Marie-Christine Gely-Nargeot

Do facets of self-reported impulsivity predict decision-making under ambiguity and risk? Evidence from a community sample.

We investigated the links among decision-making assessed by the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Game of Dice Task (GDT), and the four facets of impulsivity (urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking, UPPS) proposed by Whiteside and Lynam (2001) in a sample of 107 healthy volunteers. Hierarchical regressions controlling for age and gender indicated that sensation seeking and urgency were linked to disadvantageous decisions on the GDT while no association was found between IGT performance and the UPPS. Sensation seeking and urgency facets of impulsivity are related in healthy individuals, to decision-making processes where potential consequences of different options and their subsequent probabilities rely on explicit information. In healthy controls, there is little overlap between decision-making influenced by both implicit and explicit information and impulsivity as measured by the UPPS. These findings add evidence to the notion that self-reported trait impulsivity is associated with the decision making process. Decisions made under risk seemed to be differentially associated with specific facets of impulsivity.

The Lille Apathy Rating Scale (LARS): Exploring its psychometric properties in schizophrenia

BACKGROUND Apathy in schizophrenia patients is linked to marked functional impairments and can be defined as a quantitative reduction of voluntary, goal-directed behaviors. If there are now convincing arguments to consider apathy as a multidimensional psychopathological state (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral), there is a lack of validated and standardized instruments for detecting apathy and assessing its multidimensional aspects in schizophrenia. The Lille Apathy Rating Scale (LARS) is a semi-structured interview, yielding a global score and composite subscores for the different domains of apathy and has been validated in several different contexts but not in schizophrenia patients. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the LARS and identify the distinct components of apathy in a sample of schizophrenia patients. METHODS One hundred-and-twelve schizophrenia patients were included and they completed the LARS, The Calgary Depression Scale in Schizophrenia, the Positive and the Negative Syndrome Scale and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms. The patient group was compared to 51 healthy control subjects. RESULTS Principal component analysis showed that the LARS proved a single construct which forms the root of an oblique factor structure reflecting four dimensions: novelty and social life, behavioral involvement, emotional involvement, and judgment skills. The main psychometric properties of the LARS were satisfactory. CONCLUSIONS Our findings show that the LARS has satisfactory psychometric properties when used in a different setting than the original version. The LARS is a promising instrument to examine apathy in schizophrenia through a multidimensional framework.

Multidimensional model of apathy in older adults using partial least squares—path modeling

Apathy defined as a mental state characterized by a lack of goal-directed behavior is prevalent and associated with poor functioning in older adults. The main objective of this study was to identify factors contributing to the distinct dimensions of apathy (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral) in older adults without dementia. One hundred and fifty participants (mean age, 80.42) completed self-rated questionnaires assessing apathy, emotional distress, anticipatory pleasure, motivational systems, physical functioning, quality of life, and cognitive functioning. Data were analyzed using partial least squares variance-based structural equation modeling in order to examine factors contributing to the three different dimensions of apathy in our sample. Overall, the different facets of apathy were associated with cognitive functioning, anticipatory pleasure, sensitivity to reward, and physical functioning, but the contribution of these different factors to the three dimensions of apathy differed significantly. More specifically, the impact of anticipatory pleasure and physical functioning was stronger for the cognitive than for emotional apathy. Conversely, the impact of sensibility to reward, although small, was slightly stronger on emotional apathy. Regarding behavioral apathy, again we found similar latent variables except for the cognitive functioning whose impact was not statistically significant. Our results highlight the need to take into account various mechanisms involved in the different facets of apathy in older adults without dementia, including not only cognitive factors but also motivational variables and aspects related to physical disability. Clinical implications are discussed.

Memory self-efficacy in schizophrenia.

