Although some studies have reported a category specific naming deficit in Alzheimer's patients (invariably for living things), others have failed to replicate this finding (Laws et al., in press). Inconsistencies may partly stem from the fact that category effects are hidden in group analyses because individual Alzheimer's patients show category deficits in opposing directions, namely, some living and some nonliving (Gonnerman et al., 1997). Additionally, category effects may depend upon the specific composition of living things, such as the ratio of animals to fruits and vegetables, though this has never been explicitly examined. To examine this, we conducted a more detailed fractionation of living and nonliving categories for individual patients.

The objective of this study is to learn if participants with Parkinson disease (PD), when compared to normal controls, are impaired in making simultaneous but independent right and left hand movements. Participants were tested with Luria's Alternating Hand Postures (AHP) test and modified AHP tests. Twelve PD participants without dementia and twelve matched controls were assessed for their ability to perform the parallel AHP test (both hands remaining in the same coronal plane) and with modifications of this test into swimming (alternative arm extension with finger extension and arm flexion with finger flexion) and reverse swimming (alternative arm extension—finger flexion and arm flexion—finger extension) movements. The participants with PD were significantly impaired when performing the parallel and the reverse swimming movements AHP tests, but not impaired on the swimming movements AHP test. Swimming movements may be phylogenetically and ontogenetically more primitive and not as heavily dependent on frontal-basal ganglia networks; thus performance of swimming movements during the parallel AHP test may decrease this test's sensitivity. (JINS, 2011, 17, 702–708)

Objective: To characterize cognitive function in patients with antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV) in comparison with other chronic conditions, and to investigate its association with disease activity, and other psychological factors. Methods: Cross-sectional study including patients with AAV, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (n = 30), and chronic kidney disease (CKD) (n = 29). Patients underwent a standardized neuropsychological battery (NEUROPSI). Sleep quality, fatigue, depression, and anxiety levels were assessed. Results: A total of 60 patients with AAV were included, median age of 54 years, and disease duration of 5.6 years. Prevalence of cognitive dysfunction (CD) in AAV patients was similar to RA and CKD (35%, 40%, and 39.3%, respectively, p = .88). When AAV patients with (n = 21) and without (n = 39) CD were compared, significantly more patients with CD had high disease activity (67% vs. 31%, p = .009). Abnormal performance was more frequent in the executive functions in the three groups (45% AAV, 51.7% RA, and 50% CKD), followed by language (25%, 13.8%, and 25%, respectively). Verbal and visual attentional tests were more frequently impaired in patients from the CKD group (p = .021), and psychomotor functions were more frequently affected in AAV patients (p < .05). Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) total score (especially anxiety) was higher in patients with memory impairment than in those with normal memory function (M = 6.79, SD = 4.53 vs. M = 4.5, SD = 3.6, p < .01). Neither Sleep Quality Index nor fatigue scale scores differed between those cognitively impaired and not impaired. Conclusions: No statistically significant differences were found in the frequency of CD among the three clinical populations. (JINS, 2019, 25, 595–602)

Previous studies had revealed no specific effect under haloperidol (typical) and risperidone (atypical) neuroleptic (NLP) treatments for schizophrenia (SZ) on a variety of neurocognitive functions relying on the dopaminergic meso-cortico-limbic system (Rémillard et al., 2005, 2008). Considering the different affinities of D2 dopamine receptors for typical and atypical NLPs, these drugs may differentially affect the functions of the striatum, a determinant brain structure involved in procedural learning. The influence of risperidone (2–6 mg) and haloperidol (2–40 mg) on a nonmotor procedural task involving semantically related pairs of words with inverted letters was investigated in this double-blind study. The performance of 26 patients with SZ, randomly assigned to risperidone or haloperidol, was compared to that of 18 healthy controls at baseline, 3, 6, and 12 months. Results revealed that all patients with SZ exhibited slower reading speed of the word pairs than healthy controls at all assessment periods. In addition, procedural learning – characterized as a significant decrease in the time taken to read aloud the target word pairs – was more impaired in the haloperidol- than in the risperidone-treated group at all assessment periods. Healthy controls showed steady improvement in reading speed over the 12 months of the study, in contrast to SZ patients, who reached a plateau in their capacity to improve mirror-reading skill over time. However, all SZ participants in the study showed near normal learning profiles from exposure to semantic associations embedded in the procedural memory task, providing evidence for the preservation of associative connections in the semantic network of these patients. The observed impairment in procedural learning in SZ may thus reflect, at least in part, the influence of neuroleptic medication on striatal functions. (JINS, 2010, 16, 148–156.)

