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Amygdala lesions result in emotional deficits, such as facial affect recognition, that occurs also in schizophrenic patients, especially paranoid, compared to non-paranoid. The volume of amygdala may be inversely correlated with the number of X chromosomes. Hippocampus lesions can produce symptoms that resemble both the positive and the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. However those volume reductions are not specific findings of schizophrenia, since they are also found in bipolar patients and even in normal elderly persons.

Materials and methods Participants were 29 (18 men) outpatients with schizophrenia (SZ), 19 (8 men) remitted patients with bipolar disorder I (BP), and 30 (15 men) healthy controls (HC); all groups were matched to each other for age, sex, and level of education. Symptom severity (positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and general psychopathology) of patients with SZ were assessed with the Greek version of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS); residual affective symptoms of patients with BP were assessed with the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) and the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). Sustained attention was measured by means of the Penn Continuous Performance Test (PCPT).

Address: 1Psychiatric Hospital of Thessaloniki, Greece, 21st Department Of Psychiatry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, "Papageorgiou"General Hospital, Greece, 3Psychiatric Hospital of Athens "Dromokaition", Greece, 4Psychiatric Hospital of Athens "Dafni", Greece, 5University Hospital of Ioannina, Greece, 6Chania Hospital for Mental Illnesses, Greece, 7Alexandroupoli General Hospital, Greece and 8Sismanoglion General Hospital, Greece * Corresponding author

Summary Component: role limitations-emotional, social functioning, and mental health] and the Health Status item from the EUROQoL-5D. Psychopathology was assessed with the five symptom dimensions from PANSS: positive, negative, cognitive, depression, and excitement symptoms. Results Significant intercorrelations were found among QLS subscales: IRP with IRF [r(38) = 0.65, p < 0.001], IF [r(38) = 0.85, p < 0.001], and COA [r(38) = 0.70, p

Background Schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis are different chronic brain diseases that seriously affect quality of life of a person's life. Assessing health related quality of life (HRQoL) could provide with valuable information health care professionals in order to treat patients with chronic medical conditions more efficiently. The main aim of this study is to compare quality of life of patients suffering multiple sclerosis versus schizophrenic patients.

Background It is well known that semantic characteristics of words have differential effects on word recognition. Recently, attention has been drawn to the effects of the type of ambiguity, i.e. whether a word has different meanings that correspond to different entries in the dictionary and have different derivations (homonymy), or related senses that are all enlisted under the same entry in the dictionary (polysemy). The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of ambiguity type on visual single-word recognition in greek.

Background Patients suffering end stage renal disease (ESRD) are vulnerable to exhibit cognitive deficits due to uremia or other medical parameters. Several studies demonstrated that hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis have beneficial effects on attention, psychomotor speed, memory and several cognitive domains. The purpose of this study was to investigate differences regarding cognitive functioning among patients suffering ESRD, comparing two treatment methods: hemodialysis vs. peritoneal dialysis.

Background Specific neurocognitive deficits were found to act as "ratelimiting factors" to functional outcome in schizophrenia. Verbal memory, card sorting (executive functioning/set shifting), and verbal fluency restricted the functioning and adaptation of patients with schizophrenia in the outside world. Consequently, it was hypothesized that sex differences in the performance of patients with schizophrenia on some domains of cognitive functioning may contribute to the poorer social course of men with schizophrenia in comparison to women suffering from the disease. The purpose of the present study was to investigate sex differences in a group of patients with schizophrenia relative to healthy controls regarding performance in different domains of cognition.

Background It has been suggested that several of the heterogeneous manifestations of schizophrenia could be dependent on a specific impairment in the representation and maintenance of context information. In the domain of language, a number of studies have shown disordered use of singleword contexts in patients with schizophrenia; however, natural language comprehension generally involves longer sequences of words, such as sentences. The aim of the present study was to review findings regarding the use of sentence context in schizophrenia.