Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) enhances cognitive function in schizophrenia: A randomized double-blind sham-controlled trial.

This study aimed to examine the cognitive effects of tDCS and the subjective cognitive improvement perceived by patients with schizophrenia. A total of 173 outpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia were recruited for this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Two different stimulation modes were applied: 2 mA 20 minutes active tDCS and sham tDCS.

Differences in emotion recognition between nonimmersive versus immersive virtual reality: preliminary findings in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Deficits in social cognition may impair emotional processing and facial emotional recognition (FER) in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia. FER is generally explored using photographs or images of static faces that do not fully capture the complexity of real-life facial stimuli. To overcome this limitation, we developed a set of dynamic virtual faces depicting six basic emotions (i.

Cariprazine and Cognition in Patients with Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder: A Systematic Review.

Background: Cariprazine (CAR), an antipsychotic with partial agonism at the D3 receptor and higher affinity than dopamine, has shown significant procognitive effects in preclinical animal studies. This study systematically reviews CAR's effects on cognitive measures in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Methods: Two independent reviewers systematically searched PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and the Cochrane Library up to May 2024, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines.

Cognitive versus emotional modulation within a Stroop paradigm in patients with schizophrenia.

Background: Schizophrenia is a complex disorder involving deficits in both cognitive and emotional processes. Specifically, a marked deficit in cognitive control has been found, which seems to increase when dealing with emotional information.

Aims: With the aim of exploring the possible common links behind cognitive and emotional deficits, two versions of the emotional Stroop task were administered.

Bayesian reasoning with emotional material in patients with schizophrenia.

Delusions are one of the most classical symptoms described in schizophrenia. However, despite delusions are often emotionally charged, they have been investigated using tasks involving non-affective material, such as the Beads task. In this study we compared 30 patients with schizophrenia experiencing delusions with 32 matched controls in their pattern of responses to two versions of the Beads task within a Bayesian framework.

What about mental health after one year of COVID-19 pandemic? A comparison with the initial peak.

A psychiatric epidemic has accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic and specific vulnerable populations have been identified. We aimed to explore the presence of anxiety, acute stress and depression among these vulnerable groups after a year of pandemic and relate them to our previous results obtained with the same methodology during the initial peak of the pandemic in Spain. A total of 2182 participants conducted a national survey, starting on March 2021.

Can you change your mind? An ERP study of cognitive flexibility and new evidence integration.

Cognitive flexibility is an ability that allows individuals to integrate external evidence into previous expectancies. Individual differences in this ability were examined using Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), focusing on the fact that new evidence can either confirm or disprove an initial impression. Written scenarios prompted to make a prediction while either confirmatory or disconfirmatory evidence followed.

Emotional Processing Profile in Patients with First Episode Schizophrenia: The Influence of Neurocognition.

This study sought to investigate the influence of neurocognition on the emotional processing profiles of patients with first-episode schizophrenia, using the 4-branch Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) (Perceiving Emotions; Facilitating Emotions; Understanding Emotions and Managing Emotions). A sample of 78 patients with first-episode schizophrenia and a group of 90 non-psychiatric control subjects were included in this work. The initial results showed that patients had lower scores than controls for the "Understanding Emotions" and "Managing Emotions" MSCEIT branches.

Impact of Negative Symptoms on Functioning and Quality of Life in First Psychotic Episodes of Schizophrenia.

Negative symptoms are not considered a unitary construct encompassing two different domains, diminished expression, and avolition-apathy. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between each domain and psychosocial functioning and quality of life in people with a first psychotic episode of schizophrenia. In total, 61 outpatients were assessed with the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS), The Functioning Assesment Short Test (FAST) and The Quality of Life Scale (QLS).

Different emotional profile of health care staff and general population during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Objective: The aims of this study were to assess COVID-19 outbreak-related emotions, to identify vulnerable groups within health care workers (HCW) and to study the relationship between the emotional state and some environmental features.

Method: We conducted a cross-sectional study on March 29 to April 5, 2020 based on a national online survey using snowball sampling techniques. A list of emotional states was compared in HCW and non-HCW and within HCW roles.

The impact on mental health patients of COVID-19 outbreak in Spain.

Public health studies warn of the vulnerability of people with mental disorders during the COVID-19 outbreak. Thus, the aims of this study were to (1) explore the presence of symptoms of anxiety, depression and acute stress among people with a mental disorder (MD); (2) evaluate the rate of COVID-19 infection between MD and non-MD, and (3) study the relationship between the emotional state of people with a mental disorder and some environmental variables. A cross-sectional study starting on March 29 to April 5, 2020 based on a national online survey using snowball sampling techniques was conducted.

