¿Dónde creen los profesionales de la salud mental que está la mente?

The body-mind issue has been with us for centuries and has been discussed by both religious and philosophers. Throw an email survey sent to Argentine Psychiatrists Association ´s psychologist and psychiatrists, the present article tries to understand what happens in Mental Health professionals regarding this issue nowadays. In spite of the small  sample  (66 surveys completed) the data obtained shows interesting results in regards to the association observed between the core concepts studied and the characteristics of the  surveyed professionals. This data as well as the statistical analysis obtained are relevant due to the impact of the “where the mind is” concept to the different available approaches that could be addressed when dealing with mental disorders, both from a diagnostic or therapeutic perspective.La cuestión de la correspondencia entre mente y cuerpo nos acompaña desde hace siglos y ha sido tema de discusión desde la religión y la filosofía. El presente trabajo intenta entender qué sucede al respecto en el ámbito de los profesionales de la salud mental a partir de una encuesta realizada a psicólogos y psiquiatras desde el mailing de la Asociación de Psiquiatras Argentinos con la intención de que el mismo actúe como disparador para una revisión actualizada del estado del tema. Pese al pequeño número de la muestra (66 encuestas) la información obtenida es interesante sobre las asociaciones obtenidas entre los conceptos analizados y características personales y profesionales de los encuestados. Los resultados de estos datos y su análisis estadístico son muy relevantes ya que la concepción sobre “dónde se encuentra la mente” que subyace a la práctica profesional en el ámbito de la salud mental podría ejercer un condicionamiento en la gama de las intervenciones que se considerarán a la hora de abordar la enfermedad mental tanto desde la perspectiva diagnóstica como terapéutica

Contribución por grupos de edad a la mortalidad esperada por COVID-19 en Argentina y Colombia

Introducción.- Este estudio tuvo como objetivo explorar la serie de posibles heterogeneidades que subyacen a la aparente similitud en ciertos indicadores no refinados de mortalidad por COVID-19 -como las tasas brutas de mortalidad o las muertes por millón de habitantes- en Argentina y Colombia. Se realizó un estudio en el que se utilizaron datos agregados de los informes diarios de vigilancia epidemiológica proporcionados por los ministerios de salud de Argentina y de Colombia, para explorar diferenciales en el nivel poblacional mediante el uso de técnicas clásicas de estandarización demográfica. Resultados.- Se detectó que el impacto de la mortalidad y la letalidad de casos es mayor en Colombia, debido a que tiene una estructura poblacional y de casos positivos de menor edad que Argentina. En especial, la mayoría de las diferencias entre países puede explicarse por ciertos grupos de edad. Discusión.- El hallazgo principal ha sido que la gran mayoría de las defunciones esperadas en Argentina y Colombia ocurrió en los grupos de 50 y de 80 años, lo que implica que el riesgo real de muerte para la población colombiana puede ser mayor que el observado para dichos grupos etarios

Methodological considerations regarding cognitive interventions in dementia

Dementia causes massive cognitive, affective, and social impairment as well as concomitant functional decline. Cognitive interventions, together with pharmacological treatments, are acknowledged as important tools to delay mental weakening in dementing populations and to preserve the life quality of patients and their relatives (Prince et al., 2011; Woods et al., 2012). Given the socioeconomic impact of dementia on the health system, it is critical to assess cognitive intervention techniques in terms of cost-efficiency (Hurd et al., 2013). Nevertheless, most recent reports have neglected this issue, showing small, non-replicated, or even null results (Olazarán et al., 2010). Arguably, this is partly so because researchers are more specialized in the study of impairments than in the design of intervention programs. Consequently, there is no agreement on how to define cognitive intervention or how to measure its success (Giordano et al., 2010; Fernández-Prado et al., 2012).Fil: Ibáñez Barassi, Agustín Mariano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Diego Portales; Chile. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; Argentina. Australian Research Council Centre Of Excellence In Cog; Australia. Universidad Autonoma del Caribe; ColombiaFil: Richly, Pablo. Australian Research Council Centre Of Excellence In Cog; Australia. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Roca, María. Universidad Diego Portales; Chile. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Manes, Facundo Francisco. Universidad Diego Portales; Chile. Australian Research Council Centre Of Excellence In Cog; Australia. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

The Spanish version of the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination - Revised (ACE-R) in subcortical ischemic vascular dementia

Vascular dementia (VaD) is one of the most prevalent causes of dementia, and it is frequently misdiagnosed and undertreated in clinical practice. Because neuropsychological outcome depends, among other factors, on the size and location of the vascular brain injury, characterizing the cognitive profile of VaD has been especially challenging. Yet, there has been sufficient evidence to show a marked impairment of attention and executive functions, in particular in relation to Alzheimer disease. Being able to detect these deficits at bedside is crucial for everyday clinical practice, and yet, brief cognitive screening toots such as the Mini-Mental Sate Examination (MMSE) may overlook at cognitive deficits typical of patients with VaD. The Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination Revised (ACE-R) is also a brief cognitive screening tool designed to incorporate the items of the MMSE and further extend the test to assess orientation, attention, verbal fluency, memory, language, and visuospatial abilities. In this study, we investigated the ability of the Spanish version of the ACE-R to detect the cognitive impairment showed in patients with subcortical ischemic vascular dementia, and we compared its usefulness to that of the MMSE in this population. Scores on these tests were compared to those of patients with Alzheimer disease and matched healthy controls. The 88-point cut-off proposed for the ACE-R was associated with a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 100% for the detection of cognitive impairment, demonstrating a stronger capacity than the MMSE (sensitivity of 42% with its 23-point cut-off score). We also found that the verbal fluency subtest of the ACE-R may be potentially useful in discriminating patients with subcortical ischemic vascular dementia from patients with AD. We discuss the utility of these findings in the context of everyday clinical practice and we propose that future studies should evaluate the potential usefulness of combining the ACE-R with a brief screening tool of executive functionin

Are medical doctors in Latin America prepared to deal with the dementia epidemic?

