Motor learning and performance in schizophrenia and aging: two different patterns of decline.

Psychomotor slowing has consistently been observed in schizophrenia, however research on motor learning in schizophrenia is limited. Additionally, motor learning in schizophrenia has never been compared with the waning of motor learning abilities in the elderly. Therefore, in an extensive study, 30 individuals with schizophrenia, 30 healthy age-matched controls and 30 elderly participants were compared on sensorimotor learning tasks including sequence learning and adaptation (both explicit and implicit), as well as tracking and aiming.

Impaired Sensorimotor Adaption in Schizophrenia in Comparison to Age-Matched and Elderly Controls.

Background: The "cognitive dysmetria hypothesis" of schizophrenia proposes a disrupted communication between the cerebellum and cerebral cortex, resulting in sensorimotor and cognitive symptoms. Sensorimotor adaptation relies strongly on the function of the cerebellum.

Objectives: This study investigated whether sensorimotor adaptation is reduced in schizophrenia compared with age-matched and elderly healthy controls.

Are emotional action tendencies and attentional bias related to temperament dimensions in patients with borderline personality disorder?

Disturbances in emotion regulation have been identified as a core feature of patients with a borderline personality disorder (BPD). Findings of studies using experimental measures of emotion processing are mixed, which may be partially explained by the heterogeneity of the BPD population. To address this issue, we investigated differences in experimental measures of emotional action tendencies (approach-avoidance behaviour) and attentional bias to emotional stimuli in BPD subtypes.

Implicit motor sequence learning in schizophrenia and in old age: reduced performance only in the third session.

Although there still is conflicting evidence whether schizophrenia is a neurodegenerative disease, cognitive changes in schizophrenia resemble those observed during normal aging. In contrast to extensively demonstrated deficits in explicit learning, it remains unclear whether implicit sequence learning is impaired in schizophrenia and normal aging. Implicit sequence learning was investigated using a computerized drawing task, the 'implicit pattern learning task (IPLT)' in 30 stable patients with schizophrenia, 30 age-matched controls and 30 elderly subjects on two consecutive days and after 1 week (sessions 1, 2 and 3).

Cognitive and psychomotor effects of three months of escitalopram treatment in elderly patients with major depressive disorder.

Background: Although psychomotor retardation (PR) and cognitive disfunctioning are essential symptoms of elderly depressed patients, the differential effect of treatment with an SSRI in the elderly on these symptoms has hardly got any attention in studies with objective experimental measures. Since effects appear relatively slower in elderly, this study evaluates the effect on cognitive and psychomotor functioning as compared to mood, on four points during a twelve week follow up of monotreatment with escitalopram.

Method: 28 non-demented elderly unipolar depressive patients on 5-20mg escitalopram were compared to 20 matched healthy elderly.

Unraveling psychomotor slowing in bipolar disorder.

Background/aims: In addition to affective and cognitive symptomatology, psychomotor deficits are known to be present in bipolar disorder (BD). Psychomotor functioning includes all of the processes necessary for completing a movement, from planning to initiation and execution. While these psychomotor symptoms have been studied extensively in schizophrenia and major depressive disorder, only simple measures have been conducted in BD.

Longitudinal evaluation of the psychomotor syndrome in schizophrenia.

Little is known about the longitudinal course of psychomotor signs and symptoms after illness onset in schizophrenia. Therefore, a 1-year follow-up study was conducted in which patients with schizophrenia were assessed three times with an extensive battery of psychomotor rating scales and tests. The syndromic structure of psychomotor symptoms was also studied.

Psychomotor retardation in elderly untreated depressed patients.

Background: Psychomotor retardation (PR) is one of the core features in depression according to DSM V (1), but also aging in itself causes cognitive and psychomotor slowing. This is the first study investigating PR in relation to cognitive functioning and to the concomitant effect of depression and aging in a geriatric population ruling out contending effects of psychotropic medication.

Methods: A group of 28 non-demented depressed elderly is compared to a matched control group of 20 healthy elderly.

Preserved Learning during the Symbol-Digit Substitution Test in Patients with Schizophrenia, Age-Matched Controls, and Elderly.

Objective: Speed of processing, one of the main cognitive deficits in schizophrenia is most frequently measured with a digit-symbol-coding test. Performance on this test is additionally affected by writing speed and the rate at which symbol-digit relationships are learned, two factors that may be impaired in schizophrenia. This study aims to investigate the effects of sensorimotor speed, short-term learning, and long-term learning on task performance in schizophrenia.

Stable schizophrenia patients learn equally well as age-matched controls and better than elderly controls in two sensorimotor rotary pursuit tasks.

Objective: To compare sensorimotor performance and learning in stable schizophrenia patients, healthy age- and sex-matched controls and elderly controls on two variations of the rotary pursuit: circle pursuit (true motor learning) and figure pursuit (motor and sequence learning).

Method: In the circle pursuit, a target circle, rotating with increasing speed along a predictable circular path on the computer screen, must be followed by a cursor controlled by a pen on a writing tablet. In the eight-trial figure pursuit, subjects learn to draw a complex figure by pursuing the target circle that moves along an invisible trajectory between and around several goals.

The effects of nicotine on cognition are dependent on baseline performance.

Since cholinergic neurotransmission plays a major role in cognition, stimulation of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor may be a target for cognitive enhancement. While nicotine improves performance on several cognitive domains, results of individual studies vary. A possible explanation for these findings is that the effect of nicotine administration may be dependent on baseline cognitive function, where subjects with a suboptimal cognitive performance may benefit from nicotine, while subjects who already perform optimally may show a decline in performance after nicotinic stimulation.

Acute nicotine improves social decision-making in non-smoking but not in smoking schizophrenia patients.