Gender differences in emotional response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain.

Objective: We aim to explore the differential presence of symptoms of anxiety, depression, and acute stress between men and women during the COVID-19 outbreak, and to study the relationship between these symptoms and two environmental variables, coexistence, and violence.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study starting on March 29 to April 5, 2020, based on a national online survey using snowball sampling techniques. Symptoms of anxiety (Hamilton Anxiety Scale), depression (Beck Depression Inventory), and acute stress (Acute Stress Disorder Inventory) were assessed.

Facing stereotypes: ERP responses to male and female faces after gender-stereotyped statements.

Despite gender is a salient feature in face recognition, the question of whether stereotyping modulates face processing remains unexplored. Event-related potentials from 40 participants (20 female) was recorded as male and female faces matched or mismatched previous gender-stereotyped statements and were compared with those elicited by faces preceded by gender-unbiased statements. We conducted linear mixed-effects models to account for possible random effects from both participants and the strength of the gender bias.

Mental Health in Elderly Spanish People in Times of COVID-19 Outbreak.

Background: We aim to assess COVID-19 outbreak-related emotional symptoms, identify gender differences, and study the relationship between the emotional state and environmental features in the elderly.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study starting on March 29 to April 5, 2020 based on a national online survey using snowball sampling techniques. Symptoms of anxiety (Hamilton Anxiety Scale), depression (Beck Depression Inventory) and acute stress (Acute Stress Disorder Inventory) were compared between people over and under 60 years old.

Differences in theory of mind between early and chronic stages in schizophrenia.

The evolution of social cognition throughout the course of schizophrenia is unclear not being possible to state whether it remains stable from early stages to chronicity, or it changes as the disease develops. For this purpose, 90 patients with schizophrenia and 139 healthy controls have been compared establishing 4 different groups paired by age and gender: first episode of psychosis patients (FEP), young healthy controls (YHC), chronic patients with schizophrenia (CS) and adult healthy controls (AHC). Performance in Theory of Mind (ToM) has been assessed using The Hinting Task and The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET).

Influence of emotional contexts on facial emotion attribution in schizophrenia.

Recent emotion recognition studies in schizophrenia have reported misattribution of emotional content to emotionally neutral faces. While in these studies faces are presented in the absence of any contextual reference, in daily life facial expressions are typically perceived within a specific situational context. However, there is no evidence on the possible modulatory role of contextual aids on emotion attribution to neutral faces.

Linguistic and Perceptual Mapping in Spatial Representations: An Attentional Account.

Building on evidence for embodied representations, we investigated whether Spanish spatial terms map onto the NEAR/FAR perceptual division of space. Using a long horizontal display, we measured congruency effects during the processing of spatial terms presented in NEAR or FAR space. Across three experiments, we manipulated the task demands in order to investigate the role of endogenous attention in linguistic and perceptual space mapping.

Discrimination of face gender and expression under dual-task conditions.

In order to test whether expression and gender can be attended to simultaneously without a cost in accuracy four experiments were carried out using a dual gender-expression task with male and female faces showing different emotional expressions that were backward masked by emotionally neutral faces. In the dual-facial condition the participants had to report both the gender and the expression of the targets. In two control conditions the participant reported either the gender or the expression of the face and indicated whether a surrounding frame was continuous or discontinuous.

The Madrid Affective Database for Spanish (MADS): Ratings of Dominance, Familiarity, Subjective Age of Acquisition and Sensory Experience.

The current study presents ratings by 540 Spanish native speakers for dominance, familiarity, subjective age of acquisition (AoA), and sensory experience (SER) for the 875 Spanish words included in the Madrid Affective Database for Spanish (MADS). The norms can be downloaded as supplementary materials for this manuscript from https://figshare.com/s/8e7b445b729527262c88 These ratings may be of potential relevance to researches who are interested in characterizing the interplay between language and emotion.

Reduced visual surround suppression in schizophrenia shown by measuring contrast detection thresholds.

Visual perception in schizophrenia is attracting a broad interest given the deep knowledge that we have about the visual system in healthy populations. One example is the class of effects known collectively as visual surround suppression. For example, the visibility of a grating located in the visual periphery is impaired by the presence of a surrounding grating of the same spatial frequency and orientation.

Following the time course of face gender and expression processing: a task-dependent ERP study.

The effects of task demands and the interaction between gender and expression in face perception were studied using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants performed three different tasks with male and female faces that were emotionally inexpressive or that showed happy or angry expressions. In two of the tasks (gender and expression categorization) facial properties were task-relevant while in a third task (symbol discrimination) facial information was irrelevant.