Obstetric complications (OCs) are associated with cognitive and brain abnormalities observed in patients with schizophrenia. Gyrification, a measure of cortical integrity sensitive to events occurring during the prenatal and perinatal periods, is also altered in first-episode psychosis (FEP). We examined the relationship between OCs and gyrification in FEP, as well as whether gyrification mediates the relationship between OCs and cognition.

We examined differences in the Local Gyrification Index (LGI) for the frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital, and cingulate cortices between 139 FEP patients and 125 healthy controls (HCs). Regression analyses explored whether OCs and diagnosis interact to explain LGI variation. Parametric mediation analyses were conducted to assess the effect of LGI on the relationship between OCs and cognition for FEP and HC.

Significant LGI differences were observed between FEP patients and HC in the left parietal and bilateral cingulate and occipital cortices. There was a significant interaction between OCs and diagnosis on the left cingulate cortex (LCC) that was specific to males (p = 0.04) and was driven by gestational rather than intrauterine OCs.

In HCs, OCs had a direct effect on working memory (WM) (p = 0.048) in the mediation analysis, whereas in FEP, we observed no significant effect of OCs on either verbal or WM.

OCs interact with diagnosis to predict LCC gyrification, such that males with FEP exposed to OCs exhibit the lowest LGI. OCs influence WM, and LCC gyrification may mediate this relation only in HC, suggesting a differential neurodevelopmental process in psychosis.

Most cognitive studies of bipolar disorder (BD) have examined case–control differences on cognitive tests using measures of central tendency, which do not consider intraindividual variability (IIV); a distinct cognitive construct that reliably indexes meaningful cognitive differences between individuals. In this study, we sought to characterize IIV in BD by examining whether it differs from healthy controls (HCs) and is associated with other cognitive measures, clinical variables, and white matter microstructure.

Two hundred and seventeen adults, including 100 BD outpatients and 117 HCs, completed processing speed, sustained attention, working memory, and executive function tasks. A subsample of 55 BD participants underwent diffusion tensor imaging. IIV was operationalized as the individual standard deviation in reaction time on the Continuous Performance Test-Identical Pairs version.

BD participants had significantly increased IIV compared to age-matched controls. Increased IIV was associated with poorer mean performance scores on processing speed, sustained attention, working memory, and executive function tasks, as well as two whole-brain white matter indices: fractional anisotropy and radial diffusivity.

IIV is increased in BD and appears to correlate with other cognitive variables, as well as white matter measures that index reduced structural integrity and demyelination. Thus, IIV may represent a neurobiologically informative cognitive measure for BD research that is worthy of further investigation.

The cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome (CCAS) scale has been developed to screen for possible cognitive and affective impairments in cerebellar patients, but previous studies stressed concerns regarding insufficient specificity of the scale. Also, direct comparisons of CCAS scale performance between cerebellar patients with and without CCAS are currently lacking. The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity of the CCAS scale in cerebellar patients.

In this study, cerebellar patients with CCAS (n = 49), without CCAS (n = 30), and healthy controls (n = 32) were included. The Dutch/Flemish version of the CCAS scale was evaluated in terms of validity and reliability using an extensive neuropsychological assessment as the gold standard for CCAS. Correlations were examined between the CCAS scale and possible confounding factors. Additionally, a correction for dysarthria was applied to timed neuropsychological tests to explore the influence of dysarthria on test outcomes.

Cerebellar patients with CCAS performed significantly worse on the CCAS scale compared to cerebellar controls. Sensitivity was acceptable, but specificity was insufficient due to high false-positive rates. Correlations were found between outcomes of the scale and both education and age. Although dysarthria did not affect the validity of the CCAS scale, it may influence timed neuropsychological test outcomes.

Evaluation of the CCAS scale revealed insufficient specificity. Our findings call for age- and education-dependent reference values, which may improve the validity and usability of the scale. Dysarthria might be a confounding factor in timed test items and should be considered to prevent misclassification.

Children born very preterm (VPT; ≤32 weeks’ gestation) are at higher risk of developing behavioural problems, encompassing socio-emotional processing and attention, compared to term-born children. This study aimed to examine multi-dimensional predictors of late childhood behavioural and psychiatric outcomes in very preterm children, using longitudinal clinical, environmental, and cognitive measures.

Participants were 153 VPT children previously enrolled in the Evaluation of Preterm Imaging study who underwent neuropsychological assessments at 18–24 months, 4–7 years and 8–11 years as part of the Brain Immunity and Psychopathology following very Preterm birth (BIPP) study. Predictors of late childhood behavioural and psychiatric outcomes were investigated, including clinical, environmental, cognitive, and behavioural measures in toddlerhood and early childhood. Parallel analysis and exploratory factor analysis were conducted to define outcome variables. A prediction model using elastic-net regularisation and repeated nested cross-validation was applied to evaluate the predictive strength of these variables.

Factor analysis revealed two key outcome factors in late childhood: externalising and internalising-socio-emotional problems. The strongest predictors of externalising problems were response inhibition, effortful control and internalising symptoms in early childhood (cross-validated R2=.256). The strongest predictors of internalising problems were autism traits and poor cognitive flexibility in early childhood (cross-validated R2=.123). Cross-validation demonstrated robust prediction models, with higher accuracy for externalising symptoms.