Schizophrenia patients are characterized by severe social impairments. Recently, social cognition has been put forward as an important mediator in schizophrenia between the often-reported neurocognitive deficits and functional outcome and is thus an important target for treatments. Nicotine has been reported to improve neurocognitive processes in schizophrenia patients but no studies have investigated possible nicotine-induced facilitation of social cognition.

Risky Decision-Making but Not Delay Discounting Improves during Inpatient Treatment of Polysubstance Dependent Alcoholics.

Background: High levels of impulsivity, characteristics of addicted patients, are known to be important predictors of relapse. However, so far, little is known about the stability or variability of two main components of impulsivity (delay discounting and decision-making). The present study examined the changes in impulsivity during the first week of an abstinence based, behavioral orientated inpatient treatment program.

Relapse in pathological gamblers: A pilot study on the predictive value of different impulsivity measures.

Backgrounds and aims Pathological gambling, a common psychiatric disorder, has many similarities with substance use disorders. Relapse, an important element in addictive disorders, however, has seldom been studied in pathological gambling. Hence, in analogy with previous research studies examining the role of self-report and neurocognitive measures on relapse in substance dependent patients, the present pilot study was executed.

Differentiation between deviant trajectory planning, action planning, and reduced psychomotor speed in schizophrenia.

Introduction: Abnormal psychomotor behaviour in schizophrenia might be based on separate deficits. Here we studied the relationship between trajectory planning, action planning, psychomotor speed, and indices of cognitive functioning in a large group of stabilised patients with schizophrenia.

Method: Sixty-one patients and 30 controls were tested.

Motor sequence learning in children with spina bifida.

Cognitive and motor problems are common in children with spina bifida (SB), particularly in those children with cerebral malformations (SBM). Little is known about how these conditions affect motor learning. This study examines motor sequence learning in children with SB, SBM, and healthy controls.

Implicit motor sequence learning in children with learning disabilities: deficits limited to a subgroup with low perceptual organization.

This study tested whether deficiencies in implicit motor sequence learning occurred exclusively in a subgroup of children with learning disabilities (LD). An experimental motor sequence task showed that LD children with low Perceptual Organization did not learn the sequence through implicit training, whereas they improved considerably after a few explicit test trials. In contrast, children with low Freedom From Distractibility (or sequencing) experienced the same benefit from implicit training as the control children.

Affective decision-making is predictive of three-month relapse in polysubstance-dependent alcoholics.

Background/aims: Common and long-lasting deficits in decision-making in polysubstance-dependent alcoholics (PSA) reflect neurobiological alterations that define the chronic nature of addiction. These deficits affect goal-directed behavior and might be critical risk factors predicting relapse in PSA.

Methods: The Delay Discounting Task (DDT) and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) assessed the delay-discounting and decision-making skills among 37 abstinent PSA.

Towards a solution for performance related confounds: frontal, striatal and parietal activation during a continuous spatiotemporal working memory manipulation task.

Working memory plays a role in various forms of psychopathology. However, working memory consists of multiple theoretical components that may be differently taxed by various specific types of task, and brain activation differences between patients and healthy controls may result from differences in task performance. This makes it difficult to interpret such results in terms of disease-related dysfunctions in affected regions or networks.

Learning by observation and guidance in patients with Alzheimer's dementia.

How people suffering from dementia can be taught new motor skills for everyday household activities is an important but relatively unexplored area of research. Previous studies have demonstrated intact implicit learning abilities in patients with Alzheimer dementia (AD) on computerized motor-learning tasks and everyday activities, but explicit training strategies have been found to be beneficial in AD as well. The aim of the present study was to compare two explicit training methods, i.

Spatial and nonspatial implicit motor learning in Korsakoff's amnesia: evidence for selective deficits.

Patients with amnesia have deficits in declarative memory but intact memory for motor and perceptual skills, which suggests that explicit memory and implicit memory are distinct. However, the evidence that implicit motor learning is intact in amnesic patients is contradictory. This study investigated implicit sequence learning in amnesic patients with Korsakoff's syndrome (N = 20) and matched controls (N = 14), using the classical Serial Reaction Time Task and a newly developed Pattern Learning Task in which the planning and execution of the responses are more spatially demanding.

Psychomotor slowness in school-age children with congenital heart disease.

Psychomotor problems are common in children with congenital heart disease (CHD) but their neuropsychological basis remains unknown. This study investigated motor planning, motor control, and motor slowness, three subprocesses potentially underlying these psychomotor deficits. Using various drawing tasks, 45 school-age children with CHD were compared with 41 healthy peers on several kinematic properties.

How should we teach everyday skills in dementia? A controlled study comparing implicit and explicit training methods.

Objective: To compare the immediate and delayed effects of implicit and explicit training methods for everyday skills in patients with dementia.

Design: Counterbalanced self-controlled cases series.

Subjects: Convenience sample of 10 patients with dementia (Mini-Mental State Examination score between 15 and 26) and 16 age- and education-matched controls.

Handwriting development in grade 2 and grade 3 primary school children with normal, at risk, or dysgraphic characteristics.

The wide variation in prevalence of dysgraphic handwriting (5-33%) is of clinical importance, because poor handwriting has been identified as one of the most common reasons for referring school-age children to occupational therapy or physiotherapy, and is included as an criterion for the diagnosis of Developmental Coordination Disorder. This study aimed to map the development and improvement in handwriting during the early grades to differentiate between temporary and consistent dysgraphic handwriting. In this longitudinal and cross-sectional study, children in grade 2 (age 7-8 years, n=169) and grade 3 (8-9 years, n=70) took handwriting (Concise Assessment Method for Children's Handwriting; acronym BHK) and visuomotor integration (BeeryVMI) screening tests twice within one school year.