Social Distancing: Prevalence of Depressive, Anxiety, and Stress Symptoms Among Brazilian Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic can impact mental health, triggering symptoms such as anxiety, stress and depression. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the levels of anxiety, depression and stress during the period of social distancing due to COVID-19 in students from a campus of the Federal Institute in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre/RS. A correlational and exploratory study was performed.

Components of an indirect cognitive reserve: a longitudinal assessment of community-dwelling older adults.

Cognitive reserve enables individuals to preserve their cognition, despite a possible underlying brain pathology. The objective was to verify which components contribute to an indirect measurement of cognitive reserve in older adults, assessed longitudinally within a four-year interval. The sample was comprised of 64 older adults from the community.

Cognitive function of Brazilian elderly persons: longitudinal study with non-clinical community sample.

Several biopsychosocial changes in individuals' life might happen, resulting in a decline of long-term cognitive abilities. In this way, the aim of this study was to compare cognition in non-clinical older adults in Brazil during a four-year period, as well as to examine which variables may explain cognitive function variations identified during this time. For this purpose, a longitudinal study was developed including 108 older Brazilians in phase I and 64 in phase II, from 2013 to 2017.

Episodic memory boosting in older adults: exploring the association of encoding strategies and physical activity.

Contextual memory is susceptible to the effects of aging and its impairment compromises episodic memories and quality of life in older adults. Compare the effects of cognitive support on incidental contextual memory free recall and recognition with a naturalistic experimental paradigm and explore the association of encoding strategies and physical activity on memory improvement. Subjects (≥60 years, n = 52) were assigned to one of two encoding conditions for the contextual memory task: with or without an incidental associative instruction to encourage association of an item to its spatial context.

Mental health in familial caregivers of Alzheimer's disease patients: are the effects of chronic stress on cognition inevitable?

Familial caregivers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients experience an emotional and physical burden which characterizes a chronic stress condition. The resulting hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction favors an imbalance of neurotoxic/neuroprotective factors and causes cognitive impairments, increasing the caregivers' risk for cognitive decline and compromising their ability to provide adequate care of the patient. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the reversibility of the cognitive impairments of familial caregivers of AD patients during their caregiving-related chronic stress condition.

Personality factors and cognitive functioning in elderly with Parkinson's disease.

Unlabelled: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic and progressive neurological disease, resulting from cell degeneration in the substantia nigra, responsible for the production of dopamine.

Objective: This study aimed to characterize the cognitive functioning, personality factors and prevalence of depressive and anxiety symptoms in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Furthermore, this study sought to analyze whether personality factors were predictors of cognitive functioning.

Effects of childhood multiple maltreatment experiences on depression of socioeconomic disadvantaged elderly in Brazil.

Childhood maltreatment is a risk factor for depression in nonelderly individuals. We investigated the effect of childhood abuse and neglect on the development of geriatric depression and its severity in socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals. A cross-sectional study investigated 449 individuals aged 60-103 years sorted by data using the enrollment list health coverage from the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Animal Hoarding Disorder: A new psychopathology?

This study aimed to characterize the sociodemographic profile of animal hoarders in a southern city of Brazil. In addition, it aimed to propose Animal Hoarding Disorder as a new nosological category, distinct from Hoarding Disorder. Thirty-three individuals with Animal Hoarding Disorder, 73% female and 60% elderly, composed the sample.

Multimodal physical activity increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels and improves cognition in institutionalized older women.

Physical activity has been proposed as a promising intervention to improve cognition and decrease the risk of dementia in older adults. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) appears to mediate, at least partially, these effects of exercise. However, intervention studies of the effects of multimodal exercises on cognition and BDNF levels are scarce and composed by small samples.

Age Effects on Cognitive and Physiological Parameters in Familial Caregivers of Alzheimer's Disease Patients.

Objectives: Older familial caregivers of Alzheimer's disease patients are subjected to stress-related cognitive and psychophysiological dysfunctions that may affect their quality of life and ability to provide care. Younger caregivers have never been properly evaluated. We hypothesized that they would show qualitatively similar cognitive and psychophysiological alterations to those of older caregivers.

Depressive signs and cognitive performance in patients with a right hemisphere stroke.

Purpose: This study investigated the influence of suggestive signs of depression (SSD) in right-hemisphere brain-damaged (RHD) patients following a stroke on their cognitive performance measured by a brief neuropsychological assessment battery.

