Search

Aim: Social cognitive impairments are core features in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) and schizophrenia (SCZ). Indeed, adults with 22q.11.2 DS often have poorer social competence as well as poorer performance on measures of social cognitive skills (emotion recognition and theory of mind, ToM) compared with typically developing people. However, studies comparing specific social cognitive components in 22q11.2DS and SCZ have not yet been widely conducted. Methods: In this study we compared performances of 22q11.2DS and SCZ on both facial emotion recognition and ToM. Patients with 22q11.2DS (n = 18) and matched SCZ patients were recruited. After neuropsychological testing, the facial emotion recognition test assessed the patients' ability to recognize six basic, universal emotions (joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and contempt). The Versailles‐situational intentional reading evaluated ToM with six scenes from movies showing characters in complex interactions (involving hints, lies, and indirect speech). Results: We show that 22q11.2DS exhibited significantly lower performance in emotion recognition than SCZ patients did, especially for disgust, contempt, and fear. This impairment seems to be a core cognitive phenotype in 22q11.2DS, regardless of the presence of SCZ symptoms. Concerning ToM, our results may highlight the same impairment level in 22q11.2DS and SCZ but require to be replicated in a larger cohort. Conclusion: Our results document the existence of threshold social cognitive deficits distinguishing 22q11.2DS from SCZ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenomenologists have provided a detailed description of the disorders of the subjective experience associated with minimal‐self disorders in patients with schizophrenia. Those patients report a range of distortions of their conscious experiences, including a sense of inner void, confusion between self and others, and, sometimes, a disruption of the sense of time. These reports have been interpreted as distortion of the first‐person perspective and a lack of immersion in the world, associated with a breakdown of the temporal structure of consciousness, and especially a disruption of the sense of time continuity. Further, it has been proposed that these disruptions are based on a difficulty to retain past information and to predict future information, that is, the mechanisms that help to relate events with one another and to reach a sense of time continuity. Experimental psychology results seem to converge to similar conclusions, inasmuch as some results in patients with schizophrenia suggest a deficient ability to predict sequences of events at the millisecond level. Several studies have underlined this convergence. Here we reflect on the limits of both the phenomenological and experimental psychology approaches, and of the convergence of their hypotheses. We think that this reflection is necessary to avoid premature conclusions on the mechanisms underlying the impairments in patients, but also to enrich our understanding of schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Context: cognitive remediation involves either intensive training of impaired functions or implementing strategies to compensate for these impairments. In cases of schizophrenia, both methods have demonstrated benefits in terms of behavior and cerebral activity. However, despite the major differences between these two approaches, their impact has not yet been compared. Method: We searched the PsychInfo, Pubmed, and ScienceDirect databases using the key words “cognitive remediation,” “schizophrenia,” “cerebral activity,” and “magnetic resonance imaging,” in order to select studies investigating the effects of cognitive remediation on patients with schizophrenia. The studies selected had to present their approach in detail and measure its impact in terms of both cerebral activity and cognitive function, both before and after therapy. We divided the studies into two groups, those using the strategy method and those using the training method. Results: Eight studies were included in the review, four for the strategy method (88 patients, 44 of whom underwent remediation) and 4 for the training method (87 patients, 43 of whom underwent remediation). The analysis of the results of this study indicates that the training method is capable of activating more the targeted brain areas than the strategy method. However, the latter appears to encourage more extensive activation of the cerebral networks. Discussion: The studies used for this review vary widely in terms of the imaging methods and protocol. However, differences were found between the two methods and lead us to suggest that further studies, with proper bias control, should be conducted to systematically compare the two approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Emotional and interpersonal impairments have been widely described in alcohol dependence, and their role in relapse has been clearly established. However, several components of social cognition have not been well explored in this context. Particularly, Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities, which are critical social skills enabling one to understand others' perspectives, and which have been largely investigated in other psychiatric populations, remain to be measured using ecological tasks in individuals with alcohol dependence. This study evaluated ToM abilities in close to real-life situations among alcohol-dependent individuals and differentiated its affective and cognitive subcomponents. Methods Thirty-two alcohol-dependent individuals (in their third week of abstinence) and 32 matched healthy controls performed the Movie for Assessment of Social Cognition ( MASC), a multiple-choice task requiring the identification of the emotions, thoughts, and intentions expressed in 45 short video sequences depicting real-life social interactions. Results Alcohol-dependent individuals showed a global ToM impairment, indexed by a reduced MASC global score. However, exploration of ToM's subcomponents showed that the overall deficit was driven by a massive reduction in affective ToM, with the cognitive subcomponent preserved. Conclusions Ecological ToM evaluation shows that alcohol dependence is not related to a generalized ToM deficit but rather to dissociation between a preserved cognitive subcomponent and an impaired affective one. These results underscore the importance of ecological measures to precisely investigate each subcomponent of social cognition in alcohol-dependent individuals. They further show that alcohol dependence is closely associated with emotional-affective impairments, pointing to the need to develop rehabilitation programs focusing on these components in clinical settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently the study of induced gamma band oscillations has focused on their modulation by top-down processes, mainly attention. Numerous studies have observed an increase in induced gamma band energy with increases in covert selective attention and visual perception. The current study investigated the modulation of visually induced gamma band oscillations by top-down processes associated with task complexity. Fourteen human subjects performed a reaction time task under two experimental conditions that differed in task complexity. In one, subjects simply had to press one of four buttons that corresponded to a colour stimulus shown to the subject. In the second, the stimulus response mapping was altered by the implementation of a rule, thus increasing task complexity. Cortical electrical activity was recorded using a 65 electrode whole scalp electroencephalographic (EEG) net. The EEG activity was analysed using Morlet wavelets to produce time–frequency maps. Although induced gamma band activity was observed in both conditions, there was significantly greater energy during the rule-operation condition at approximately 276 ms after the appearance of the stimulus. This increase was localized to electrodes overlying the right-central parietal scalp. The results of this study show that top-down processes modulate the level of induced gamma band activity. We discuss these findings in terms of the role of gamma oscillations in the construction of a sensory representation useful for a correct motor response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]