Recently, much attention has been drawn to the importance of the impact of infectious disease on human cognition. Several theories have been proposed, to explain the cognitive decline following an ...infection as well as to understand better the pathogenesis of human dementia, especially Alzheimer’s disease. This article aims to review the state of the art regarding the knowledge about the impact of acute viral infections on human cognition, laying a foundation to explore the possible cognitive decline followed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To reach this goal, we conducted a narrative review systematizing six acute viral infections as well as the current knowledge about COVID-19 and its impact on human cognition. Recent findings suggest probable short- and long-term COVID-19 impacts in cognition, even in asymptomatic individuals, which could be accounted for by direct and indirect pathways to brain dysfunction. Understanding this scenario might help clinicians and health leaders to deal better with a wave of neuropsychiatric issues that may arise following COVID-19 pandemic as well as with other acute viral infections, to alleviate the cognitive sequelae of these infections around the world.
Objectives
We systematically reviewed controlled studies published in the last 16 years about emotion recognition deficits in maltreated children.
Methods
A bibliographical research of controlled ...studies, including only studies with samples larger than 10 participants, from 1998 to 2017, was conducted on Medline, Lilacs, PubMed and ISI. A total of 31 articles were included in this review.
Results
Abused children have a recognition bias for negative expressions, especially fear and anger. This increased perception tends to impair interpersonal relationships throughout their development. However, it appears as a matter of necessity, related to survival in a hostile environment. Moreover, neglected children have a shorter reaction time for recognition of negative facial expressions. Thus, the consequence of this deficit generates losses, such as the difficulty of ability to perceive a situation that puts them at risk.
Conclusions
Children victims of severe domestic violence, as well as those who have been sexually abused and neglected, experience a learning situation regarding past experiences. The losses appear both in abnormal anatomical brain and physiological formations, as well as psychological and behavioral changes that impact the lives of these individuals. These changes are associated to changes mainly in circuits related to the prefrontal cortex and limbic regions, which are responsible for regulating the reaction to a threat. Future studies should develop programs, focusing not only in the prevention of adverse family environments and domestic violence, but also in helping these children improve psychosocial adaptation.
Personality traits have been associated with a series of dysfunctional behaviors, ranging from violence to drug abuse and other risky behaviors. However, few studies have investigated motorcycle ...riders' personality traits, and no research using the psychobiological model of personality was found. Thus, we investigated the association between temperament and character traits and the occurrence of Motorcycle Accidents (MAs).
This cross-sectional study was conducted with a randomly selected of 153 Brazilian motorcycle riders (116 male and 37 female) with a mean age of 31.8randomly selected from the driver's license register, between 2015 and 2018. A sociodemographic questionnaire and the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) were used.
Of the 153 participants, 146 (95.4%) reported having been involved in previous accidents, with the main causes as follows: "other drivers' careless behavior" (34.9%); "personal disrespect of traffic rules" (18.5%) and "personal careless behavior" (20.6%). Motorcyclists exhibited higher scores for the temperament factors of novelty seeking and persistence and lower scores for harm avoidance and reward dependence in comparison to the Brazilian population). Considering the reason for motorcycle use, the group of riders that used their motorcycles for work exhibited more temperament factors associated with risk behaviors than those who did not. It was observed that 68.9% of them had low Harm Avoidance (HA) factor scores, whereas 72.1% had high Novelty Seeking (NS) factor scores.
The present study highlighted the influences of different personality traits on behaviors, decision-making and risk attitudes that can be potentially harmful to an individual and others. The results provided evidence that a lack of knowledge and experience in riding a motorcycle or any other vehicle, combined with personality traits, contribute to the adoption of risky behaviors that may act as triggers for most causes of Motorcycle Accidents.
The COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the main international concerns regarding its impact on mental health. The present study aims to investigate the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress ...symptoms, and behavioral aspects amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in a Brazilian population. An online survey was administered from May 22 to June 5, 2020 using a questionnaire comprising of sociodemographic information, the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), and the Coping Strategies Inventory. Participants comprised 3,000 people from Brazil's 26 states and the Federal District, with an average age of 39.8 years, women (83%), married (50.6%), graduates (70.1%) and employees (46.7%). Some contracted the virus (6.4%) and had dead friends or relatives (22.7%). There was more consumption of drugs, tobacco, medication, and food (40.8%). Almost half of participants expressed symptoms of depression (46.4%), anxiety (39.7%), and stress (42.2%). These were higher in women, people without children, students, patients with chronic diseases, and people who had contact with others diagnosed with COVID-19. The existence of a group more vulnerable to situations with a high stress burden requires greater attention regarding mental health during and after the pandemic. That said, it should be emphasized that these findings are preliminary and portray a moment still being faced by many people amid the pandemic and quarantine measures. Therefore, we understand that the magnitude of the impacts on mental health will only be more specific with continuous studies after total relaxation of the quarantine.
The present study aims to investigate the occurrence of psychiatric and cognitive impairments in a cohort of survivors of moderate or severe forms of COVID-19.
425 adults were assessed 6 to 9 months ...after hospital discharge with a structured psychiatric interview, psychometric tests and a cognitive battery. A large, multidisciplinary, set of clinical data depicting the acute phase of the disease, along with relevant psychosocial variables, were used to predict psychiatric and cognitive outcomes using the ‘Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator’ (LASSO) method.
