Neuroanatomical markers of social cognition in neglected adolescents.

Growing up in neglectful households can impact multiple aspects of social cognition. However, research on neglect's effects on social cognition processes and their neuroanatomical correlates during adolescence is scarce. Here, we aimed to comprehensively assess social cognition processes (recognition of basic and contextual emotions, theory of mind, the experience of envy and and empathy for pain) and their structural brain correlates in adolescents with legal neglect records within family-based care.

Attentional ERPs in consumers of smoked and insufflated cocaine associated with neuropsychological performance.

Background: Cocaine consumption is associated with reduced attentional event-related potentials (ERPs), namely P3a and P3b, indicating bottom-up and top-down deficits respectively. At cognitive level, these impairments are larger for faster routes of administration (e.g.

The impact of legal expertise on moral decision-making biases.

Traditional and mainstream legal frameworks conceive law primarily as a purely rational practice, free from affect or intuition. However, substantial evidence indicates that human decision-making depends upon diverse biases. We explored the manifestation of these biases through comparisons among 45 criminal judges, 60 criminal attorneys, and 64 controls.

Schadenfreude is higher in real-life situations compared to hypothetical scenarios.

Schadenfreude (i.e., the pleasure derived from another's misfortune) has been widely studied by having participants imagine how they would feel in hypothetical scenarios describing another person's pain or misfortune.

The development of children's preferences for equality and equity across 13 individualistic and collectivist cultures.

A concern for fairness is a fundamental and universal element of morality. To examine the extent to which cultural norms are integrated into fairness cognitions and influence social preferences regarding equality and equity, a large sample of children (N 2,163) aged 4-11 were tested in 13 diverse countries. Children participated in three versions of a third-party, contextualized distributive justice game between two hypothetical recipients differing in terms of wealth, merit, and empathy.

The interplay between sharing behavior and beliefs about others in children during dictator games.

Previous studies in adults demonstrated that beliefs and sharing decisions in social scenarios are closely related. However, to date, little is known about the development of this relationship in children. By using a modified dictator game, we assessed sharing behavior and beliefs about others in children between 3 and 12 years old.

Rule reactivation and capture errors in goal directed behaviour.

In everyday life people may act automatically, following "unwanted" lines of action which are triggered by contextual cues and may interfere with current goals. Such occurrences are known as "capture errors" in reference to errors that occur when a more salient behaviour takes place when a similar, but less salient, action was intended. Clinical neuropsychological studies suggest that reactivation of previous rules may play an important role in behavioural interference, but such reactivation has been little studied in normal subjects and simple experimental tasks.

Neural markers of social and monetary rewards in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Recent theories of decision making propose a shared value-related brain mechanism for encoding monetary and social rewards. We tested this model in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and control children. We monitored participants' brain dynamics using high density-electroencephalography while they played a monetary and social reward tasks.

Predictive coding in autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Predictive coding has been proposed as a framework to understand neural processes in neuropsychiatric disorders. We used this approach to describe mechanisms responsible for attentional abnormalities in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We monitored brain dynamics of 59 children (8-15 yr old) who had ASD or ADHD or who were control participants via high-density electroencephalography.

Stop Saying That It Is Wrong! Psychophysiological, Cognitive, and Metacognitive Markers of Children's Sensitivity to Punishment.

Neurodevelopmental evidence suggests that children's main decision-making strategy is to avoid options likely to induce punishment. However, the cognitive and affective factors contributing to children's avoidance to high punishment frequency remain unknown. The present study explored psychophysiological, cognitive, and metacognitive processes associated with sensitivity to punishment frequency.

Emotion recognition and cognitive empathy deficits in adolescent offenders revealed by context-sensitive tasks.

Emotion recognition and empathy abilities require the integration of contextual information in real-life scenarios. Previous reports have explored these domains in adolescent offenders (AOs) but have not used tasks that replicate everyday situations. In this study we included ecological measures with different levels of contextual dependence to evaluate emotion recognition and empathy in AOs relative to non-offenders, controlling for the effect of demographic variables.

Inter-individual cognitive variability in children with Asperger's syndrome.

Multiple studies have tried to establish the distinctive profile of individuals with Asperger's syndrome (AS). However, recent reports suggest that adults with AS feature heterogeneous cognitive profiles. The present study explores inter-individual variability in children with AS through group comparison and multiple case series analysis.

Different levels of implicit emotional recognition in posterior cortical atrophy (PCA).

Previous single-case reports in posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) have shown preserved nonconscious visual recognition despite the absence of explicit recognition. In this study, we investigated three levels of visual recognition in both a female patient with PCA and a control group during the presentation of neutral, positive, and negative affective stimuli. Our results confirmed the profile of impaired explicit recognition and intact psychophysiological responses in the patient.

Theory of mind and its relationship with executive functions and emotion recognition in borderline personality disorder.

Impaired social cognition has been claimed to be a mechanism underlying the development and maintenance of borderline personality disorder (BPD). One important aspect of social cognition is the theory of mind (ToM), a complex skill that seems to be influenced by more basic processes, such as executive functions (EF) and emotion recognition. Previous ToM studies in BPD have yielded inconsistent results.

Contextual social cognition impairments in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Background: The ability to integrate contextual information with social cues to generate social meaning is a key aspect of social cognition. It is widely accepted that patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders have deficits in social cognition; however, previous studies on these disorders did not use tasks that replicate everyday situations.

Methodology/principal Findings: This study evaluates the performance of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders on social cognition tasks (emotional processing, empathy, and social norms knowledge) that incorporate different levels of contextual dependence and involvement of real-life scenarios.

Cognitive variability in adults with ADHD and AS: disentangling the roles of executive functions and social cognition.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Asperger's Syndrome (AS) share a heterogeneous cognitive profile. Studies assessing executive functions (EF) and social cognition in both groups have found preserved and impaired performances. These inconsistent findings would be partially explained by the cognitive variability reported in these disorders.

The neural basis of decision-making and reward processing in adults with euthymic bipolar disorder or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Background: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and bipolar disorder (BD) share DSM-IV criteria in adults and cause problems in decision-making. Nevertheless, no previous report has assessed a decision-making task that includes the examination of the neural correlates of reward and gambling in adults with ADHD and those with BD.

Methodology/principal Findings: We used the Iowa gambling task (IGT), a task of rational decision-making under risk (RDMUR) and a rapid-decision gambling task (RDGT) which elicits behavioral measures as well as event-related potentials (ERPs: fERN and P3) in connection to the motivational impact of events.