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Difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories is known as overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM). OGM has been related with clinical psychopathology (e.g., depression, schizophrenia, etc.). People presenting an OGM style usually recall more repetitive summary-type memories, so-called categoric memories, (e.g., "each time I saw her") rather than specific memories (events occurring on a specific day whose duration does not exceed 24 hours; e.g., "the day I met her"). Differences in brain activation in the search phase of the retrieval process of specific and categoric autobiographical memories are examined using EEG techniques. Fourteen younger adults performed an Autobiographical Memory Task. Results show significant differences in the activation between specific and categoric memories mainly in frontal areas during the 2.5 seconds before the memory recovery. Specific memories were associated with an increased activation of the left prefrontal cortex, while brain activation for categoric memories was less intense. These results support the idea that the activation of prefrontal areas is required to facilitate the process of elaborating specific memories.

Background: People with acquired brain injury (ABI) often have Social Cognition (SC) deficits. Impairment of SC causes the individual to have difficulties in daily functioning and can lead to social isolation. Research aimed at rehabilitation of SC in individuals with ABI is scarce and almost always addresses only one component of this ability. Objective: This pilot study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the new "SocialMind" program in improving all core components of SC in people with ABI. Method: The study included 31 participants with ABI, divided into experimental and control groups. The study spanned 44 weeks, involving an initial meeting, evaluation, training, and final assessment phases. The SocialMind program, structured into four modules, each with a duration of 30 h, targeted each SC component through tailored exercises. The program addressed emotion recognition, social awareness, ToM, and empathy. Results: The SocialMind group demonstrated significant improvements in emotion recognition (p = 0.017), social knowledge (p < 0.001), and empathy (p = 0.001) compared to the control group. ToM also showed a notable improvement that approached significance (p = 0.057). Conclusion: This pilot study suggests that the SocialMind program effectively enhances three of the four core components of SC in individuals with ABI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiac patients who have social support generally have better prognosis than patients who lack social support. Several theoretical mechanisms have been proposed to explain this protective effect, including the capacity of social support to buffer the negative effects of stress. We tested this buffering effect in a study of patients hospitalized for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in Spain. Several days after the cardiac event patients answered a questionnaire measuring stressful events during their lifetime, perceived social support around the time of the cardiac event, and depression symptoms in the past week. Results showed that stressful life events were related to depressive symptoms and worse renal function post-ACS only among patients with low perceived social support. Among patients who reported enough social support, lifetime stress was not related to depressive symptoms. No similar effects were observed on other prognostic indicators such as troponin levels or the number of obstructed arteries. These results suggest that social support can buffer the negative effects of stress on the mental and physical well-being of cardiac patients., Author(s): Simona Wiesmaierova [sup.1] , Dafina Petrova [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.3] [sup.4] , Antonio Arrebola Moreno [sup.5] , Andrés Catena [sup.1] , José Antonio Ramírez Hernández [sup.3] [sup.6] , Rocio Garcia-Retamero [...]