Methods: Forty-two adults with RHD after a single episode of stroke and 84 matched controls participated in this study. They were assessed by means of the Geriatric Depression Scale and by Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Battery NEUPSILIN.

Could BDNF be involved in compensatory mechanisms to maintain cognitive performance despite acute sleep deprivation? An exploratory study.

Background: Neuroimaging studies suggest that acute sleep deprivation can lead to adaptations, such as compensatory recruitment of cerebral structures, to maintain cognitive performance despite sleep loss. However, the understanding of the neurochemical alterations related to these adaptations remains incomplete.

Objective: Investigate BDNF levels, cognitive performance and their relations in healthy subjects after acute sleep deprivation.

Childhood maltreatment and executive functions in adolescents.

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate differences in executive functions between adolescents exposed to different forms of single- and multitype childhood maltreatment.

Method: The sample was composed of 83 adolescents, divided into three groups: single-type maltreatment (n = 24), multitype maltreatment (n = 19), and no history of maltreatment (n = 40), matched for education and sex.

Results: The results showed that teenagers who suffered a single type of childhood maltreatment performed worse than the other two groups on tasks of cognitive flexibility and visual processing speed.

The effects of age and emotional valence on recognition memory: an ex-Gaussian components analysis.

The aim of this work was to study the effects of valence and age on visual image recognition memory. The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) battery was used, and response time data were analyzed using analysis of variance, as well as an ex-Gaussian fit method. Older participants were slower and more variable in their reaction times.

Systematic review of the prevalence of bipolar disorder and bipolar spectrum disorders in population-based studies.

This paper describes the findings of a systematic literature review aimed at providing an overview of the lifetime prevalence of bipolar disorder and bipolar spectrum disorders in population-based studies. Databases MEDLINE, ProQuest, Psychnet, and Web of Science were browsed for papers published in English between 1999 and May 2012 using the following search string: bipolar disorders OR bipolar spectrum disorders AND prevalence OR cross-sectional OR epidemiology AND population-based OR non-clinical OR community based. The search yielded a total of 434 papers, but only those published in peer-reviewed journals and with samples aged ≥ 18 years were included, resulting in a final sample of 18 papers.

Characterization of cognitive and motor performance during dual-tasking in healthy older adults and patients with Parkinson's disease.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of dual-tasking on cognitive performance and gait parameters in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) without dementia. The impact of cognitive task complexity on cognition and walking was also examined. Eighteen patients with PD (ages 53-88, 10 women; Hoehn and Yahr stage I-II) and 18 older adults (ages 61-84; 10 women) completed two neuropsychological measures of executive function/attention (the Stroop Test and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test).

Emotional memory deficit and its psychophysiological correlate in family caregivers of patients with dementia.

This study examined the cortisol secretion pattern and declarative memory performance of dementia caregivers. An illustrated story paradigm memory task was used to evaluate the effects of emotional arousal on memory and assess the caregivers' cognitive compensation capacity. Younger (n=19) and elderly (n=24) noncaregivers and elderly caregivers (n=14) took part in 2 experiments to elucidate the effects of aging (experiment 1) and chronic stress (experiment 2) on memory performance and cortisol levels.

[Characteristics, depressive symptoms, and associated factors in incarcerated women in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil].

The study's objective was to describe the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of women inmates and verify the prevalence of depressive symptoms and hopelessness and drug and alcohol use, abuse, and addiction. The sample included 287 inmates at a Women's Penitentiary in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. The study design was quantitative and cross-sectional.

Neuroendocrine and immunological correlates of chronic stress in 'strictly healthy' populations.

Background: Chronic stress has been associated with detrimental or maladaptive neuroendocrine and immunological changes.

Objectives: We assessed the neuroendocrine and immunological correlates of a realistic chronic stress experienced by strictly healthy caregivers of Alzheimer's disease patients and age-matched controls.

Methods: We screened 330 caregivers and 206 non-caregivers according to the 'strictly healthy' conditions established by the SENIEUR protocol.

[Coping strategies, functional difficulties, and associated factors in institutionalized elderly].

The aim of this study was to analyze the strategies used by elderly people to cope with functional difficulties, and to investigate a possible association between such strategies and variables like depressive symptoms, gender, schooling, marital status, and self-perceived health. 103 institutionalized elderly individuals participated in the study. They required assistance for at least one activity of daily living.