-COMP included 511 youths 6-18 years of age who were participants in the Child Mind Institute Healthy Brain Network. The sample for evaluating the parent and youth self-administered versions of the KSADS-COMP included 158 youths 11-17 years of age recruited from three academic institutions.

An open resource for transdiagnostic research in pediatric mental health and learning disorders.

Technological and methodological innovations are equipping researchers with unprecedented capabilities for detecting and characterizing pathologic processes in the developing human brain. As a result, ambitions to achieve clinically useful tools to assist in the diagnosis and management of mental health and learning disorders are gaining momentum. To this end, it is critical to accrue large-scale multimodal datasets that capture a broad range of commonly encountered clinical psychopathology.

Presurgical assessment of cognitive function in pediatric brain tumor patients: feasibility and initial findings.

Background: Establishing a presurgical baseline of neurocognitive functioning for pediatric brain tumor patients is a high priority to identify level of functioning prior to medical interventions. However, few studies have obtained adequate samples of presurgery assessments.

Methods: This study examines the feasibility of completing tests to assess pre-surgical neurocognitive functioning in 59 identified pediatric brain tumor patients.

Early Childhood Adversity and its Associations With Anxiety, Depression, and Distress in Women With Breast Cancer.

Background: Certain vulnerability factors have been found to place patients at risk for depression and anxiety, especially within the context of medical illness.

Objectives: We sought to describe the relationships among early childhood adversity (ECA) and anxiety, depression and distress in patients with breast cancer.

Methods: Patients with breast cancer (stages 0-IV) were assessed for ECA (i.

Learning and memory performance in breast cancer survivors 2 to 6 years post-treatment: the role of encoding versus forgetting.

Purpose: Our previous retrospective analysis of clinically referred breast cancer survivors' performance on learning and memory measures found a primary weakness in initial encoding of information into working memory with intact retention and recall of this same information at a delay. This suggests that survivors may misinterpret cognitive lapses as being due to forgetting when, in actuality, they were not able to properly encode this information at the time of initial exposure. Our objective in this study was to replicate and extend this pattern of performance to a research sample to increase the generalizability of this finding in a sample in which subjects were not clinically referred for cognitive issues.

The level of association between functional performance status measures and patient-reported outcomes in cancer patients: a systematic review.

Purpose: The process of assessing patient symptoms and functionality using patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and functional performance status (FPS) is an essential aspect of patient-centered oncology research and care. However, PRO and FPS measures are often employed separately or inconsistently combined. Thus, the purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of the level of association between PRO and FPS measures to determine their differential or combined utility.

Stress-Related Changes in Attentional Bias to Social Threat in Young Adults: Psychobiological Associations with the Early Family Environment.

This study investigated the association of chronic childhood stress exposure with acute stress-related attentional alterations that have been previously linked to vulnerability to mental and physical illness in early adulthood. Participants were randomized in a crossover design to complete both a mild laboratory social stress task and a computerized task assessing attentional bias to socially threatening words. Salivary cortisol was measured throughout the study.

RBANS Norms based on the Relationship of Age, Gender, Education, and WRAT-3 Reading to Performance within an Older African American Sample.

Objective: Due to factors including differences in educational opportunity, African Americans and Caucasians frequently differ on cognitive tests creating diagnostic error risks. Such differences have been found on the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), and preliminary norms based on a small sample of African Americans have been generated. In a larger sample of community-dwelling older African Americans, we explored sources of variance including age, gender, common medical conditions, years of education, and reading level to generate norms stratified on the most relevant bases.

Reliable change in neuropsychological assessment of breast cancer survivors.

Background: The purpose of this study was to enhance the current understanding and interpretation of longitudinal change on tests of neurocognitive function in individuals with cancer. Scores on standard neuropsychological instruments may be impacted by practice effects and other random forms of error.

Methods: The current study assessed the test-retest reliability of several tests and overarching cognitive domains comprising a neurocognitive battery typical of those used for research and clinical evaluation using relevant time frames.

The Association of Cytokine Levels With Cognitive Function in Children With Sickle Cell Disease and Normal MRI Studies of the Brain.

Children with sickle cell disease, including those without evidence for cerebral infarcts, are at increased risk for cognitive deficits that can contribute to difficulties in academic and social functioning. Chronic inflammatory processes are endemic to sickle cell disease and are apparent in common comorbidities including asthma. Cytokines mediating inflammatory processes can influence cognition.

Cancer, coping, and cognition: a model for the role of stress reactivity in cancer-related cognitive decline.

Background: Cognitive decline and accompanying neurological changes associated with non-CNS cancer diagnosis and treatment have been increasingly identified in a subset of patients. Initially believed to be because of neurotoxic effects of chemotherapy exposure, observation of cognitive decline in patients not treated with chemotherapy, cancer-diagnosed individuals prior to treatment, and patients receiving alternative treatment modalities (surgery, endocrine therapy, and radiation) has led to the investigation of additional potential etiologies and moderating factors. Stressful experiences have long been posited as a contributor to these cognitive changes.

Learning and memory performance in a cohort of clinically referred breast cancer survivors: the role of attention versus forgetting in patient-reported memory complaints.

