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Mirror writing (MW) is a rare disorder in which a script runs in direction opposite to normal and individual letters are reversed. The disorder generally occurs after left-hemisphere lesions, is transient and is observed on the left hand, whereas usually motor impairments prevent assessment of direction of right handwriting. We describe a left-handed patient with complete left hand mirror writing, still evident 2 years after a hemorrhagic stroke in left nucleo-capsular region. Since the patient could write with his right hand he underwent several writing tasks with either hand, and a thorough assessment to clarify the nature of MW. MW was evident in writing to dictation with left hand only, both in right and left hemispace, but the patient could modify his behavior when a verbal instruction was provided. No mirror errors were found in reading words, in copying geometric figures and in spatial orientation tasks. MW in our patient could be accounted for by a failure in automatic transformation of grapho-motor programs to write with the left hand. A lack of concern (a sort of anosodiaphoria) and a poor cognitive flexibility could contribute to long-term persistence of MW. (Contains 5 tables and 9 figures.)

Background: Arithmetic word-problem solving depends on the interaction of several cognitive processes that may be affected early in the disease in gene-mutation carriers for Huntington's disease (HD). Objective: Our goal was to examine the pattern of performance of arithmetic tasks in premanifest and manifest HD, and to examine correlations between arithmetic task performance and other neuropsychological tasks. Methods: We collected data from a multicenter cohort of 165 HD gene-mutation carriers. The sample consisted of 31 premanifest participants: 16 far-from (>12 years estimated time to diagnosis; preHD-A) and 15 close-to (≤12 years estimated time to diagnosis; preHD-B), 134 symptomatic patients (early-mild HD), and 37 healthy controls (HC). We compared performance between groups and explored the associations between arithmetic word-problem solving and neuropsychological and clinical variables. Results: Total arithmetic word-problem solving scores were lower in preHD-B patients than in preHD-A (p < 0.05) patients and HC (p < 0.01). Early-mild HD patients had lower scores than preHD patients (p < 0.001) and HC (p < 0.001). Compared to HC, preHD and early-mild HD participants made more errors as trial complexity increased. Moreover, arithmetic word-problem solving scores were significantly associated with measures of global cognition (p < 0.001), frontal-executive functions (p < 0.001), attention (p < 0.001) visual working memory (p < 0.001), mental rotation (p < 0.001), and confrontation naming (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Arithmetic word-problem solving is affected early in the course of HD and is related to deficient processes in frontal-executive and mentalizing-related processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cognitive impairment is an essential feature of Huntington's disease (HD) and dementia is a predictable outcome in all patients. However, validated instruments to assess global cognitive performance in the field of HD are lacking. Objectives: We aimed to explore the utility of the Parkinson's disease-Cognitive Rating Scale (PD-CRS) for the screening of global cognition in HD. Methods: A multicenter cohort of 132 HD patients at different disease stages and 33 matched healthy controls were classified as having preserved cognition, mild cognitive impairment (HD-MCI) or dementia (HD-Dem) according to the Clinical Dementia Rating and Functional Independence Score. The PD-CRS and the Mini-Mental State Examination were administered. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to determine optimal cutoffs to differentiate patients according to their cognitive status. Results: A PD-CRS cutoff score ≤ 81/82 was optimal to detect HD-MCI (sensitivity = 93%; specificity = 80%; area under the curve (AUC) = 0.940), and ≤ 63/64 was optimal to detect HD-Dem (sensitivity = 90%; specificity = 87%; AUC = 0.933). MMSE scores failed to show robust psychometric properties in this context. Discussion: The PD-CRS is a valid and reliable instrument to assess global cognition in HD in routine clinical care and clinical trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This addendum provides updated information regarding the affiliations of the authors in an article titled "Neuropsychiatric symptoms and their neural correlates in individuals with mild cognitive impairment." The article was published without including Giuseppe Rengo's second affiliation. The correct affiliations for Giuseppe Rengo are the Department of Translational Medical Sciences at "Federico II" University in Naples, Italy, and the Instituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri IRCCS – Scientific Institute of Telese Terme (BN) in Telese BN, Italy. Additionally, affiliation 4 has been renumbered as affiliation 5. The original article has been revised to reflect these updates. [Extracted from the article]

Objectives: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients may show the Closing-in (CI), a tendency to reproduce figures close to or superimposed on the model. AD patients with CI might manifest reduced functional independence compared to AD patients without CI, but no study directly assessed if CI can hamper common daily living activities. To address this issue here we investigated whether AD patients with CI veer their walking trajectory toward irrelevant objects more often than AD patients without CI. Methods: Fifty AD individuals, and 20 age- and education-matched healthy adults, underwent a graphic copying task to detect CI and a newly developed walking task to assess the tendency to veer toward irrelevant objects and to bump into them. All participants also completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery to assess dementia severity; impairments in frontal/executive, visuo-spatial, visuo-constructional, and memory domains; and functional independence in daily living activities. Results: Graphic CI occurred in 34/50 (68%) AD patients (AD-CI group) who achieved significantly lower scores on frontal/executive abilities, and daily living functioning than AD individuals not showing CI. Most AD-CI patients (20/34; 58.8%) also showed at least one veering error in the walking task. Participants with CI and veering errors showed significantly poorer performance on Stroop test, and lower level of functional independence than AD individuals with CI in isolation. Conclusions: CI on graphic tasks can identify difficulties in