Cognitive and neural correlates of prospective memory in acute to early sub-acute stroke.

Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to form an intention and remember to execute it in the future. Previous research suggests that chronic stroke patients display PM deficits, but this has not been investigated in acute patients using standardised clinical measures. We assessed PM performance in acute and early sub-acute stroke patients using a short form of the Memory for Intentions Screening Test (MIST-SF).

Verbal initiation, selection, strategy, and inhibition in stroke: A brief executive function screening tool.

Objective: Executive dysfunction is prevalent in early stroke and can predict long-term outcomes. Impairments can be subtle and undetected in cognitive stroke screens. To better assess executive functions, this study introduced a novel sentence completion test, which assesses multiple executive processes in <5 minutes (Brief Executive Language Screen - Sentence Completion; BELS-SC).

The cognitive and neural bases of creative thought: A cross-domain systematic review and meta-analysis of transcranial direct current stimulation studies.

Creative thought enables humans to flexibly generate, evaluate and select novel and adaptive ideas across different contexts. Decades of research indicates that it involves two key aspects: retrieval of previously acquired knowledge and manipulation of that knowledge. However, the cognitive processes underpinning these aspects remain underspecified.

Age-dependent semantic interference effect on propositional speech production.

Older adults can find verbal communication in noisy environments challenging, but the underlying cognitive phenomena and the specific mechanisms contributing to age-related decline remain unclear. Using a newly designed propositional speech production paradigm, we examined how semantic distractors of varying levels of relatedness affect propositional speech performance in healthy adults. In the paradigm, participants were assessed on their ability to formulate verbal responses while distracted by semantically related or unrelated words, simulating real-world scenarios with meaningful auditory distractions (e.

Cross-Sectional Trajectories of Social Cognition in Later Life: Exploring Emotion Perception, Theory of Mind, and Emotional Empathy.

Objective: The social cognitive abilities of emotion perception, cognitive theory of mind (ToM), affective ToM, and emotional empathy change across adulthood. Few existing studies have examined the performance of a single social cognitive domain in later life, with no known studies having examined all four abilities together. Although it is well understood how non-social cognitive performance changes with age, and this has helped inform diagnostic methods for age-related disorders, relatively little is known about typical age-related social cognitive performance in later life.

Development and validation of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment for People with Vision Impairment (MOCA-VI).

Vision impairment is common among older adults and affects dementia screening assessments, which include visually presented items. We developed and validated a version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) for people with vision impairment that includes all the cognitive domains included in the standard MoCA. Visual components of the MoCA were adapted by developing alternative spoken forms.

Microstructural analysis does not support altered interhemispheric wiring of the human anterior commissure in corpus callosum dysgenesis.

Background: Individuals with corpus callosum dysgenesis (CCD) lack the clear disconnection syndrome that is characteristic of individuals in whom the corpus callosum has been surgically severed. One potential explanation for this paradox is that the anterior commissure undergoes neuroplastic remodeling in CCD to improve interhemispheric communication between the brain hemispheres.

Methods: A cohort of sixteen individuals with CCD (and sixteen sex and age-matched neurotypical controls) underwent multi-shell diffusion magnetic resonance high-field imaging (dMRI) at 7-Tesla to assess the anatomy of the anterior commissure for evidence of neuroplasticity.

The interplay of age, gender and amyloid on brain and cognition in mid-life and older adults.

Deficits in memory are seen as a canonical sign of aging and a prodrome to dementia in older adults. However, our understanding of age-related cognition and brain morphology occurring throughout a broader spectrum of adulthood remains limited. We quantified the relationship between cognitive function and brain morphology (sulcal width, SW) using three cross-sectional observational datasets (PISA, AIBL, ADNI) from mid-life to older adulthood, assessing the influence of age, sex, amyloid (Aβ) and genetic risk for dementia.

Protocol for Cancloz: multicentre randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind, parallel-group adaptive trial of cannabidiol for clozapine-resistant schizophrenia.

Background: Although clozapine is the most effective antipsychotic for people with treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS), only 40% of people with TRS respond, and there is limited evidence for augmentation agents. Cannabidiol (CBD) reduces positive symptoms in individuals with schizophrenia, but no trials have specifically examined its efficacy in those with clozapine-resistant schizophrenia.

Aims: To examine the clinical efficacy of CBD augmentation in people with clozapine-resistant schizophrenia.

Adynamic spoken language in corpus callosum dysgenesis.

Corpus callosum dysgenesis (CCD) is a congenital brain malformation that occurs when the development of the corpus callosum is disrupted, either partially or completely. The cognitive outcomes in individuals with CCD vary greatly, but generally the neuropsychological profile is characterised by slow processing speed, poor transfer of interhemispheric sensory-motor information, and impaired complex problem solving. Core language skills are often preserved in CCD, but there is some evidence that complex language may be impaired.

The brief executive language screen: sensitivity and specificity in acute to early sub-acute stroke.

