Migration of digital functional capacity assessments from device resident to cloud-based delivery: Development and convergent validity.

Decentralized clinical trials are leading to rapid changes in assessment technology, including an expansion of interest in remote delivery. As technology changes, some of the updates include migration to fully cloud-based software and data management, with attendant differences in hardware, response modalities, and modifications in the level of tester engagement. It is rare to see systematic descriptions of the process of migration and upgrading of technology-related assessments.

Measuring social cognition within the university: The Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) battery in an undergraduate sample.

Many social cognitive assessments that were developed specifically for use in clinical populations are now being widely used in undergraduate populations, either to provide a comparison for clinical groups or to explore performance across the continuum from healthy to subclinical populations. However, the appropriateness of using these assessments in the general population is unclear. The current study, therefore, seeks to determine whether the Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) battery retains its psychometric properties when used in an undergraduate sample.

Location-based differences in cognition and functional capacity: Consistent levels of impairment in participants with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls.

Cognitive performance manifests regional differences, correlated with education. There is less information available about regional differences in performance-based measures of functional capacity. In multi-national trials focused on cognitive enhancement, it may be impossible to validate every measure in all locations.

HSV-1 and Cellular miRNAs in CSF-Derived Exosomes as Diagnostically Relevant Biomarkers for Neuroinflammation.

Virus-associated chronic inflammation may contribute to autoimmunity in a number of diseases. In the brain, autoimmune encephalitis appears related to fluctuating reactivation states of neurotropic viruses. In addition, viral miRNAs and proteins can be transmitted via exosomes, which constitute novel but highly relevant mediators of cellular communication.

Identity recognition from faces and bodies in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

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.

Qualitative Analysis of the Content Validity of the Virtual Reality Functional Capacity Assessment Tool (VRFCAT) in Schizophrenia: A Multi-Stakeholder Perspective.

The US Food and Drug Agency (FDA) requires clinical trials targeting cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia (CIAS) to demonstrate the functional relevance of cognitive improvements by employing a functional co-primary measure. Although quantitative evidence supports the suitability of the Virtual Reality Functional Capacity Assessment Tool (VRFCAT) for this purpose, FDA guidelines for qualification of clinical outcome assessments require evidence of content validity, defined as qualitative evidence that key stakeholders view the measure as relevant and important. To collect this important qualitative data, semi-structured interviews were conducted with outpatients with schizophrenia ( = 24), caregivers ( = 12), and professional peer support specialists ( = 12) to elicit their views about the definition and importance of functional independence, the importance of the functional domains assessed by the VRFCAT (meal planning, using transportation, handling money, shopping), and the relevance of the VRFCAT tasks to these domains.

Assessing the diametrical model of schizotypal and autistic traits in emotion recognition and social functioning in a community sample.

Background: Some research suggests that schizotypal and autistic traits can produce opposing effects on the mentalizing domain of social cognition. Although such findings support a diametrical model proposing that psychotic and autistic traits represent opposite extremes of the social brain continuum, results from recent studies have been more inconsistent, and the applicability of this model to other social cognition domains remains unclear. To test the diametrical model more broadly, this study examined the interactions between schizotypal and autistic traits on emotion recognition and social functioning.

Antiviral treatment in schizophrenia: a randomized pilot PET study on the effects of valaciclovir on neuroinflammation.

Background: Patients with schizophrenia experience cognitive impairment, which could be related to neuroinflammation in the hippocampus. The cause for such hippocampal inflammation is still unknown, but it has been suggested that herpes virus infection is involved. This study therefore aimed to determine whether add-on treatment of schizophrenic patients with the anti- viral drug valaciclovir would reduce hippocampal neuroinflammation and consequently improve cognitive symptoms.

Invite everyone to the table, but not to every course: How Design-Thinking collaboration can be implemented in smart cities to design digital services.

Innovative collaboration strategies are a promising tool for fostering the governance of smart cities while acknowledging citizen centricity. During implementation, however, determining the number and background of the involved actors is challenging. The Design-Thinking (DT) approach appears suitable for addressing this issue as it offers a concrete and adaptable course of action.

A preliminary investigation of paranoia variability and its association with social functioning.

Background: Paranoid ideation is a core feature of psychosis and is associated with impaired social functioning. Severity of paranoia can fluctuate across time as symptoms wax and wane; however, no study has systematically investigated how this intra-individual variability in paranoia may relate to social impairments and social functioning.

Methods: Fifty-five patients with DSM-5 diagnoses and recent paranoia were followed for up to one year and completed the suspiciousness/persecution section (P6) of the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS) on a monthly basis to monitor fluctuations in paranoia.

No Signs of Neuroinflammation in Women With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Q Fever Fatigue Syndrome Using the TSPO Ligand [C]-PK11195.

Background And Objectives: The pathophysiology of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and Q fever fatigue syndrome (QFS) remains elusive. Recent data suggest a role for neuroinflammation as defined by increased expression of translocator protein (TSPO). In the present study, we investigated whether there are signs of neuroinflammation in female patients with CFS and QFS compared with healthy women, using PET with the TSPO ligand C-()-(2-chlorophenyl)--methyl--(1-methylpropyl)-3-isoquinoline-carbox-amide ([C]-PK11195).

How much time is enough? Establishing an optimal duration of recording for ambulatory video EEG.

