Translation, cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the 10-item Weekly Calendar Planning Activity in Spanish-speaking ABI patients: a multicenter study

We present the process of translation, adaptation, and validation in the Spanish context of the 10-item version of the Weekly Calendar Planning Activity (WCPA-10), a performance-based measure of cognitive instrumental activities of daily living (C-IADL). The study consisted of two phases: I) translation/cultural adaptation of theWCPA, conducted by professional bilingual translators, a panel of experts, and a pilot study, and II) validation in a sample of 42 acquired brain injury patients (ABI) and 42 healthy participants (HC). WCPA primary outcomes showed expected convergent/discriminant validity patterns with socio-demographical and clinical variables and cognitive processes identifying those WCPA outcomes that best predicted executive and memory deficits measured with a battery of traditional neuropsychological tests. In addition, performance on the WCPA was a significant predictor of everyday functioning over variables such as socio- demographics or global cognition when measured with traditional tests. External validity was established by theWCPA’s ability to identify everyday cognitive deficits in ABI patients compared to HC, even in those with subtle cognitive impairment based on neuropsychological tests. The Spanish WCPA-10 seems an appropriate and sensitive assessment tool to identify cognitive-functional impairment in ABI- patients, even those with subtle cognitive impairment. The results also highlight the relevance of this kind of test, as they indicate a better prediction of patients’ real-world functioning than traditional neuropsychological testsSpanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO)PSI2016-80331-PJunta de Andalucía through a research project (P20.00693National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) scholarship (CVU- 349933

The Cognitive Scale of Basic and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living for Multidomain Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Patients: Validation of its Extended Version

This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through a PhD research fellowship awarded to the last author (FPI BES-2009-020741), the Regional Government of Andalusia, Spain, through a research project granted to the second and last authors (Junta de Andalucía SEJ-6351) and the Fundación para la Investigación Biosanitaria de Andalucía Oriental – Alejandro Otero, a foundation for biomedical research in Eastern Andalusia, through a scholarship granted to the first author. Funding for open access charge: University of Málaga.Objective: To validate an informant-based tool – the extended version of the Cognitive Scale of Basic and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (BADL and IADL) or Ext. Cog-ADL Scale – in a larger sample and with a broader range of cognitive-functional items related to activities of daily living (ADL). Method: The Ext. Cog-ADL Scale was administered to family informants of 42 patients with dementia, 43 patients with multidomain mild cognitive impairment (mdMCI), and 23 healthy control participants. We analyzed the convergent and concurrent validity and external validity of this scale. Results: The Ext. Cog-ADL Scale demonstrated good psychometric properties. Episodic and working memory tests were the main predictors of most cognitive-functional items of the scale. While patients with dementia obtained lower scores in most error categories of the scale, affecting both BADL and IADL, mdMCI patients showed a more specific pattern of difficulties. Apart from the typical alterations in IADL, mdMCI patients also showed difficulties in several error categories related to BADL (i.e., error detection, problem solving, task self-initiation, distraction inhibition, and restore). Conclusions: The Ext. Cog-ADL Scale seems to be an adequate tool to capture the specific pattern of cognitive alterations related to IADL and BADL that differentiates dementia from mdMCI and healthy aging; it shows that mdMCI can involve specific cognitive difficulties that affect even BADL.Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (FPI BES-2009-020741)Regional Government of Andalusia, Spain (Junta de Andalucía SEJ-6351)Fundación para la Investigación Biosanitaria de Andalucía Oriental – Alejandro OteroUniversity of Málag

A process-specific approach in the study of normal aging deficits in cognitive control: What deteriorates with age?

Bearing in mind that cognitive control is a complex function that includes several processes, it is not clear exactly which ones deteriorate with age. In fact, controversial results have been found. For example, some studies indicate that age-related deficits are observed in proactive and not in reactive control, others show that it is reactive control that is impaired and not proactive control, and some studies find no deficits at all (e.g., Kopp, Lange, Howe, & Wessel, 2014; Xiang et al., 2016). One possible reason is that the contribution of different processes to the deterioration of cognitive control was investigated separately, i.e., without testing all processes within the same paradigm. Therefore, the main goal of the present experiment was to study the impact of normal aging on several processes related to cognitive control within the same task, which included both Simon and Spatial Stroop trials. The study focused on the following processes: generation of conflict measured by automatic response capture (i.e., stronger task-irrelevant information processing compared to task-relevant information processing); conflict detection; and control implementation (which can be reactive control, both within trials and across trials, and proactive control, as a task-set strategy). The results showed larger automatic response capture for older adults when facing a stimulus-response conflict (Simon) but not a stimulus-stimulus conflict (Spatial Stroop). Similarly, older adults also showed larger detection effects for both conflicts. However, regarding control implementation, they only showed difficulties in inhibiting the early automatic response capture (withintrial reactive control) but not reactive control across trials or proactive control. In conclusion, it seems that older adults are more affected by the presence of task-irrelevant information, especially when it comes to resolving stimulus-response conflict. However, they showed no impairments in their ability to implement cognitive control both across trials and as a task-set strategy.Spanish Government AP2008-04006 PSI2008-04223 PSI2011-22416 PSI2012-34158 PID2020-114790GB-I0