Objectives: Adverse effects of heavy drinking on cognition have frequently been reported. In the present study, we systematically examined for the first time whether clinical neuropsychological assessments may be sensitive to alcohol abuse in elderly patients with suspected minor neurocognitive disorder. Methods: A total of 144 elderly with and without alcohol abuse (each group n=72; mean age 66.7 years) were selected from a patient pool of n=738 by applying propensity score matching (a statistical method allowing to match participants in experimental and control group by balancing various covariates to reduce selection bias). Accordingly, study groups were almost perfectly matched regarding age, education, gender, and Mini Mental State Examination score. Neuropsychological performance was measured using the CERAD (Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease). Classification analyses (i.e., decision tree and boosted trees models) were conducted to examine whether CERAD variables or total score contributed to group classification. Results: Decision tree models disclosed that groups could be reliably classified based on the CERAD variables “Word List Discriminability” (tapping verbal recognition memory, 64% classification accuracy) and “Trail Making Test A” (measuring visuo-motor speed, 59% classification accuracy). Boosted tree analyses further indicated the sensitivity of “Word List Recall” (measuring free verbal recall) for discriminating elderly with versus without a history of alcohol abuse. Conclusions: This indicates that specific CERAD variables seem to be sensitive to alcohol-related cognitive dysfunctions in elderly patients with suspected minor neurocognitive disorder. (JINS, 2018, 24, 360–371)

The agreement between neuropsychologists identifying cognitive impairment (CI) in older adults was examined, as were factors influencing the classification process. Twenty four neuropsychologists in 18 study centers classified cases with or without CI after reviewing neuropsychological findings and other relevant information. All cases were participants in the third wave of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging, a study of CI in later life. For 117 randomly selected cases, a second neuropsychologist reviewed the same material and reclassified the cases. Cases given the same (concordant) or different (discordant) classifications were compared with respect to patient and rater characteristics. The inter-rater agreement was moderate (77.7% agreement, kappa = .49). On all measures of cognitive functioning, the concordant group without impairment obtained a higher mean score than the discordant group, and the discordant group obtained a higher mean score than the concordant group with impairment. For 5 out of 8 cognitive measures, the concordant group with impairment differed from the concordant group without impairment and the discordant group, but the latter two groups did not differ significantly. The findings are comparable to others in the field and highlight the need for neuropsychologists to further clarify procedures for identifying subtle, or mild, forms of cognitive impairment. (JINS, 2006, 12, 72–79.)

This study examined the effect of varying the number of potential target words on amnesic patients' category exemplar production performance. In Experiment 1, 4 words from each of 6 categories were presented to amnesic patients and normal control participants. This was followed by an indirect task in which each participant produced the first 8 words that came to mind when presented with a category cue. On this task the amnesic patients were impaired. This outcome stands in sharp contrast to most other category exemplar production tasks that have been reported. However, these other paradigms tend to restrict participants' processing during target item presentation while our procedure allowed them to analyze the target words as they chose. Our procedure may have allowed the control participant more opportunity to “cluster” target words from the same category during list presentation and this, in turn, may have given them an advantage at the time of category exemplar production. Therefore, in Experiment 2, only 1 word per category was presented in the target list and only 2 words per category were requested during category exemplar production. Surprisingly, the amnesic patients still exhibited impaired performance. Therefore, it was suggested that perhaps amnesic patients' known inability to perform semantic levels of processing during individual target word presentation may have resulted in impaired priming for categorical features for these patients. (JINS, 1998, 4, 576–583.)