Introduction: Propositional language and underlying executive functions can be impaired post-stroke and affect communication and quality of life. Current stroke screening tools are largely tailored to patients with aphasia, being either non-verbal or focussed on core language skills such as naming and repetition. The Brief Executive Language Screening Test (BELS) is a newly developed cognitive screening tool that assesses memory, oral apraxia, core language, as well as propositional language and associated executive functions that can be impacted and overlooked in stroke patients without aphasia.

Hayling and stroop tests tap dissociable deficits and network-level neural correlates.

Although many executive function screens have been developed, it is not yet clear whether these assessments are equally effective in detecting post-stroke deficits of initiation and inhibition. This study presents a comparative analysis of the Stroop and Hayling tests aiming to evaluate whether these tests measure the same underlying cognitive functions and to identify the neural correlates of the deficits detected by both tasks. Sixty six stroke survivors and 70 healthy ageing controls completed the Hayling and Stroop tests.

Verbal and nonverbal fluency in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a multi-system disorder that commonly affects cognition and behaviour. Verbal fluency impairments are consistently reported in ALS patients, and we aimed to investigate whether this deficit extends beyond the verbal domain. We further aimed to determine whether deficits are underpinned by a primary intrinsic response generation impairment (i.

Interference and attentional switching in aging.

Objective: Diffusion decision modeling (DDM) is a validated cognitive modeling method that has been used to provide insights into why older adults are slower than younger adults on a wide variety of cognitive tasks. DDM results have shown that increased processing time, caution, and sensorimotor factors have explained most of this slowing. Enhanced attentional processing of irrelevant information by older adults has also been reported in DDM studies but not explicitly studied.

The Role of Apathy in Spontaneous Verbal and Nonverbal Behaviors: A Transdiagnostic Pilot Study in Neurodegeneration.

Background: Apathy, characterized by a quantifiable reduction in motivation or goal-directed behavior, is a multidimensional syndrome that has been observed across many neurodegenerative diseases.

Objective: To develop a novel task measuring spontaneous action initiation (ie, a nonverbal equivalent to spontaneous speech tasks) and to investigate the association between apathy and executive functions such as the voluntary initiation of speech and actions and energization (ie, ability to initiate and sustain a response).

Method: We compared the energization and executive functioning performance of 10 individuals with neurodegenerative disease and clinically significant apathy with that of age-matched healthy controls (HC).

Relationships between reading performance and regional spontaneous brain activity following surgical removal of primary left-hemisphere tumors: A resting-state fMRI study.

Left-hemisphere intraparenchymal primary brain tumor patients are at risk of developing reading difficulties that may be stable, improve or deteriorate after surgery. Previous studies examining language organization in brain tumor patients have provided insights into neural plasticity supporting recovery. Only a single study, however, has examined the role of white matter tracts in preserving reading ability post-surgery and none have examined the functional reading network.

Sensitivity and specificity of the ECAS in identifying executive function and social cognition deficits in MND.

Motor neurone disease [MND] encompasses broad cognitive impairments, which are not fully captured by most screening tools. This study evaluated the specificity and sensitivity of the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioral ALS Screen [ECAS] in detecting impairments in executive function and social cognition. Participants (MND = 64; Healthy Controls = 45) completed the ECAS and standard neuropsychology tests of executive function and social cognition.

Chronic aphasias after left-hemisphere resective surgery.

Surgical resection of brain tumours is associated with an increased risk of aphasia. However, relatively little is known about outcomes in the chronic phase (i.e.

Functional re-organization of hippocampal-cortical gradients during naturalistic memory processes.

The functional organization of the hippocampus mirrors that of the cortex, changing smoothly along connectivity gradients and abruptly at inter-areal boundaries. Hippocampal-dependent cognitive processes require flexible integration of these hippocampal gradients into functionally related cortical networks. To understand the cognitive relevance of this functional embedding, we acquired fMRI data while participants viewed brief news clips, either containing or lacking recently familiarized cues.

Age of Onset and Length of Survival of Queensland Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Details of Subjects with Early Onset and Subjects with Long Survival.

Introduction: The aims of the study were to document the characteristics of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients in Queensland, to examine factors influencing age of onset, and survival, and to study those with early-onset (<45 years) disease and those with long (>5 years) survival.

Methods: We studied subjects seen at the ALS Clinic at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. We recorded sex, age of onset, region of onset, length of survival, presence of family history, type of disease, and evidence of cognitive involvement.

An emotion-eliciting version of the Hayling Sentence Completion Test.

Introduction: Executive functions comprise a suite of higher-order cognitive processes, which interact with other processes, such as , to drive goal-directed behavior. The Hayling Sentence Completion Test is a widely used standard neuropsychological tool to measure executive functions, namely verbal initiation and suppression. The current studies aimed to establish and validate an emotion-eliciting version of the Hayling Sentence Completion Test, in order to examine the executive processes of initiation and suppression in an emotional context.