Temporal Information Processing in Short- and Long-Term Memory of Patients with Schizophrenia

Cognitive deficits of patients with schizophrenia have been largely recognized as core symptoms of the disorder. One neglected factor that contributes to these deficits is the comprehension of time. In the present study, we assessed temporal information processing and manipulation from short- and long-term memory in 34 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 34 matched healthy controls. On the short-term memory temporal-order reconstruction task, an incidental or intentional learning strategy was deployed. Patients showed worse overall performance than healthy controls. The intentional learning strategy led to dissociable performance improvement in both groups. Whereas healthy controls improved on a performance measure (serial organization), patients improved on an error measure (inappropriate semantic clustering) when using the intentional instead of the incidental learning strategy. On the long-term memory script-generation task, routine and non-routine events of everyday activities (e.g., buying groceries) had to be generated in either chronological or inverted temporal order. Patients were slower than controls at generating events in the chronological routine condition only. They also committed more sequencing and boundary errors in the inverted conditions. The number of irrelevant events was higher in patients in the chronological, non-routine condition. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia imprecisely access temporal information from short- and long-term memory. In short-term memory, processing of temporal information led to a reduction in errors rather than, as was the case in healthy controls, to an improvement in temporal-order recall. When accessing temporal information from long-term memory, patients were slower and committed more sequencing, boundary, and intrusion errors. Together, these results suggest that time information can be accessed and processed only imprecisely by patients who provide evidence for impaired time comprehension. This could contribute to symptomatic cognitive deficits and strategic inefficiency in schizophrenia

Archaeothanatology and palaeopathology of the burials and "scattered human remains" from Arma dell'Aquila (Finale Ligure, Savona)

This chapter reviews the available anthropological and archaeothanatological information on the Neolithic skeletal series from Arma dell’Aquila, and adds data deriving from the study of the scattered human remains (“resti sparsi umani”) that were retrieved during the 1938 and 1942 excavations by C. Richard and V. Chiappella, but were never studied until now. The osteological information and the original notes accompanying the material (indicating the exact date of the finding) were catalogued and cross-referenced with the excavation diaries. This allowed for the recovery of some information on the spatial and stratigraphic depositional context of the human remains, and led to a more complete description of funerary behaviours at the site. The anthropological analysis focused on the palaeopathological evidence, in order to provide insights on the health status of this Neolithic group

New bioarchaeological data from the Neolithic site of Arma dell’Aquila (Finale Ligure, Italy)

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Retigabine: Progress report on new antieliptic drugs: A summary of the Sixth Eilat Conference (EILAT VI)

The Sixth Eilat Conference on New Antieliptic Drugs (AEDs) took place in Taormina, Sicily, Italy from 7th to 11th April, 2002. Basic scientists, clinical pharmacologists and neurologists from 27 countries attended the conference, whose main themes included dose-response relationships with conventional and recent AEDs, teratogenic effects of conventional and recent AEDs, update on clinical implications of AED metabolism, prevention of epileptogesis, and seizure aggravation by AEDs. According to tradition, the central part of the conference was devoted to a review of AEDs in development, as well to updates on AEDs, which have been marketed in recent years