Background: Social cognitive deficits are common after traumatic brain injury (TBI). The participant in this single-case experimental design (SCED) was 7 years old when he sustained a severe TBI. After 2 years in rehabilitation, he continues to show deficits in social cognition. Objective: To determine the effectiveness of three interventions, each aimed at improving a behavior altered by social cognition deficits. These behaviors were: (1) expression of positive emotions, (2) reacting to changes in plans, and (3) greeting classmates. Method: An A-B-A’ design was used for each behavior. In addition, each behavior was targeted with a rehabilitation program applied over 10 sessions. Results: For the first behavior, changes between phases B-A’ (NAP=0.712) and A-A’ (NAP=0.864) indicated improvements in the child’s ability to express positive emotions. In the second behavior, changes in the intensity of reactions between phases B and A’ (NAP=0.815) and A vs. A’ (NAP=0.834) indicated that the child adapted to changes in a plan and to unexpected situations in a more adaptive way. For the third behavior, changes in the number of greetings between phases A and B (NAP=0.883) and A vs. A’ (NAP=0.844) suggested that during the third phase of the study, the participant fully acquired the habit of greeting peers and increased his interactions with others. Conclusion: While the participant showed improvements in all three targeted behaviors, due to the complexity of the third behavior, it is recommended that in future research, the intervention targeting social interactions should be applied over a longer timeframe to ensure that improvements are more stable in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impulsivity and sensation seeking are considered to be among the most important personality traits involved in risk‐taking behavior. This study is focused on whether the association of these personality traits and brain functional connectivity depends on individuals' risk proneness. Risk proneness was assessed with the DOSPERT‐30 scale and corroborated with performance in a motorcycle simulator. The associations of impulsivity‐ and sensation seeking‐related traits with the between and within coupling of seven major brain functional networks, estimated from electroencefalograma (EEG) recordings, differ according to whether an individual is risk prone or not. In risk‐prone individuals, (lack of) premeditation enhanced the coupling of the ventral attention and limbic networks. At the same time, emotion seeking increased the coupling of the frontoparietal network and the default mode networks (DMNs). Finally, (lack of) perseverance had a positive impact on the coupling of anterior temporal nodes of the limbic network whilst having a negative impact on some frontal nodes of the frontoparietal network and the DMNs. In general, the results suggest that the predisposition to behave riskily modulates the way in which impulsivity traits are linked to brain functionality, seemingly making the brain networks prepare for an immediate, automatic, and maladaptive response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A few studies have recently reported that higher cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with higher volumes of subcortical brain structures in children. It is, however, unknown how different fitness measures relate to shapes of subcortical brain nuclei. We aimed to examine the association of the main health-related physical fitness components with shapes of subcortical brain structures in a sample of forty-four Spanish children aged 9·7 (sd 0·2) years from the NUtraceuticals for a HEALthier life project. Cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength and speed agility were assessed using valid and reliable tests (ALPHA-fitness test battery). Shape of the subcortical brain structures was assessed by MRI, and its relationship with fitness was examined after controlling for a set of potential confounders using a partial correlation permutation approach. Our results showed that all physical fitness components studied were significantly related to the shapes of subcortical brain nuclei. These associations were both positive and negative, indicating that a higher level of fitness in childhood is related to both expansions and contractions in certain regions of the accumbens, amygdala, caudate, hippocampus, pallidum, putamen and thalamus. Cardiorespiratory fitness was mainly associated with expansions, whereas handgrip was mostly associated with contractions in the structures studied. Future randomised-controlled trials will confirm or contrast our findings, demonstrating whether changes in fitness modify the shapes of brain structures and the extent to which those changes influence cognitive function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Head circumference in infants has been reported to predict brain size, total grey matter volume (GMV) and neurocognitive development. However, it is unknown whether it has predictive value on regional and subcortical brain volumes. We aimed to explore the relationship between several head circumference measurements since birth and distributions of GMV and subcortical volumes at later childhood. We examined seventy-four, Caucasian, singleton, term-born infants born to mothers randomised to receive fish oil and/or 5-methyltetrahydrofolate or placebo prenatal supplementation. We assessed head circumference at birth and at 4 and 10 years of age and cognitive abilities at 7 years of age. We obtained brain MRI at 10 years of age, on which we performed voxel-based morphometry, cortical surface extraction and subcortical segmentation. Analyses were controlled for sex, age, height, weight, family status, laterality and total intracranial volume. Prenatal supplementation did not affect head circumference at any age, cognitive abilities or total brain volumes. Head circumference at 4 years presented the highest correlation with total GMV, white matter volume and brain surface area, and was also strongly associated with GMV of frontal, temporal and occipital areas, as well as with caudate nucleus, globus pallidus, putamen and thalamus volumes. As relationships between brain volumes in childhood and several outcomes extend into adulthood, we have found that ages between 0 and 4 years as the optimal time for brain growth; postnatal factors might have the most relevant impact on structural maturation of certain cortical areas and subcortical nuclei, independent of prenatal supplementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]