Feasibility of cognitive functional assessment in cardiac arrest survivors using an abbreviated laptop-based neurocognitive battery.

Cardiac arrest survivors exhibit varying degrees of neurological recovery even in the setting of targeted temperature management (TTM) use, ranging from severe impairments to making a seemingly full return to neurologic baseline function. We sought to explore the feasibility of utilizing a laptop-based neurocognitive battery to identify more subtle cognitive deficits in this population. In a convenience sample of cardiac arrest survivors discharged with a cerebral performance category (CPC) of 1, we evaluated the use of a computerized neurocognitive battery (CNB) in this group compared to a healthy control normative population.

Facial emotion perception differs in young persons at genetic and clinical high-risk for psychosis.

A large body of literature has documented facial emotion perception impairments in schizophrenia. More recently, emotion perception has been investigated in persons at genetic and clinical high-risk for psychosis. This study compared emotion perception abilities in groups of young persons with schizophrenia, clinical high-risk, genetic risk and healthy controls.

Patterns of Tobacco Consumption among Indian Men with Schizophrenia Compared to Their Male Siblings.

Objective: Tobacco consumption among patients with schizophrenia has been investigated extensively in western countries, but there is a dearth of studies in India, where socio-economic and cultural variables are different. This study aims to investigate the patterns of tobacco consumption among schizophrenia patients compared with their non-psychotic siblings.

Methods: Consenting, successive male outpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia (n=100, DSM-IV criteria), and their non-psychotic brothers (n=100) were compared.

Neurocognitive performance stability in a multiplex multigenerational study of schizophrenia.

Certain cognitive measures are heritable and differentiate individuals at risk for schizophrenia from unaffected family members and healthy comparison subjects. These deficits in neurocognitive performance in patients with schizophrenia appear stable in the short-term. However, the duration of most, but not all, longitudinal studies is modest and the majority have relied on traditional average performance measures to examine stability.

Adjunctive cognitive remediation for schizophrenia using yoga: an open, non-randomized trial.

BACKGROUND: Yoga therapy (YT) improves cognitive function in healthy individuals, but its impact on cognitive function among persons with schizophrenia (SZ) has not been investigated. AIMS: Evaluate adjunctive YT for cognitive domains impaired in SZ. METHODS: Patients with SZ received YT or treatment as usual (TAU; n = 65, n = 23, respectively).

Development of abbreviated nine-item forms of the Raven's standard progressive matrices test.

The Raven's standard progressive matrices (RSPM) is a 60-item test for measuring abstract reasoning, considered a nonverbal estimate of fluid intelligence, and often included in clinical assessment batteries and research on patients with cognitive deficits. The goal was to develop and apply a predictive model approach to reduce the number of items necessary to yield a score equivalent to that derived from the full scale. The approach is based on a Poisson predictive model.

More than just tapping: index finger-tapping measures procedural learning in schizophrenia.

Background: Finger-tapping has been widely studied using behavioral and neuroimaging paradigms. Evidence supports the use of finger-tapping as an endophenotype in schizophrenia, but its relationship with motor procedural learning remains unexplored. To our knowledge, this study presents the first use of index finger-tapping to study procedural learning in individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (SCZ/SZA) as compared to healthy controls.

Age group and sex differences in performance on a computerized neurocognitive battery in children age 8-21.

Objective: Examine age group effects and sex differences by applying a comprehensive computerized battery of identical behavioral measures linked to brain systems in youths that were already genotyped. Such information is needed to incorporate behavioral data as neuropsychological "biomarkers" in large-scale genomic studies.

Method: We developed and applied a brief computerized neurocognitive battery that provides measures of performance accuracy and response time for executive-control, episodic memory, complex cognition, social cognition, and sensorimotor speed domains.

Principal components of heritability from neurocognitive domains differ between families with schizophrenia and control subjects.

Objective: Various measures of neurocognitive function show mean differences among individuals with schizophrenia (SZ), their relatives, and population controls. We use eigenvector transformations that maximize heritability of multiple neurocognitive measures, namely principal components of heritability (PCH), and evaluate how they distribute in SZ families and controls.

Methods: African-Americans with SZ or schizoaffective disorder (SZA) (n = 514), their relatives (n = 1092), and adult controls (n = 300) completed diagnostic interviews and computerized neurocognitive tests.

Computerized neurocognitive test performance in schizophrenia: a lifespan analysis.

Objective: Computerized neurocognitive batteries based on advanced behavioral neuroscience methods are increasingly used in large-scale clinical and genomic studies. Favorable construct validity in younger schizophrenia patients has been reported, but not in older patients. New variables afforded by computerized assessments were used to clarify age-associated cognitive impairment across the lifespan.

Computerized neurocognitive profile in young people with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome compared to youths with schizophrenia and at-risk for psychosis.

Adults with 22q11.2 Deletion syndrome (22q11DS) have increased prevalence of schizophrenia features. Our goal is to compare the neurocognitive profile in 22q11DS, schizophrenia and individuals at risk for schizophrenia.

Challenges and opportunities for genomic developmental neuropsychology: examples from the Penn-Drexel collaborative battery.

Genomics has been revolutionizing medicine over the past decade by offering mechanistic insights into disease processes and engendering the age of "individualized medicine." Because of the sheer number of measures generated by gene sequencing methods, genomics requires "Big Science" where large datasets on genes are analyzed in reference to electronic medical record data. This revolution has largely bypassed the behavioral neurosciences, mainly because of the paucity of behavioral data in medical records and the labor-intensity of available neuropsychological assessment methods.

Do we recognize facial expressions of emotions from persons with schizophrenia?

Objectives: Impaired facial emotion expression is central to schizophrenia. Extensive work has quantified these differences, but it remains unclear how patient expressions are perceived by their healthy peers and other non-trained individuals. This study examined how static facial expressions of posed and evoked emotions of patients and controls are recognized by naïve observers.

Project among African-Americans to explore risks for schizophrenia (PAARTNERS): evidence for impairment and heritability of neurocognitive functioning in families of schizophrenia patients.

Objective: Neurocognitive impairments in schizophrenia are well replicated and widely regarded as candidate endophenotypes that may facilitate understanding of schizophrenia genetics and pathophysiology. The Project Among African-Americans to Explore Risks for Schizophrenia (PAARTNERS) aims to identify genes underlying liability to schizophrenia. The unprecedented size of its study group (N=1,872), made possible through use of a computerized neurocognitive battery, can help further investigation of the genetics of neurocognition.

A cognitive neuroscience-based computerized battery for efficient measurement of individual differences: standardization and initial construct validation.

There is increased need for efficient computerized methods to collect reliable data on a range of cognitive domains that can be linked to specific brain systems. Such need arises in functional neuroimaging studies, where individual differences in cognitive performance are variables of interest or serve as confounds. In genetic studies of complex behavior, which require particularly large samples, such trait measures can serve as endophenotypes.

The other-race effect in face processing among African American and Caucasian individuals with schizophrenia.

Objective: Studies of emotion recognition abilities in schizophrenia show greater impairment for non-Caucasians with schizophrenia compared with Caucasians. These studies, however, included only Caucasian faces as stimuli. There is evidence from healthy individuals for a performance disadvantage on face memory and emotion recognition when processing faces from a different ethnicity.