Publications by authors named "Hajduk M"

The present study examines the impact of induced social stress on facial trustworthiness judgments in individuals with schizophrenia (SCZ) and the associations between symptoms and trustworthiness ratings. Thirty-three individuals with SCZ and forty healthy controls (HC) were asked to rate the trustworthiness of 24 digitally morphed faces in two counterbalanced conditions. Mild social stress was induced by listening to loud noises from a busy street.

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This position paper by the international IMMERSE consortium reviews the evidence of a digital mental health solution based on Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM) for advancing person-centered mental health care and outlines a research agenda for implementing innovative digital mental health tools into routine clinical practice. ESM is a structured diary technique recording real-time self-report data about the current mental state using a mobile application. We will review how ESM may contribute to (1) service user engagement and empowerment, (2) self-management and recovery, (3) goal direction in clinical assessment and management of care, and (4) shared decision-making.

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Article Synopsis
  • Individuals with schizophrenia displayed similar trustworthiness ratings and pupillary reactions to healthy controls when assessing neutral faces, suggesting no social cognitive biases in this stable group.
  • Among patients, differences in pupil size were linked to more severe positive symptoms and self-reported paranoia.
  • Future research should utilize longer stimuli for measuring pupil reactivity and consider the varying impacts of antipsychotic medication on these findings.
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Introduction: Bradykinesia is an essential diagnostic criterion for Parkinson's disease (PD) but is frequently observed in many non-parkinsonian movement disorders, complicating differential diagnosis, particularly in disorders featuring tremors. The presence of bradykinetic features in the subset of dystonic tremors (DT), either "pure" dystonic tremors or tremors associated with dystonia, remains currently unexplored. The aim of the current study was to evaluate upper limb bradykinesia in DT patients, comparing them with healthy controls (HC) and patients with PD by observing repetitive finger tapping (FT).

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Background: Recent years have seen a growing interest in the use of digital tools for delivering person-centred mental health care. Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM), a structured diary technique for capturing moment-to-moment variation in experience and behaviour in service users' daily life, reflects a particularly promising avenue for implementing a person-centred approach. While there is evidence on the effectiveness of ESM-based monitoring, uptake in routine mental health care remains limited.

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Background: Students face great challenges at the beginning of and during their studies. Competitive experience, exam anxiety, and especially the new performance requirements often cause test anxiety and stressful experiences. The extent of substance use in terms of neuroenhancement (NE) is unclear.

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Deficits in facial identity recognition and its association with poor social functioning are well documented in schizophrenia, but none of these studies have assessed the role of the body in these processes. Recent research in healthy populations shows that the body is also an important source of information in identity recognition, and the current study aimed to thoroughly examine identity recognition from both faces and bodies in schizophrenia. Sixty-five individuals with schizophrenia and forty-nine healthy controls completed three conditions of an identity matching task in which they attempted to match unidentified persons in unedited photos of faces and bodies, edited photos showing faces only, or edited photos showing bodies only.

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Background And Hypothesis: Schizophrenia is often associated with severe difficulties in social functioning, resulting in increased isolation and subsequent loneliness. Interpersonal distance - the amount of space around an individual's body during social interaction - can signal such difficulties. However, little is known about how individuals with schizophrenia regulate their interpersonal distance during social encounters.

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Motivation in general, and social motivation in particular are important for interpersonal functioning in individuals with schizophrenia. Still, their roles after accounting for social cognition, are not well understood. The sample consisted of 147 patients with schizophrenia.

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Spravato and other drugs with consciousness-altering effects show significant promise for treating various mental health disorders. However, the effects of these treatments necessitate a substantial degree of patient monitoring which can be burdensome to healthcare providers and may make these treatments less accessible for prospective patients. Continuous passive monitoring via digital devices may be useful in reducing this burden.

