Publications by authors named "Gonzalo Forno"

Background: The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) is one of the most widely used tests to assess the global cognitive deterioration of older adults. There are many versions of this Test in Spanish. A validation study was previously conducted in Chile, but to date, no standards computed from a large population sample are available.

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Article Synopsis
  • Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia globally, with the thalamus identified as a key area affected by the disease, particularly the 'limbic thalamus.'
  • The study utilized advanced segmentation methods to analyze thalamic atrophy in early-onset AD (EOAD) and late-onset AD (LOAD), comparing it to healthy control groups through MRI scans of 88 AD patients and 58 controls.
  • Results indicated significant thalamic atrophy in both EOAD and LOAD, with specific patterns of atrophy linked to cognitive deficits, suggesting that thalamic nuclei may be uniquely impacted based on the age of onset and related to various brain regions and cognitive functions.
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Objective: Cognitive assessment able to detect impairments in the early neuropathological stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is urgently needed. The visual short-term memory binding task (VSTMBT) and the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT) have been recommended by the neurodegenerative disease working group as promising tests to aid in the early detection of AD. In this study, we investigated their complementary value across the clinical stages of the AD continuum.

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Background: Although social cognition is compromised in patients with neurodegenerative disorders such as behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), research on moral emotions and their neural correlates in these populations is scarce. No previous study has explored the utility of moral emotions, compared to and in combination with classical general cognitive state tools, to discriminate bvFTD from AD patients.

Objective: To examine self-conscious (guilt and embarrassment) and other-oriented (pity and indignation) moral emotions, their subjective experience, and their structural brain underpinnings in bvFTD (n = 31) and AD (n = 30) patients, compared to healthy controls (n = 37).

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focused on how the APOE genotype influences brain structure and memory function in patients with early-onset (EOAD) and late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD).
  • Researchers analyzed 87 cerebrospinal fluid-confirmed AD patients, categorizing them based on their APOE genotype and age of onset to investigate differences in gray matter volume.
  • Results indicated that EOAD patients with the APOE4 genotype showed significant atrophy in certain brain areas, particularly the mammillary body, while LOAD patients with APOE4 had more extensive atrophy in the medial temporal and posterior cingulate cortex, impacting their episodic and visuospatial memory capabilities.
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Introduction: Automated speech analysis has emerged as a scalable, cost-effective tool to identify persons with Alzheimer's disease dementia (ADD). Yet, most research is undermined by low interpretability and specificity.

Methods: Combining statistical and machine learning analyses of natural speech data, we aimed to discriminate ADD patients from healthy controls (HCs) based on automated measures of domains typically affected in ADD: semantic granularity (coarseness of concepts) and ongoing semantic variability (conceptual closeness of successive words).

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Neurodegeneration has multiscalar impacts, including behavioral, neuroanatomical, and neurofunctional disruptions. Can disease-differential alterations be captured across such dimensions using naturalistic stimuli? To address this question, we assessed comprehension of four naturalistic stories, highlighting action, nonaction, social, and nonsocial events, in Parkinson's disease (PD) and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) relative to Alzheimer's disease patients and healthy controls. Text-specific correlates were evaluated via voxel-based morphometry, spatial (fMRI), and temporal (hd-EEG) functional connectivity.

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The hippocampus is regarded as the pivotal structure for episodic memory symptoms associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathophysiology. However, what is often overlooked is that the hippocampus is 'only' one part of a network of memory critical regions, the Papez circuit. Other Papez circuit regions are often regarded as less relevant for AD as they are thought to sit 'downstream' of the hippocampus.

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Background: With the global population aging and life expectancy increasing, dementia has turned a priority in the health care system. In Chile, dementia is one of the most important causes of disability in the elderly and the most rapidly growing cause of death in the last 20 years. Cognitive complaint is considered a predictor for cognitive and functional decline, incident mild cognitive impairment, and incident dementia.

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Neurological soft signs (NSS) are frequently found in severe mental disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia or HIV associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND) which includes asymptomatic neurocognitive impairment (ANI), mild neurocognitive disorder (MND) and HIV-associated dementia. To characterize NSS in patients with HIV we examined them with respect to neuropsychological deficits typically found in the disorder. 67 HIV + patients without a history of head trauma, opportunistic infections, severe psychiatric disorders or acute confounding comorbidities of the Central nervous system (CNS) were recruited.

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Background: Impairments in activities of daily living (ADL) are a criterion for Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia. However, ADL gradually decline in AD, impacting on advanced (a-ADL, complex interpersonal or social functioning), instrumental (IADL, maintaining life in community), and finally basic functions (BADL, activities related to physiological and self-maintenance needs). Information and communication technologies (ICT) have become an increasingly important aspect of daily functioning.

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HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) include asymptomatic neurocognitive impairment (ANI), mild neurocognitive disorder (MND) and HIV-associated dementia. Early recognition of HAND is crucial, and usually requires thorough neuropsychological testing. Neurological soft signs (NSS), i.

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Interoception is a complex process encompassing multiple dimensions, such as accuracy, learning and awareness. Here, we examined whether each of those dimensions relies on specialized neural regions distributed throughout the vast interoceptive network. To this end, we obtained relevant measures of cardiac interoception in healthy subjects and patients offering contrastive lesion models of neurodegeneration and focal brain damage: behavioural variant fronto-temporal dementia (bvFTD), Alzheimer's disease (AD) and fronto-insular stroke.

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Recursive social decision-making requires the use of flexible, context-sensitive long-term strategies for negotiation. To succeed in social bargaining, participants' own perspectives must be dynamically integrated with those of interactors to maximize self-benefits and adapt to the other's preferences, respectively. This is a prerequisite to develop a successful long-term self-other integration strategy.

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