Early childhood cognitive and behavioural outcomes predicted late childhood behavioural and psychiatric outcomes in very preterm children. These findings underscore the importance of early interventions targeting cognitive development and behavioural regulation to mitigate long-term psychiatric risks in very preterm children.

Normative data of neuropsychological tests in the Vietnamese population is considerably lacking. We aim to evaluate the effects of age, education, and sex on the performance of common neuropsychological tests, and to generate normative data for these tests in cognitively normal Vietnamese adults.

Participants were recruited from two hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City, with inclusion criteria as follows: age ≥ 40 years, normal cognition and function, and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores ≥ 26. Neuropsychological tests were administered in a paper-and-pencil format, including the CERAD Word List, Trail Making Tests, Digit Span, Animal Naming, and Clock Drawing Test. Effects of age, education, and sex on test performance were evaluated using multiple linear regression analyses. Normed scores were reported as regression-based and discrete norms tables.

Participants included 385 cognitively normal Vietnamese, with age 61.4 ± 10.9 years (range 40 – 89), female 56%, who were relatively highly educated (42% attended college and beyond, 36% attended high school or equivalent institutions, 22% had less than high school education), and had MMSE scores 27.8 ± 1.0. Trail Making Test Part B was completed within 300 s by only 204/385 (53%) participants. Regression analyses demonstrated significant associations between age and education with performance on all or most tests, and between sex and all CERAD Word List measures and Clock Drawing Test.

The present work provides the first known normative data for a relatively comprehensive neuropsychological battery in Vietnamese adults. Performance on all tests was significantly influenced by age and education.

Subjective cognitive concerns (SCCs) refer to individuals’ self-identified cognitive limitations, irrespective of objective neurocognitive performance. Previous literature has overwhelmingly found that psychiatric factors, not neurocognitive dysfunction, are a primary correlate of elevated SCCs across a wide range of clinical populations. However, the relationship between SCCs and objective neurocognitive performance is complex and may further be influenced by underlying mechanisms of various impairments or etiologies. Moreover, much of the extant literature has under-utilized performance validity tests (PVTs) when analyzing objective neuropsychological outcomes.

As such, this study examined the associations between SCCs, performance validity, neurocognitive performance, and psychiatric distress among adult clinical patients with primary medical/neurologic (n = 127) and psychiatric (n = 106) etiologies.

Results showed that elevated SCCs are associated with greater degrees of performance invalidity and psychiatric distress, but not neurocognitive performance, among both groups.

Findings support the utility of PVTs in clinical research and further highlight the impact of psychiatric factors on SCCs, regardless of medical/neurologic or psychiatric etiology.

The entorhinal cortex (EC) is the first cortical region affected by tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but its functions remain unclear. The EC is thought to support memory binding, which can be tested using the Visual Short-Term Memory Binding Test (VSTMBT). We aimed to test whether VSTMBT performance can identify individuals with preclinical AD before noticeable episodic memory impairment and whether these performances are related to amyloid (Aβ) pathology and/or EC tau burden.

Ninety-four participants underwent the VSTMBT (including a shape-only condition (SOC) and a shape-color binding condition (SCBC)), standard neuropsychological assessment including the Preclinical Alzheimer Cognitive Composite (PACC5), an Aβ status examination, a 3D-T1 MRI and a [18F]-MK-6240 tau-PET scan. Participants were classified as follows: 54 Aβ-negative cognitively normal (Aβ − CN), 22 Aβ-positive CN (Aβ + CN, preclinical AD), and 18 Aβ + individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (Aβ + MCI, prodromal AD).

Aβ + CN individuals performed worse than Aβ-CN participants in the SCBC while the SOC only distinguished Aβ − CN from MCI participants. The SCBC performance was predicted by tau burden in the EC after adjusting for Aβ, white matter hypointensities, inferior temporal cortex (ITC) tau burden, age, sex, and education. The SCBC was more sensitive than the PACC5 in identifying CN individuals with a positive tau-PET scan.

Impaired visual short-term memory binding performance was evident from the preclinical stage of sporadic AD and related to tau pathology in the EC, suggesting that SCBC performance could detect early tau pathology in the EC among CN individuals.

To document the evolution of subjective cognitive functioning over four years in adults hospitalized after traumatic brain injury (TBI), comparing mild and moderate-severe TBI, and accounting for sociodemographic and clinical factors.

This secondary analysis of a longitudinal observational cohort study includes 222 adult participants hospitalized following a TBI (mean age = 41 ± 15 years; 29% women; 65% mild, 35% moderate-severe TBI). Data were collected via in-person/telephone interview and self-report questionnaires administered 4, 8, 12, 24, 36, and 48 months post-TBI. The primary outcome measure for subjective cognitive functioning was the Medical Outcomes Study Cognitive Functioning Scale (MOS-COG).

Mixed model analyses revealed a significant Time effect, with post hoc tests showing a better perceived cognitive functioning on the MOS-COG at 4 months than at 24 and 36 months after TBI. The TBI severity effect and TBI severity*Time interaction were not significant. Secondary effects revealed that poorer subjective cognitive functioning was associated with higher levels of symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and fatigue, and lower quality of life. Overall, the MOS-Cog score was about one standard deviation below the normative mean, suggesting greater cognitive complaints than in the general population, regardless of injury severity.

The results suggest that subjective cognitive functioning is poorer than normative values and fairly stable over four years after TBI, with a slight decrease between 4 and 24–36 months, and is similar between mild and moderate-severe TBI.