Hemi-spatial neglect can manifest in both the horizontal and radial spatial plane. However, debate exists over how closely the two forms of neglect relate. Here we compared the ability of a neglect patient to bisect stimuli in horizontal versus radial orientation. When oriented horizontally, single lines were mis-bisected to the right, yet when surrounded by visual distracters, the lines were mis-bisected to the left. A leftward bias also emerged when horizontally aligned strings of symbols were bisected. Unexpectedly, an analogous pattern of bias appeared when the stimuli were bisected in radial orientation; stimuli that induced a leftward bias now induced a proximal bias, while stimuli that induced a rightward bias induced a distal bias. Spontaneous reversals in radial bias have not been previously reported, and given that they were coupled with the horizontal reversals, suggest that the spatial boundaries of horizontal and radial neglect are strongly constrained by common stimulus configurations. (JINS, 2011, 17, 943–947)

Longitudinal administration of neuropsychological instruments are often used to assess age-related changes in cognition. Informative loss to follow-up may bias the results of these studies. Herein, we use auxiliary data to adjust for informative loss to follow-up. In the Einstein Aging Study, memory was assessed annually in a community sample of adults age 70+, free of dementia at baseline, using the free recall from the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test, and via telephone using the Memory Impairment Screen for Telephone (the auxiliary data). Joint linear mixed models were used to assess how the effect of the APOE ε4 genotype may be affected by informative missingness in the in-person data. A total of 620 EAS participants contributed 2085 person years of follow-up to the analyses. Memory decline rates estimated in joint models were 19% greater in ε4 negative participants and 27% greater in ε4 positive participants compared to traditional approaches; the effect of APOE ε4 on memory decline was 37% greater. Joint modeling methods can help address bias caused by informative missing data in the estimation of the effect of risk factors on cognitive change, and may be applicable to a broader range of outcomes in longitudinal aging studies. (JINS, 2014, 20, 1–6)

Objectives: Confabulations occur in schizophrenia and certain severe neuropsychiatric conditions, and to a lesser degree in healthy individuals. The present study used a forced confabulation paradigm to assess differences in confabulation between schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. Methods: Schizophrenia patients (n=60) and healthy control participants (n=19) were shown a video with missing segments, asked to fill in the gaps with speculations, and tested on their memory for the story. Cognitive functions and severity of symptoms were also evaluated. Results: Schizophrenia patients generated significantly more confabulations than healthy control participants and had a greater tendency to generate confabulations that were related to each other. Schizophrenic confabulations were positively associated with temporal context confusions and formal thought disorder, and negatively with delusions. Conclusions: Our findings show that the schizophrenia patients generate more confabulations than healthy controls and schizophrenic confabulations are associated with positive symptoms. (JINS, 2016, 22, 911–919)

Non-right handedness (NRH) is reportedly more common in very preterm (VPT; <32 weeks’ gestation) children compared with term-born peers, but it is unclear whether neonatal brain injury or altered brain morphology and microstructure underpins NRH in this population. Given that NRH has been inconsistently reported to be associated with cognitive and motor difficulties, this study aimed to examine associations between handedness and neurodevelopmental outcomes in VPT 7-year-olds. Furthermore, the relationship between neonatal brain injury and integrity of motor tracts (corpus callosum and corticospinal tract) with handedness at age 7 years in VPT children was explored. One hundred seventy-five VPT and 69 term-born children completed neuropsychological and motor assessments and a measure of handedness at 7 years’ corrected age. At term-equivalent age, brain injury on MRI was assessed and diffusion tensor measures were obtained for the corpus callosum and posterior limb of the internal capsule. There was little evidence of stronger NRH in the VPT group compared with term controls (regression coefficient [b] −1.95, 95% confidence interval [−5.67, 1.77]). Poorer academic and working memory outcomes were associated with stronger NRH in the VPT group. While there was little evidence that neonatal unilateral brain injury was associated with stronger NRH, increased area and fractional anisotropy of the corpus callosum splenium were predictive of stronger NRH in the VPT group. VPT birth may alter the relationship between handedness and academic outcomes, and neonatal corpus callosum integrity predicts hand preference in VPT children at school age. (JINS, 2015, 21, 610–621)

Fourteen young adolescents with specific reading disabilities received short term neuropsychological treatment–specifically left hemisphere (LH) or right hemisphere (RH) stimulation–in a clinical pilot project. The effects on single-word and passage reading were evaluated when the language of treatment was either Dutch (mother tongue) or English (foreign language). Transfer effects across the two languages were also studied. In general, the results indicate that these short term interventions may prove successful for the treated language and with the additional transfer to a second (not treated) language. (JINS, 1995, I, 494–500.)