A Feasibility Study of a Program Integrating Mindfulness, Yoga, Positive Psychology, and Emotional Intelligence in Tertiary‑Level Student Musicians

Objectives Higher education student musicians face high physical, psychological, and emotional demands affecting their well-being and academic experience. This study examined the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of the so-called CRAFT program, based on mindfulness, yoga, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence, to improve psychological well-being, psychological distress, emotional regulation, and physical flexibility amongst tertiary education student musicians. Methods Using a single-arm pre-post study design, student musicians (n = 25) at a royal conservatory of music in Spain followed a 25-week CRAFT program that was curricularly implemented during the academic year 2018/2019, once a week for 50 min. The outcome measures included were the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), the Subjective Psychological Well-Being Subscale (SPWS), the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), and the Sit and Reach Test (SRT). Results Paired samples t-test and practical significance analyses revealed significant improvements for the total scale of the FFMQ (g = 0.28), the Observe (g = 0.44) and Describe (g = 0.38) subscales of the FFMQ, the SPWS (g = 0.32), the Reappraisal subscale of the ERQ (g = 0.43), and the SRT (g = 0.39). A similar pattern of results was observed in a filtered sample (n = 15) when excluding participants simultaneously engaged in yoga/meditation activities other than the CRAFT program. Conclusions These results indicated that the CRAFT program is a promising intervention for improving mindfulness skills and health and well-being states and abilities amongst higher education student musicians. Further research is needed to substantiate these findings and extend them to similar settings and populations with complex psychophysical concerns.Junta de Andalucia PIV-052/1

Comparing neural substrates of emotional vs. non-emotional conflict modulation by global control context

The efficiency with which the brain resolves conflict in information processing is determined by contextual factors that modulate internal control states, such as the recent (local) and longer-term (global) occurrence of conflict. Local “control context” effects can be observed in trial-by-trial adjustments to conflict (congruency sequence effects: less interference following incongruent trials), whereas global control context effects are reflected in adjustments to the frequency of conflict encountered over longer sequences of trials (“proportion congruent effects”: less interference when incongruent trials are frequent). Previous neuroimaging and lesion studies suggest that the modulation of conflict-control processes by local control context relies on partly dissociable neural circuits for cognitive (non-emotional) vs. emotional conflicts. By contrast, emotional and non-emotional conflict-control processes have not been contrasted with respect to their modulation by global control context. We addressed this aim in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study that varied the proportion of congruent trials in emotional vs. non-emotional conflict tasks across blocks. We observed domain-general conflict-related signals in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and pre-supplementary motor area and, more importantly, task-domain also interacted with global control context effects: specifically, the dorsal striatum and anterior insula tracked control-modulated conflict effects exclusively in the emotional domain. These results suggest that, similar to the neural mechanisms of local control context effects, there are both overlapping as well as distinct neural substrates involved in the modulation of emotional and non-emotional conflict-control by global control context.This work was supported by NIMH grant 5R01MH087610 (Tobias Egner), a research position grant (FPU grant; AP2008-04006) (Maryem Torres-Quesada), and Spain's Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (PSI2008-04223PSIC, PSI2012-34158, and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO2010 CS)

Preliminary cognitive scale of basic and instrumental activities of daily living for dementia and mild cognitive impairment.

In the present study we explored cognitive and functional deficits in patients with multidomain mild cognitive impairment (MCI), patients with dementia, and healthy age-matched control participants using the Cognitive Scale for Basic and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, a new preliminary informant-based assessment tool. This tool allowed us to evaluate four key cognitive abilities—task memory schema, error detection, problem solving, and task self-initiation—in a range of basic and instrumental activities of daily living (BADL and IADL, respectively). The first part of the present study was devoted to testing the psychometric adequateness of this new informant-based tool and its convergent validity with other global functioning and neuropsychological measures. The second part of the study was aimed at finding the patterns of everyday cognitive factors that best discriminate between the three groups. We found that patients with dementia exhibited impairment in all cognitive abilities in both basic and instrumental activities. By contrast, patients with MCI were found to have preserved task memory schema in both types of ADL; however, such patients exhibited deficits in error detection and task self-initiation but only in IADL. Finally, patients with MCI also showed a generalized problem solving deficit that affected even BADL. Studying various cognitive processes instantiated in specific ADL differing in complexity seems a promising strategy to further understand the specific relationships between cognition and function in these and other cognitively impaired populations