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Introduction: There has been growing interest in the role of attachment mechanisms in the onset and maintenance of paranoia. The latest systematic reviews of mixed samples of healthy individuals and psychiatric patients have revealed that increased trait attachment anxiety and avoidance are associated with experiencing paranoia, with trait attachment anxiety showing a stronger association. Few studies have examined attachment and paranoia in naturalistic conditions via the Experience Sampling Method.

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Objectives: Non - clinical individuals with higher levels of autistic traits and psychotic experiences also have problems in social relationships. Therefore, this study aimed to model complex associations between autistic and psychotic phenotypes and indicators of social relationships in the general population using a network approach.

Methods: The sample consisted of 649 participants with a mean age of M = 40.

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Objectives: Retention in alcohol-dependence treatment is an indicator of successful treatment. The aim of this study was to analyze Lesch's typology of alcohol dependence (LAT) and the participation of close people as potential predictors of retention in outpatient treatment.

Methods: Participants were included in the study according to the inclusion criteria.

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Autistic adults and those with schizophrenia (SCZ) demonstrate similar levels of reduced social cognitive performance at the group level, but it is unclear whether these patterns are relatively consistent or highly variable within and between the two conditions. Seventy-two adults with SCZ (52 male, M  = 28.2 years) and 94 with diagnoses on the autism spectrum (83 male, M  = 24.

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Objectives: The study aimed to estimate the prevalence of depression and anxiety among university students during the peak of COVID‑19 pandemic in the Slovak Republic in December 2020. The secondary goal was to compare results with a study from 2018 at the same university.

Methods: A web-based cross-sectional study was administered at the Comenius University in Bratislava.

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Background: Extensive difficulties in reaching functional milestones characterize schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders. These impairments are in part explained by lower social cognitive abilities, cognitive impairment, and current psychopathology. The present study aims to model dynamic associations among social cognition, neurocognition, psychopathology, social skills, functional capacity, and functional outcomes in schizophrenia using network analysis in order to identify those factors that are most central to functioning.

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The Trail Making Test (TMT) is a popular measure of cognitive functioning, especially processing speed and cognitive flexibility. This study aims to provide normative data for the Slovak adult population. The secondary aim is to test the convergent validity by examining relationships of direct and derived indices to other neuropsychological measures.

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Article Synopsis
  • The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has severely impacted mental health, yet the role of protective factors like resilience remains largely unexplored.
  • A cross-sectional online survey involving nearly 16,000 adults highlighted that a positive appraisal style (PAS) significantly increases resilience, as it helps maintain good mental health despite stressors related to the pandemic.
  • Findings suggest that perceived social support and the ability to recover from stress also contribute to resilience, offering insights for public mental health initiatives to target these modifiable factors.
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In the development of PD-L1-blocking therapeutics, it is essential to transfer initial findings into proper animal models. Classical immunocompetent mice are attractive due to high accessibility and low experimental costs. However, it is unknown whether inter-species differences in PD-L1 sequence and structure would allow for human-mouse cross applications.

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Background: The ability to maintain balance in an upright stance gradually worsens with age and is even more difficult for patients with cognitive disorders. Cognitive impairment plays a probable role in the worsening of stability. The purpose of this study was to expose subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy, age-matched controls to moving visual scenes in order to examine their postural adaptation abilities.

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The Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) is a well-established screening measure of frontal lobe pathology. The aim of this study is the development of normative data for healthy Slovak adults. The final sample consisted of 487 healthy adults (54% of them female).

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Individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) consistently show deficits in social cognition (SC) which is associated with real world outcomes. Psychosocial treatments have demonstrated reliable improvements in SC abilities, highlighting the need for accurate identification of SC deficits for efficient and individualized treatment planning. To this end, the Observable Social Cognition Rating Scale (OSCARS) is an 8-item scale with both self and informant versions.

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Introduction: Disturbed emotion processing is well documented in schizophrenia, but the majority of studies evaluate processing of emotion only from facial expressions. Social cues are also communicated via body posture, and they are similarly relevant for successful social interactions. The aim of the current study was to thoroughly examine body perception abilities in individuals with schizophrenia.

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