Objective: Ambulatory video EEG allows for extended recording of EEG in the comfort of a patient's home. However, the optimal duration of recording to capture clinical events is yet to be established. The current study uses retrospective analyses to identify an optimal recording duration for at-home video EEG.

The limited effect of neural stimulation on visual attention and social cognition in individuals with schizophrenia.

Background: Research demonstrates a relationship between faulty visual attention and poorer social cognition in schizophrenia. One potential explanatory model suggests abnormal neuromodulation in specific neural networks may result in reduced attention to socially important cues, leading to poorer understanding of another's emotional state or intentions.

Objective: The current study experimentally manipulated neural networks using tDCS to examine this potential causal mechanism.

Amygdala hyperconnectivity in the paranoid state: A transdiagnostic study.

Background: Paranoia significantly contributes to social impairments across clinical diagnoses, and amygdala dysfunction has been identified as a neurobiological marker of paranoia among individuals with schizophrenia. Therefore, we aimed to investigate amygdala functional connectivity (FC) in paranoia across diagnoses.

Methods: Forty-five patients with recent history of clinically significant paranoid ideation and a current DSM-5 diagnosis of any disorder underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging either in a paranoid (N = 23) or non-paranoid (N = 22) state.

The Added Value of [F]FDG PET/CT in the Management of Invasive Fungal Infections.

Anatomy-based imaging methods are the usual imaging methods used in assessing invasive fungal infections (IFIs). [F]FDG PET/CT has also been used in the evaluation of IFIs. We assessed the added value of [F]FDG PET/CT when added to the most frequently used anatomy-based studies in the evaluation of IFIs.

Measuring mentalizing: A comparison of scoring methods for the hinting task.

Objective: The Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) study supported the utility and practicality of the Hinting task as a measure of social cognition/mentalizing in clinical trials, specifically with the SCOPE authors' stringent scoring system. However, it remains unclear whether the SCOPE scoring system is necessary for the task to be judged as psychometrically sound.

Method: Independent raters rescored data from the three phases of SCOPE using the Hinting task's original scoring criteria.

Implicit and explicit processing of bodily emotions in schizophrenia.

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.

Autoimmune psychosis: an international consensus on an approach to the diagnosis and management of psychosis of suspected autoimmune origin.

There is increasing recognition in the neurological and psychiatric literature of patients with so-called isolated psychotic presentations (ie, with no, or minimal, neurological features) who have tested positive for neuronal autoantibodies (principally N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antibodies) and who have responded to immunotherapies. Although these individuals are sometimes described as having atypical, mild, or attenuated forms of autoimmune encephalitis, some authors feel that that these cases are sufficiently different from typical autoimmune encephalitis to establish a new category of so-called autoimmune psychosis. We briefly review the background, discuss the existing evidence for a form of autoimmune psychosis, and propose a novel, conservative approach to the recognition of possible, probable, and definite autoimmune psychoses for use in psychiatric practice.

Comparison of Fluorine(18)-fluorodeoxyglucose and Gallium(68)-citrate PET/CT in patients with tuberculosis.

Unlabelled: F-FDG and Ga-citrate PET/CT have both been shown to be useful in the management of tuberculosis (TB). We compared the abnormal PET findings of F-FDG- and Ga-citrate-PET/CT in patients with TB.

Methods:  Patients with TB on anti-TB therapy were included.

Major depressive disorder is associated with changes in a cluster of serum and urine biomarkers.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a heterogeneous disorder with a considerable symptomatic overlap with other psychiatric and somatic disorders. This study aims at providing evidence for association of a set of serum and urine biomarkers with MDD. We analyzed urine and serum samples of 40 MDD patients and 47 age- and sex-matched controls using 40 potential MDD biomarkers (21 serum biomarkers and 19 urine biomarkers).

Role of FDG PET/CT in monitoring treatment response in patients with invasive fungal infections.

Introduction: Invasive fungal infections (IFIs) occur mostly in immunosuppressed patients and can be life-threatening. Inadequate treatment is associated with high morbidity and mortality. We examined the role of 2-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography integrated with CT (FDG-PET/CT) in monitoring IFIs and therapy decision-making, and evaluated the role of baseline metabolic parameters in predicting the metabolic response.

Examining reasoning biases in schizophrenia using a modified "Jumping to Conclusions" probabilistic reasoning task.

Although the Jumping To Conclusion (JTC) bias has been extensively studied in relation to schizophrenia and persecutory delusions, the relationship between JTC and other reasoning biases implicated in delusional ideation is not fully understood. We modified the traditional JTC task to assess co-occurrence of reasoning biases in decision making. Forty-six patients with schizophrenia and 46 healthy controls completed two versions [neutral colored beads and salient comments] of the modified task.

Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in Brain Disorders: Focus on Neuroinflammation.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is one of the most studied neurotrophins in the healthy and diseased brain. As a result, there is a large body of evidence that associates BDNF with neuronal maintenance, neuronal survival, plasticity, and neurotransmitter regulation. Patients with psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders often have reduced BDNF concentrations in their blood and brain.

Neural correlates of social cognitive introspective accuracy in schizophrenia.

Introspective accuracy (IA) refers to the ability to accurately assess one's own skills and capabilities. Recent work provides evidence of IA deficits in schizophrenia that are predictive of everyday functioning. Thus, IA deficits are an important target to understand mechanistically.