Age and distraction are determinants of performance on a novel visual search task in aged Beagle dogs

Aging has been shown to disrupt performance on tasks that require intact visual search and discrimination abilities in human studies. The goal of the present study was to determine if canines show age-related decline in their ability to perform a novel simultaneous visual search task. Three groups of canines were included: a young group (N = 10; 3 to 4.5 years), an old group (N = 10; 8 to 9.5 years), and a senior group (N = 8; 11 to 15.3 years). Subjects were first tested for their ability to learn a simple two-choice discrimination task, followed by the visual search task. Attentional demands in the task were manipulated by varying the number of distracter items; dogs received an equal number of trials with either zero, one, two, or three distracters. Performance on the two-choice discrimination task varied with age, with senior canines making significantly more errors than the young. Performance accuracy on the visual search task also varied with age; senior animals were significantly impaired compared to both the young and old, and old canines were intermediate in performance between young and senior. Accuracy decreased significantly with added distracters in all age groups. These results suggest that aging impairs the ability of canines to discriminate between task-relevant and -irrelevant stimuli. This is likely to be derived from impairments in cognitive domains such as visual memory and learning and selective attention

Exploring Predictors of Outcome in the Psychosis Prodrome: Implications for Early Identification and Intervention

Functional disability is a key component of many psychiatric illnesses, particularly schizophrenia. Impairments in social and role functioning are linked to cognitive deficits, a core feature of psychosis. Retrospective analyses demonstrate that substantial functional decline precedes the onset of psychosis. Recent investigations reveal that individuals at clinical-high-risk (CHR) for psychosis show impairments in social relationships, work/school functioning and daily living skills. CHR youth also demonstrate a pattern of impairment across a range of cognitive domains, including social cognition, which is qualitatively similar to that of individuals with schizophrenia. While many studies have sought to elucidate predictors of clinical deterioration, specifically the development of schizophrenia, in such CHR samples, few have investigated factors relevant to psychosocial outcome. This review integrates recent findings regarding cognitive and social-cognitive predictors of outcome in CHR individuals, and proposes potential directions for future research that will contribute to targeted interventions and improved outcome for at-risk youth

Automatic and strategic volitional saccadic eye movements in psychotic patients

“The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com”. Copyright Springer DOI: 10.1007/BF01739740 [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]Drug-free schizophrenics were compared with depressive psychotics and normal controls on two saccade initiation tasks which differed with respect to the type of stimulus that initiated a saccadic response. Strategic initiation (SIS) appears to use a route different from that in automatic initiation (AIS). The SIS task revealed slowed responding in psychiatrically ill patients if their cognition was impaired, but all groups responded similarly on the AIS task. Schizophrenics could be separated from depressed psychotics by their inability to utilize temporal redundancy to speed up saccade initiation on the SIS task. Neurophysiological evidence implicates specific impairments in the frontal eye field (FEF) and/or basal ganglia.Peer reviewe

Circumstances Under Which Practice Does Not Make Perfect: A Review of the Practice Effect Literature in Schizophrenia and Its Relevance to Clinical Treatment Studies

In this article, we review the literature on practice effects in schizophrenia, an underappreciated confound in interpreting cognitive improvement in clinical trials. We first examine claims regarding first- and second-generation antipsychotic medications as cognitive enhancers, and follow it with a discussion of recent studies demonstrating how practice or placebo effects may drive ‘positive' findings. Thus, this review suggests that many previous findings can be reinterpreted in this light. Critically, we also make several suggestions about test construction, study design, and statistical analyses that the field might use to overcome this potential confound. Our suggestions may also have implications for drug discovery and regulatory approval of cognitive-enhancing adjunctive agents, in terms of study design and/or test psychometric characteristics, including the development of tests that are relatively insensitive to practice-related changes. Such advances might be important for improving the methodology involved in the assessment of cognitive change in treatment studies

Effects of acute memantine administration on MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery performance in psychosis: Testing an experimental medicine strategy

RATIONALE: Pro-cognitive agents for chronic psychotic disorders (CPDs) might be detected via experimental medicine models, in which neural targets engaged by the drug predict sensitivity to the drug’s pro-cognitive effects. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to use an experimental medicine model to test the hypothesis that “target engagement” predicts pro-cognitive effects of the NMDA antagonist, memantine (MEM), in CPDs. METHODS: MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) performance was assessed in CPD (n = 41) and healthy subjects (HS; n = 41) in a double-blind, randomized cross-over design of acute (single dose) MEM (placebo vs. 10 or 20 mg p.o.). Measures of prepulse inhibition (PPI) and mismatch negativity previously reported from this cohort substantiated target engagement. Biomarkers predicting MEM neurocognitive sensitivity were assessed. RESULTS: Testing confirmed MCCB deficits associated with CPD diagnosis, age, and anticholinergic exposure. MEM (20 mg p.o.) reduced MCCB performance in HS. To control for significant test order effects, an “order-corrected MEM effect” (OCME) was calculated. In CPD subjects, greater age, positive MEM effects on PPI, and SNP rs1337697 (within the ionotropic NMDA receptor gene, GRIN3A) predicted greater positive OCME with 20 mg MEM. CONCLUSIONS: An experimental medicine model to assess acute pro-cognitive drug effects in CPD subjects is feasible but not without challenges. A single MEM 20 mg dose had a negative impact on neurocognition among HS. In CPD patients, age, MEM effects on PPI, and rs1337697 predicted sensitivity to the neurocognitive effects of MEM. Any potential clinical utility of these predictive markers for pro-cognitive effects of MEM in subgroups of CPD patients cannot be inferred without a validating clinical trial