Hypovitaminosis D is associated with depression and anxiety in schizophrenia: results from the national FACE-SZ cohort. Running title: hypovitaminosis D, depression and anxiety in schizophrenia

International audienceBackground. Guidelines have been edited for the treatment of schizophrenia (SZ) and bipola

Can a conversational agent pass theory-of-mind tasks? A case study of ChatGPT with the Hinting, False Beliefs, and Strange Stories paradigms.

New version with second experiment, updating the first version (Feb. 13, 2023).We investigate the possibility that the recently proposed OpenAI’s ChatGPT conver-sational agent could be examined with classical theory-of-mind paradigms. We used an indirect speech understanding task, the hinting task, a new text version of a False Belief/False Photographs paradigm, and the Strange Stories paradigm. The hinting task is usually used to assess individuals with autism or schizophrenia by requesting them to infer hidden intentions from short conversations involving two characters. In a first experiment, ChatGPT 3.5 exhibits quite limited performances on the Hinting task when either original scoring or revised rating scales are used. We introduced slightly modified versions of the hinting task in which either cues about the presence of a communicative intention were added or a specific question about the character’s intentions were asked. Only the latter demonstrated enhanced performances. No disso-ciation between the conditions was found. The Strange Stories were associated with correct performances but we could not be sure that the algorithm had no prior knowledge of the test. In the second experiment, the most recent version of ChatGPT (4-0314) exhibited better performances in the Hinting task, although they did not match the average scores of healthy subjects. In addition, the model could solve first and second order False Beliefs tests but failed on items with reference to a physical property like object visibility or more complex inferences. This work offers an illus-tration of the possible application of psychological constructs and paradigms to a conversational agent of a radically new nature.Nous étudions la possibilité d'examiner l'agent conversationnel ChatGPT récemment proposé par OpenAI à l'aide de paradigmes classiques de la théorie de l'esprit. Nous avons utilisé une tâche de compréhension indirecte de la parole, la tâche des sous-entendus, une nouvelle version textuelle d'un paradigme de fausses croyances/fausses photographies et le paradigme des histoires étranges. La tâche des sous-entendus est généralement utilisée pour évaluer les personnes atteintes d'autisme ou de schizophrénie en leur demandant d'inférer des intentions cachées à partir de courtes conversations impliquant deux personnages. Dans une première expérience, ChatGPT 3.5 a montré des performances assez limitées dans la tâche d'indication lorsque les échelles de notation originales ou révisées sont utilisées. Nous avons introduit des versions légèrement modifiées de la tâche des sous-entendus dans lesquelles soit des indices sur la présence d'une intention de communication ont été ajoutés, soit une question spécifique sur les intentions du personnage a été posée. Seule cette dernière version a permis d'améliorer les performances. Aucune dissociation entre les conditions n'a été constatée. Les histoires étranges ont été associées à des performances correctes, mais nous n'avons pas pu nous assurer que l'algorithme n'avait aucune connaissance préalable du test. Dans la deuxième expérience, la version la plus récente de ChatGPT (4-0314) a montré de meilleures performances dans la tâche Hinting, bien qu'elles ne correspondent pas aux scores moyens des sujets sains. En outre, le modèle a pu résoudre des tests de fausses croyances de premier et de second ordre, mais a échoué sur des items faisant référence à une propriété physique comme la visibilité de l'objet ou sur des inférences plus complexes. Ce travail offre une illustration de l'application possible des construits et paradigmes psychologiques à un agent conversationnel d'une nature radicalement nouvelle

Théorie de l'esprit: un médiateur entre symptômes et fonctionnement dans la schizophrénie ?