Diagnoses of ‘depression’, ‘generalized anxiety disorder’ and ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ were established respectively in 8%, 15.5% and 13.6% of the sample. After pandemic onset (i.e., within the previous year), the prevalence of ‘depression’ and ‘generalized anxiety disorder’ were 2.56% and 8.14%, respectively. Memory decline was subjectively reported by 51.1% of the patients. Psychiatric or cognitive outcomes were not associated with any clinical variables related to the severity of acute-phase disease, nor by disease-related psychosocial stressors.
This is the first study to access rates of psychiatric and cognitive morbidity in the long-term outcome after moderate or severe forms of COVID-19 using standardized measures. As a key finding, there was no significant association between clinical severity in the acute-phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection and the neuropsychiatric impairment 6 to 9 months thereafter.
•This is the first study to capture psychiatric diagnosis in a large cohort of post-COVID-patients using clinical interview.•We found a high prevalence of psychiatric diagnosis as well cognitive issues 6 to 9 months post-COVID-19.•There was no relationship between disease severity at baseline and the degree of mental and cognitive impairment.
Recent literature emphasizes how the specific stressors of the COVID-19 outbreak affect the general population and frontline professionals, including those conducting support or backup activities in ...health units, which can lead to vicarious traumatization. Vicarious traumatization has been used to describe negative emotional reactions in mental health professionals who assist or treat victims of traumatic events. Thus, the aim of this article is to report the actions used in the face of the psychological demands of professionals in a hospital, who were not on the frontline of COVID-19. We collected their sociodemographic information and checked the psychological impact using the depression, anxiety, and stress scale (DASS-21), which was followed by a psychoeducational program (topics related to COVID-19 control and prevention), and individual psychological care for the most severe cases. A total of 118 professionals participated in this study; they were between 20 and 67 years old. Mild to moderate anxiety was observed in 36.5% of the medical teams, 83.3% of the administrative staff, and 65.7% of general service workers, while stress symptoms were observed in 80.2%, 83.3%, and 59.9%, respectively. Depressive symptoms (35.3%) were more frequent in general service workers. The medical teams reported the benefits of primary psychological care, while the other professionals demanded more institutional support services related to the prevention and use of personal protective equipment. This study highlights relevant psychological demands that have repercussions on the daily lives of professionals. The psychoeducational program was considered positive regarding clarification actions. However, it was not perceived as effective in reducing fear, which may result from vicarious traumatization and requires other intervention modalities.
This study presents the criminal profile of homicide offenders in prisons across Brazil. The sample was N = 189 male participants, single-victim homicide (n = 87) and serial homicides (n = 102). Most ...of the sample had less than nine years of formal education and the most frequent age was 15-28. Robbery homicide was the most frequent motivation for both groups and fight/settling scores were more common in the single homicide group. Men victims were more frequent for both groups. Acquaintances (56.3%) in single homicides and unknown to the aggressor (64.4%) in serial homicides. Firearms was the main method of execution. Mental disorder was more frequent (24.5%) in serial homicides.
The current study verified the association between cognitive process such as attention, executive functioning, and legal capacity in patients with bipolar disorder (BD). The sample consisted of 72 ...participants, assorted to episodic patients (
n
= 21), euthymic patients (
n
= 22), and healthy controls (HCs) (
n
= 29). We used the following neuropsychological measures: subtests of the Wechsler Abbreviated Intelligence Scale (WASI): vocabulary and matrix reasoning; Continuous Performance Test (CPT); Five Digit Test (FDT); and Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure (ROCF). Euthymic patients expressed slower processing speed (FDT) compared to HC. They tended to make more errors with slightly worse discrimination, suggesting more impulsiveness (CPT,
p
< 0.01). On the contrary, episodic patients showed worse discrimination, committed more omissions, were more inconsistent with regard to response speed (CPT-3,
p
< 0.01), showed more difficulties in organizing their actions (ROCF: copy,
p
= 0.03), and were more rigid (FDT: flexibility,
p
= 0.03). The results suggest that bipolar patients in episode express more cognitive impairments that can compromise the quality of legal capacity. These results highlight the need for more protective support for episodic BD patients regarding legal capacity.
Differentiating diagnosis between Alzheimer's disease and major depressive disorder in the elderly is a great clinical challenge. This study aimed to identify the establishment of differential ...diagnosis protocols between Alzheimer's disease and major depressive disorder.
We searched studies in the Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and Web of Science databases between 2009 and 2019. A total of 155 references were found for searching relevant articles using Boolean search. After exclusion of redundancies and assessing of title, abstract, and full text for eligibility, 11 articles were selected. The total sample size was 1077 distributed in 8 different countries.
Significant results were found for differential diagnosis between Alzheimer's disease and major depressive disorder, such as overall mental status, episodic memory, visuospatial construction, delayed recognition task, semantic verbal fluency, visual task in short-term memory, atrophy of the hippocampus, cortical activation in specific tasks, and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers.
These findings are good pathways for discriminating Alzheimer's disease from major depression in the elderly.
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