Objective: While forgetfulness is widely reported by breast cancer survivors, studies documenting objective memory performance yield mixed, largely inconsistent, results. Failure to find consistent, objective memory issues may be due to the possibility that cancer survivors misattribute their experience of forgetfulness to primary memory issues rather than to difficulties in attention at the time of learning.

Methods: To clarify potential attention issues, factor scores for Attention Span, Learning Efficiency, Delayed Memory, and Inaccurate Memory were analyzed for the California Verbal Learning Test-Second Edition (CVLT-II) in 64 clinically referred breast cancer survivors with self-reported cognitive complaints; item analysis was conducted to clarify specific contributors to observed effects, and contrasts between learning and recall trials were compared with normative data.

Prevalence, severity and risk factors for depressive symptoms and insomnia in college undergraduates.

Although the college years represent a high-risk period for depressive symptoms and insomnia, little research has explored their prevalence, comorbidities and risk factors within this developmental period. Two studies were conducted; the first evaluated the prevalence and comorbidity of depressive symptoms and insomnia in 1338 students (ages 18-23 years) from a large Southwestern University. Mild depressive symptoms were endorsed by 19% of students and 14.

Mother-daughter communication about breast cancer risk: interpersonal and biological stress processes.

Women with a personal or maternal history of breast cancer experience psychological stress in relation to breast cancer risk, and adolescent and young adult daughters are particularly at risk for experiencing stress related to their mothers' history of breast cancer. The current study examined interpersonal and biological stress responses during a laboratory-based communication task about breast cancer risk in 32 mother-daughter dyads and explores whether certain communication styles between mothers and daughters are associated with increased stress reactivity during the task. Five saliva samples were collected from each participant to determine cortisol baseline levels, reactivity to, and recovery from the task.

Cognitive reappraisal and secondary control coping: associations with working memory, positive and negative affect, and symptoms of anxiety/depression.

The current study examined the relations of measures of cognitive reappraisal and secondary control coping with working memory abilities, positive and negative affect, and symptoms of anxiety and depression in young adults (N=124). Results indicate significant relations between working memory abilities and reports of secondary control coping and between reports of secondary control coping and cognitive reappraisal. Associations were also found between measures of secondary control coping and cognitive reappraisal and positive and negative affect and symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Neuropsychological assessment of the orbital and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

Assessment of the functions of the orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex has proven to be a unique challenge for neuropsychologists. Orbitomedial damage occurs in a range of disorders including traumatic brain injury, ruptured aneurysms, surgical resection, and frontotemporal dementia. We review the effects of orbitomedial damage on a range of neuropsychological tasks, including tasks measuring object alternation and reversal learning, decision-making (gambling), facial emotion recognition, theory of mind, olfactory recognition, autobiographical memory and behavioral rating measures.

A quantitative meta-analysis of neurocognitive sequelae in survivors of pediatric brain tumors.

Background: Deficits in neurocognitive functioning are an important area of late effects in survivors of pediatric brain tumors, but a quantitative analysis of the magnitude of these deficits has yet to be conducted.

Procedure: The purpose of the current article is to provide a comprehensive meta-analysis of the literature on long-term neurocognitive effects found in these survivors.

Results: Results indicated significant deficits in both narrow and broad indices of neurocognitive functioning, and the overall magnitude of the effects across all domains ranged from small to large in magnitude (g = -0.

Do comorbid anxiety disorders impact treatment planning for outpatients with major depressive disorder?

Research indicates that depressed patients with comorbid anxiety disorders have a poorer long-term course of illness, are less responsive to treatment, and may experience greater deficits in psychosocial functioning, when compared with depressed patients without comorbid anxiety disorders. The objective of this study was to examine, through use of a large, well-characterized clinical database, how clinicians may modify treatment recommendations in depressed outpatients when anxiety disorders are present. A group of 346 case records, derived from the Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project at Rhode Island Hospital, were examined to determine what treatment recommendations were made immediately after diagnosis.

Reach of benchmark psychiatric trial results to community-based providers: a case study of CATIE.

Objective: To evaluate the familiarity of front-line clinicians with findings from the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE), the influence of didactic continuing medical education on provider knowledge about key details of CATIE, and how location-related factors affect rates of pre-event knowledge and intraevent learning about CATIE.

Method: Data derived from the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Academy (MGH-PA) semester II live symposia provided in different cities nationally between September and December 2006 were analyzed to evaluate providers' self-assessment of their knowledge about CATIE. In addition, participants were also asked a preactivity and postactivity question to assess learning of material presented during the live event psychosis lecture.

Efficacy of duloxetine for the treatment of depression: relationship to most recent antidepressant trial.

Objectives: To describe and examine, in a sample of depressed outpatients, the relationship between level of response to a previous SSRI or SNRI antidepressant trial and subsequent response to duloxetine hydrochloride.

Experimental Design: Data collected from a multicenter trial that evaluated the safety and efficacy of duloxetine for the treatment of major depressive disorder were analyzed to determine the relationship between response to previous antidepressant treatment and degree of response to duloxetine. Time to first response, first remission, sustained response, and sustained remission during the first 12 weeks of duloxetine treatment were compared across patient groups.