walking and in complying with everyday activities in AD patients. These observations demonstrate the value of assessing CI in copying tasks. (JINS, 2018, 24, 437–444) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The tendency to reproduce figures close to or superimposed on the model in copying tasks, the so-called Closing-in (CI) phenomenon, has been rarely reported in individuals affected by Parkinson’s disease and associated dementia (PD-D). We aimed to comprehend the genesis of CI in PD-D individuals by assessing whether reduction of attention/executive resources can increase the tendency to deviate toward the model.Method: Thirty PD-D individuals underwent a neuropsychological evaluation exploring visuo-spatial, visuo-constructional, executive and memory abilities. An experimental copying task was employed in single and in two dual task conditions to assess whether a (verbal) cognitive load can increase CI in these individuals, compared with a matched sample of healthy adults.Results: CI occurred in 19/30 (63.3%) PD-D individuals: 4 of them produced copies close to the model (near-CI), whereas 15 individuals also superimposed their copies on the model (adherent-CI) besides showing near-CI. Presence of CI in PD-D individuals was significantly correlated with executive dysfunction but not with general cognitive impairment. In the experimental copying task the tendency to deviate toward the model was strongly correlated with executive dysfunction, and significantly increased when PD-D individuals were engaged in dual-task compared with single task conditions. Some individuals attempted to counteract CI, but this trend significantly decreased in dual-task compared with the single task conditions. In healthy adults the drift toward the model was significantly smaller than in PD-D individuals; in dual-task conditions healthy adults only showed a significant decrease in their ability to compensate for this drift.Conclusions: In PD-D individuals the tendency to deviate toward a salient model is strongly enhanced by a concurrent cognitive load. Such preliminary findings would suggest a relationship between reduction of executive attentional resources and the genesis of CI in PD-D individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Apathy and depression are behavioral manifestations that may occur often in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. AD patients may also show Closing-in (CI) phenomenon, in graphic copying tasks. Recent evidence would suggest that apathetic symptoms are related to frontal dysfunctions in AD patients, whereas the cognitive bases of depressive symptoms in AD are still unclear. Recent studies demonstrated that frontal dysfunctions are also involved in the genesis of CI in AD patients. Objective: Since frontal dysfunctions are thought to be more strongly related to apathetic than depressive symptoms, here we tested the hypothesis that CI is significantly associated with apathy in AD patients. Methods: Forty-four AD patients were enrolled for this study. All patients completed a neuropsychological evaluation of visuo-spatial, frontal/executive, visuo-constructional, and memory skills. Moreover, graphic copying tasks were employed to detect CI, and behavioral scales to assess apathetic and depressive symptoms. Results: CI and apathetic and depressed symptoms occurred in more than half of the present AD sample, but regression models revealed that the number of CI was significantly related to apathy only. The number of CI was also significantly correlated with severity of apathetic but not of depressive symptoms. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that CI and apathy are correlated with each other in mild to moderate AD, likely because they share common pathogenic mechanisms related to frontal/executive dysfunctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental dependency (ED) phenomena, including utilization behavior and imitation behavior, are clinical manifestations typically observed in patients with the behavioral variant of fronto-temporal dementia (bvFTD), who may also show the closing-in (CI) phenomenon. Here, we explored the neuropsychological correlates of ED and CI in bvFTD, and the association of ED with CI to clarify the mechanisms underlying these clinical manifestations. Thirty-one bvFTD patients underwent a wide cognitive assessment in addition to special tasks to detect occurrence of CI and ED phenomena. Both ED and CI phenomena were present in more than half of the sample. Logistic regression analyses revealed that both ED and CI phenomena were significantly associated with poor scores on frontal neuropsychological tests. Although ED and CI often co-occurred, 3/12 patients with CI did not show ED, and 5/18 patients with ED did not show CI. A logistic regression model showed that the presence of ED was not significantly associated to CI. CI and ED are associated to progressive derangement of frontal functions in bvFTD. However, specific frontal dysfunctions might explain the occurrence of either phenomenon in isolation. (JINS, 2015, 21, 1-7) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Methods Results Conclusions This study aims to assess and contrast cognitive and psychological aspects of patients with burning mouth syndrome (BMS‐MCI) and geriatric patients (G‐MCI) with mild cognitive impairment, focusing on potential predictors like pain, mood disorders, blood biomarkers, and age‐related white matter changes (ARWMCs).The study enrolled 40 BMS‐MCI and 40 geriatric G‐MCI, matching them by age, gender, and educational background. Participants underwent psychological, sleepiness, and cognitive assessment including the Mini‐Mental State Exam (MMSE), Trail Making Test (TMT), Corsi Block‐Tapping Task, Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, Copying Geometric Drawings Test, Frontal Assessment Battery, and Digit Cancellation Test.G‐MCI patients exhibited higher ARWMCs scores in right (p = 0.005**) and left (p < 0.001**) temporal regions, which may relate to specific neurodegenerative processes. Conversely, BMS‐MCI patients showed higher levels of depression and anxiety and lower MMSE scores(p < 0.001**), also struggling more with tasks requiring processing speed and executive function, as evidenced by their higher TMT‐A scores (p < 0.001**).The study highlights particular deficits in global cognition and processing speed for BMS‐MCI. The influence of educational background, pain levels, cholesterol, sleep disturbances, and anxiety on these cognitive assessments underscores the need for personalized therapeutic strategies addressing both cognitive and emotional aspects of MCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]