It is estimated that 60% of all people living with dementia today reside in low and middle-income countries, like those in Latin America, and this proportion is expected to increase (WHO, 2015). In some of these countries, providing an accurate diagnosis of dementia and achieving effective care remainsasaseriousissue.Inourregion,thedivision of public and private health systems often determines the quality and promptness of diagnoses (Nitrini et al., 2009) and the subject level of care. This study is a descriptive and cross-sectional study aimed at investigating physicians? knowledge related to dementia in Latin America. Participants were medical doctors recruited by a banner ad on the home page of the IntraMed web site (the largest online Spanish speaking medical community) that invited them to voluntarily access an online questionnaire regarding dementia care. All statistical analyses were conducted using the IBM-SPSS 19.0 package. The survey was answered by 5119 physicians (representing 15.4% of the subjects exposed to the banner), whose mean age was 46 years (SD 12.45). The subjects were grouped in three different categories: specialists (neurologists, psychiatrists, and geriatricians), generalists (general practitioners, family physicians, and internal medicine specialists), and others. 33Fil: Richly, Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; ArgentinaFil: Lopez, Pablo Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Prats, Maria. IntraMed; ArgentinaFil: Mastadueno, Ricardo. IntraMed; ArgentinaFil: Bustin, Julián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Gonzalez, Macarena. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; ArgentinaFil: Flichtentrei, Daniel. IntraMed; ArgentinaFil: Manes, Facundo Francisco. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; ArgentinaFil: Oneill, Santiago. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; Argentin

Decision Making Cognition in Primary Progressive Aphasia

We sought to investigate the decision making profile of Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) by assessing patients diagnosed with this disease (n = 10), patients diagnosed with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD, n = 35), and matched controls (n = 14) using the Iowa Gambling Task, a widely used test that mimics real-life decision making. Participants were also evaluated with a complete neuropsychological battery. Patients with PPA were unable to adopt an advantageous strategy on the IGT, which resulted in a flat performance, different to that exhibited by both controls (who showed advantageous decision making) and bvFTD patients (who showed risk-appetitive behavior). The decision making profile of PPA patients was not associated with performance on language tasks and did not differ between sub-variants of the disease (namely, semantic dementia and progressive nonfluent aphasia). Investigating decision making in PPA is crucial both from a theoretical perspective, as it can shed light about the way in which language interacts with other cognitive functions, as well as a clinical standpoint, as it could lead to a more objective detection of impairments of decision making deficits in this condition

Different levels of implicit emotional recognition in posterior cortical atrophy (PCA)

Previous single-case reports in Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA) have shown preserved non-conscious visual recognition despite the absence of explicit recognition. In this study we investigated three levels of visual recognition in both a female patient with PCA and a control group during the presentation of neutral, positive, and negative affective stimuli. Our results confirmed the profile of impaired explicit recognition and intact psychophysiological responses in the patient. In addition, she was able to implicitly recognize the valence and intensity of arousal of these stimuli. We suggest that implicit emotional awareness may mediates explicit and psychophysiological recognition in PCA.Fil: González Gadea, María Luz. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Diego Portales; ChileFil: Ibáñez Barassi, Agustín Mariano. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Diego Portales; Chile. Universidad Favaloro. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Neurociencias; Argentina. Australian Research Council. Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders; AustraliaFil: Damm, Juliane. University of Leipzig; AlemaniaFil: Ramirez Romero, Diana Andrea. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Abrevaya, Sofia. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Manes, Facundo Francisco. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Diego Portales; Chile. Universidad Favaloro. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Neurociencias; Argentina. Australian Research Council. Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders; AustraliaFil: Richly, Pablo. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; Argentina. Universidad Diego Portales; Chile. Universidad Favaloro. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Neurociencias; ArgentinaFil: Roca, María. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva; Argentina. Universidad Diego Portales; Chile. Universidad Favaloro. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Neurociencias; Argentin

Behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of memory binding deficits in patients at different risk levels for Alzheimer's disease

Deficits in visual short-term memory (VSTM) binding have been proposed as an early and specific marker for Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, no studies have explored the neural correlates of this domain in clinical categories involving prodromal stages with different risk levels of conversion to AD. We assessed underlying electrophysiological modulations in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), patients in the MCI stages of familial AD carrying the mutation E280A of the presenilin-1 gene (MCI-FAD), and healthy controls. Moreover, we compared the behavioral performance and neural correlates of both patient groups. Participants completed a change-detection VSTM task assessing recognition of changes between shapes or shape-color bindings, presented in two consecutive arrays (i.e., study and test) while event related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Changes always occurred in the test array and consisted of new features replacing studied features (shape-only) or features swapping across items (shape-color binding). Both MCI and MCI-FAD patients performed worse than controls in the shape-color binding condition. Early electrophysiological activity (100-250 ms) was significantly reduced in both clinical groups, particularly over fronto-central and parieto-occipital regions. However, shape-color binding performance and their reduced neural correlates were similar between MCI and MCI-FAD. Our results support the validity of the VSTM binding test and their neural correlates in the early detection of AD and highlight the importance of studies comparing samples at different risk for AD conversion. The combined analysis of behavioral and ERP data gleaned with the VSTM binding task can offer a valuable memory biomarker for AD.16 page(s