International audienceThis literature review aimed to summarize the scientific knowledge concerning the links between psychosocial functioning and social cognition. Social cognition, and particularly Theory of Mind, is strongly disturbed in patients with schizophrenia. There were strong arguments that psychosocial functioning was more strongly associated with Theory of Mind than with neurocognition (defined as nonsocial information processing in contrast to social cognition). The functional capacity mediated this influence. Moreover, longitudinal studies suggested a unidirectional causal pathway with primary neurocognitive disorders leading to secondary deficits in social cognition, which in turn led to disturbances in psychosocial functioning. Studies using structural equation modelling showed that positive, negative and disorganization symptoms were associated with disturbances in psychosocial functioning. Regarding negative symptoms and disorganization, the influences were mediated by social cognition. The influence of positive symptoms on psychosocial functioning was independent of social cognition. This literature review suggests that social cognitive remediation in patients with should improve the psychosocial functioning in patients with schizophrenia

Reduced configural information modulates fixation patterns but does not affect emotion recognition

To address the role of diagnostic features and configural information in emotion recognition, we compared fixation patterns (on eyes, nose, mouth) and recognition performance from sketched (without head contours) and photographed face counterparts. Although sketch faces supposedly induce less configural processing than photographed faces, when they convey relevant diagnostic features, recognition performance is equivalent. First fixation patterns depended on emotion. Happy mouth was the only feature that received more fixations than eyes and nose. Fixations on diagnostic features varied with stimulus type and emotion during the second fixation only. Sadness, happiness, and anger generated more fixations on eyes for sketches, suggesting a part-based perceptual strategy. Conversely, longer central fixations on photographed faces suggested more configural processing. Removal of configural information (sketched faces) did not affect emotion recognition performance, supposedly because participants used a different visual scanning strategy of part-based processing towards the eyes to compensate for the impoverished configuration

Épisode psychotique bref révélant une encéphalopathie secondaire à une infection par le SARS-COV-2 dans un contexte de myasthénie autoimmune: à propos d'un cas

International audienceNo abstract availabl

Abnormal temporal and parietal magnetic activations during the early stages of theory of mind in schizophrenic patients

International audienceSchizophrenia is associated with abnormal cortical activation during theory of mind (ToM), as demonstrated by several fMRI or PET studies. Electrical and temporal characteristics of these abnormalities, especially in the early stages, remain unexplored. Nineteen medicated schizophrenic patients and 21 healthy controls underwent magnetoencephalography (MEG) recording to measure brain response evoked by nonverbal stimuli requiring mentalizing. Three conditions based on comic-strips were contrasted: attribution of intentions to others (AI), physical causality with human characters (PCCH), and physical causality with objects (PCOB). Minimum norm localization was performed in order to select regions of interest (ROIs) within bilateral temporal and parietal regions that showed significant ToM-related activations in the control group. Time-courses of each ROI were compared across group and condition. Reduced cortical activation within the 200 to 600 ms time-window was observed in the selected regions in patients. Significant group by condition interactions (i.e., reduced modulation in patients) were found in right posterior superior temporal sulcus, right temporoparietal junction, and right inferior parietal lobule during attribution of intentions. As in healthy controls, the presence of characters elicited activation in patients' left posterior temporal regions and temporoparietal junction. No group difference on evoked responses' latencies in AI was found. In conclusion, ToM processes in the early stages are functionally impaired in schizophrenia. MEG provides a promising means to refine our knowledge on schizophrenic social cognitive disorders

Exploring Clinical Correlates of Metacognition in Bipolar Disorders Using Moderation Analyses: The Role of Antipsychotics

International audienceThe determinants of metacognition are still poorly understood in bipolar disorders (BD). We aimed to examine the clinical determinants of metacognition, defined as the agreement between objective and subjective cognition in individuals with BD. The participants consisted of 281 patients with BD who underwent an extensive neuropsychological battery and clinical evaluation. To assess subjective cognition, participants provided a general rating of their estimated cognitive difficulties. Clinical characteristics of BD were also recorded, along with medication. We studied the potential moderation of the association between cognitive complaints and global objective cognitive performance by several clinical variables with ordinal logistic regressions. Depression and impulsivity were associated with greater cognitive complaints. The only variable that moderated the relationship between objective and subjective cognition in the global model was the prescription of antipsychotics. Patients taking antipsychotics had a poorer association between cognitive complaints and objective neuropsychological performance. This result suggests a role for dopamine in the modulation of metacognitive performance, and calls for the systematic control of antipsychotic medication in future studies documenting metacognitive deficits in severe and persistent mental disorders. Depression and impulsivity should be investigated as potential therapeutic targets for individuals with BD and cognitive complaints, before proposing an extensive neuropsychological evaluation