The positive association between memory self-efficacy (MSE), defined as the beliefs about ones ability to use memory effectively, and memory performance is highly documented in the literature but has not yet been explored in schizophrenia. In the current study the relationship between MSE and objective memory measures was explored in thirty schizophrenia patients and twenty healthy controls. Compared to healthy controls, schizophrenia patients presented lower MSE, which was associated with depression. Among controls, but not patients, MSE was positively related to memory performance. This result suggests that normal relationship between MSE and memory functioning is disrupted in schizophrenia.

Social priming increases nonverbal expressive behaviors in schizophrenia

Semantic priming tasks are classically used to influence and implicitly promote target behaviors. Recently, several studies have demonstrated that prosocial semantic priming modulated feelings of social affiliation. The main aim of this study was to determine whether inducing feelings of social affiliation using priming tasks could modulate nonverbal social behaviors in schizophrenia. We used the Scrambled Sentence Task to prime schizophrenia patients according to three priming group conditions: pro-social, non-social or anti-social. Forty-five schizophrenia patients, diagnosed according to DSM-IV-TR, were randomly assigned to one of the three priming groups of 15 participants. We evaluated nonverbal social behaviors using the Motor-Affective subscale of the Motor-Affective-Social-Scale. Results showed that schizophrenia patients with pro-social priming had significantly more nonverbal behaviors than schizophrenia patients with anti-social and non-social priming conditions. Schizophrenia patient behaviors are affected by social priming. Our results have several clinical implications for the rehabilitation of social skills impairments frequently encountered among individuals with schizophrenia.

Psychological processes associated with insomnia in patients with multiple sclerosis

Study Objectives Despite the high comorbidity of insomnia disorder (ID) with multiple sclerosis (MS), the relevance of psychological processes involved in the maintenance of insomnia is yet to be established in this neurological disorder. This study aimed to ascertain to what extent the suggested emotional, cognitive, and behavioral processes maintaining insomnia are relevant in people with insomnia and MS. Methods A between-subjects design was used to compare 26 patients with insomnia and MS, with 31 patients with MS only, and with 26 matched neurological disease-free individuals with insomnia. All patients participated in a standardized clinical interview and completed a battery of self-reported measures of cognitive and somatic presleep arousal experienced at bedtime, sleep- or insomnia-related unhelpful beliefs, and sleep-related safety behaviors. All patients with MS underwent a neurological examination. Results ID comorbid to MS was strongly associated with increased levels of cognitive and somatic arousal, higher endorsement of dysfunctional beliefs about the consequences of insomnia on daytime functioning, and worry about insomnia and more frequent engagement in sleep-related safety behaviors. Patients with MS with ID did not differ from neurological disease-free individuals with insomnia on these measures. No link was found between MS clinical peculiarities and ID diagnosis. Conclusions ID comorbid to MS is associated with the classical psychological factors perpetuating ID in neurological disease-free individuals with insomnia. Primary care providers and neurologists should consider target-oriented therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic insomnia as a treatment approach for ID comorbid to MS.

Self-imagination can enhance memory in individuals with schizophrenia

ABSTRACT Objective: Previous research has demonstrated that self-referential strategies can be applied to improve memory in various memory- impaired populations. However, little is known regarding the relative effectiveness of self-referential strategies in schizophrenia patients. The main aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a new self-referential strategy known as self- imagination (SI) on a free recall task. Methods: Twenty schizophrenia patients and 20 healthy controls intentionally encoded words under five instructions: superficial processing, semantic processing, semantic self-referential processing, episodic self-referential processing and semantic self- imagining. Other measures included depression, psychotic symptoms and cognitive measures. Results: We found a SI effect in memory as self- imagining resulted in better performance in memory retrieval than semantic and superficial encoding in schizophrenia patients. The memory boost for self-referenced information in comparison to semantic processing was not found for other self-referential strategies. In addition no relationship between clinical variables and free recall performances was found. In controls, the SI condition did not result in better performance. The three self-referential strategies yielded better free recall than both superficial and semantic encoding. Conclusions: This study provides evidence of the clinical utility of self-imagining as a mnemonic strategy in schizophrenia patients.