Editorial: Advances in Virtual Agents and Affective Computing for the Understanding and Remediation of Social Cognitive Disorders

International audienceThe present topic emphasizes the parallel development of concepts in social neurosciences and in other domains such as computer science, affective computing, virtual reality development, and even hardware technologies. While several researchers in neurosciences pointed out the necessity to consider naturalistic social cognition (Zaki and Ochsner, 2009), the second person perspective (Schilbach et al., 2013), social interaction (Pfeiffer et al.) and reciprocity (de Bruin et al.), both computer and software developments allowed more and more realistic real-time models of our environment and of virtual humans capable of some interaction with users. A new convergence between scientific disciplines might occur from which it is tricky to predict the outcomes in terms of new concepts, methods, and uses

Brain Processes While Struggling With Evidence Accumulation During Facial Emotion Recognition: An ERP Study

International audienceThe human brain is tuned to recognize emotional facial expressions in faces having a natural upright orientation. The relative contributions of featural, configural, and holistic processing to decision-making are as yet poorly understood. This study used a diffusion decision model (DDM) of decision-making to investigate the contribution of early face-sensitive processes to emotion recognition from physiognomic features (the eyes, nose, and mouth) by determining how experimental conditions tapping those processes affect early face-sensitive neuroelectric reflections (P100, N170, and P250) of processes determining evidence accumulation at the behavioral level. We first examined the effects of both stimulus orientation (upright vs. inverted) and stimulus type (photographs vs. sketches) on behavior and neuroelectric components (amplitude and latency). Then, we explored the sources of variance common to the experimental effects on event-related potentials (ERPs) and the DDM parameters. Several results suggest that the N170 indicates core visual processing for emotion recognition decision-making: (a) the additive effect of stimulus inversion and impoverishment on N170 latency; and (b) multivariate analysis suggesting that N170 neuroelectric activity must be increased to counteract the detrimental effects of face inversion on drift rate and of stimulus impoverishment on the stimulus encoding component of non-decision times. Overall, our results show that emotion recognition is still possible even with degraded stimulation, but at a neurocognitive cost, reflecting the extent to which our brain struggles to accumulate sensory evidence of a given emotion. Accordingly, we theorize that: (a) the P100 neural generator would provide a holistic frame of reference to the face percept through categorical encoding; (b) the N170 neural generator would maintain the structural cohesiveness of the subtle configural variations in facial expressions across our experimental manipulations through coordinate encoding of the facial features; and (c) building on the previous configural processing, the neurons generating the P250 would be responsible for a normalization process adapting to the facial features to match the stimulus to internal representations of emotional expressions

Numerous behavioral and electrophysiological studies have provided evidence of abnormal semantic processing in schizophrenia. However, the neural basis of these deficits is poorly understood. We investigated magnetic cortical responses elicited by a word-pair lexical decision task in 20 patients with schizophrenia and 12 healthy control subjects. The task involved presentation of a prime word (200 ms), followed by a blank (250 ms), and then a target stimulus (1200 ms); the subject had to decide whether the target was a real word or not. During this task, bilateral temporal and left prefrontal activations were observed in both groups. However, in contrast to controls, patients with schizophrenia did not show increased activation in the left temporal and anterior cingulate cortices between 200 and 450 ms in response to semantic incongruity. These results suggested that schizophrenia was associated with a functional disturbance in some semantic regions that gave rise to the N400 component. Moreover, a significant modulation in the right temporal cortex was observed in patients, but not in controls. This suggested the existence of alternative processes in patients because both groups showed similar behavioral priming. Finally, we elucidated some functional abnormalities in the semantic network during prime word processing in patients, indicated by prolonged activation compared to healthy controls. Thus, in addition to context integration impairment, abnormal activations during the prime word provided new evidence of context processing deficits in schizophrenia.

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