Browsing by Subject "cognition"

Aims: Schizophrenia is characterized by cognitive impairment that associates with many problems in everyday life and functioning. Earlier research has hypothesized that antidepressant medication may associate with better cognitive functioning among schizophrenia patients, but empirical results are mixed. This study explored the profile of schizophrenia patients that use antidepressants and asked whether there is an association between antidepressant use and cognitive performance in a clinical patient sample. Because of effects on the central nervous system, benzodiazepines and anticholinergic medications were also considered. Methods: Study participants were drawn from the SUPER-Finland cohort, which was collected among patients with psychotic illnesses in 2016–2018 from all university hospital districts across Finland (n=10474). The analysis included working-age (18–70) patients with a schizophrenia diagnosis (F20) and complete results from the brief cognitive assessment (n=3411). Information about regular medications and psychosocial factors were gathered through questionnaire and interview. Cognition was assessed with CANTAB (Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery), out of which the subtests measuring reaction time (RTI) and visual learning (PAL) were included. The association of antidepressants on cognition was examined using both pooled antidepressants and various antidepressant groups as predictors in linear regression models. Gender, age, age of diagnosis, living status, relationship, education, and psychological distress were controlled in the models. Results: Over 35% of schizophrenia patients regularly used at least one antidepressant. On average, schizophrenia patients using antidepressants experienced lower well-being and more psychological distress than patients without antidepressants. The use of antidepressants was not generally associated with better or poorer cognitive performance. However, the use of SNRI antidepressants was associated with a significantly faster reaction time. The use of benzodiazepines was associated with poorer cognitive performance in both reaction time and visual learning. Conclusions: The results support the conclusion that there is generally no meaningful association between antidepressants and better cognitive performance in schizophrenia. However, the association of SNRI-medicines with a slightly faster reaction time is promising and warrants further research. Several psychosocial factors were associated with the cognitive performance of schizophrenia patients, which underlines the need for supporting psychosocial well-being in cognitive rehabilitation.

Objective: Both stress-related exhaustion and depression have previously been associated with a decline in cognitive performance, but there is a lack of evidence on whether these conditions have different associations with different cognitive domains and whether they have additive effects on cognitive performance. Furthermore, very little is known about the cognitive effects of chronic stress-related exhaustion. Consequently, the aims of this study were to 1) examine the associations between current stress-related exhaustion and cognitive performance, 2) investigate whether different developmental trajectories of stress-related exhaustion are differently associated with cognitive performance, 3) compare the association between stress-related exhaustion and cognitive performance to the relationship between depressive symptoms and cognitive performance, 4) examine if individuals with comorbid stress-related exhaustion and depression have lower cognitive performance than individuals with at most one of these conditions (i.e., whether clinical stress-related exhaustion and clinical depression might have additive effects on cognitive performance). Methods: The data used in the study was a Finnish population-based sample of six cohorts born between 1962 and 1977 from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. Stress-related exhaustion was assessed using the Maastricht Questionnaire, depressive symptoms with the Beck Depression Inventory, and cognitive performance with four subtests of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, measuring visuospatial associative learning, reaction time, sustained attention, and executive functions. Cognitive performance and depressive symptoms were assessed in 2012, and stress-related exhaustion in 2001, 2007, and 2012. Participants were 35 to 50 years old in 2012. Linear associations between stress-related exhaustion and cognitive performance (N = 905) and depressive symptoms and cognitive performance (N = 904) were examined by conducting multivariate regression analyses. Age, sex, socioeconomic status, and parents’ socioeconomic status were controlled in the regression models. Additionally, multivariate analyses of variance were performed to investigate the different developmental trajectories of stress-related exhaustion and their relation to cognitive performance (N = 541) and the associations of comorbid stress-related exhaustion and depression with cognitive performance (N = 1273). Results and conclusion: The main finding was that high stress-related exhaustion is associated with slower reaction times, but not with performance in spatial working memory, visuospatial associative learning, or executive functions. Ongoing, chronic stress-related exhaustion was more strongly associated with slower reaction times than short-term exhaustion experienced years ago. Compared to depressive symptoms, high stress-related exhaustion was associated with slower reaction times also when subclinical cases were included, whereas only clinical levels of depressive symptoms had an association with slower reaction times. There were no differences in cognitive performance between individuals with only stress-related exhaustion or depression and those with comorbid stress-related exhaustion and depression, which supports the notion that these conditions do not have additive effects on cognitive performance. These findings add to the existing evidence of the cognitive effects of stress-related exhaustion in the general population and have several practical implications. Further research is needed on the topic, preferably with longitudinal designs, more comprehensive cognitive measures, and clinical assessment of the psychiatric symptoms.

In this work, I argue that there is a non-trivial historical-theoretical context in which a sound, deductive argument for the immateriality of the human intellect can be given entirely based on Thomas Aquinas’s philosophical framework. Aquinas presents several arguments for the immateriality of the human intellect. His preferred arguments for this conclusion are sometimes known as the two universality arguments, because they are based on the universal aspects of human intellectual cognition. According to the argument from the universal scope of intellectual cognition, the intellect must be immaterial because it is capable of knowing the natures or essences of all material substances, which nothing material could do. According to the argument from the universal mode of human intellectual cognition, the intellect must be immaterial because nothing material could cognize its objects in the abstract, universal mode of the intellect. These two arguments have recently received critical scholarly attention. The scope argument is considered unsuccessful by nearly all of Aquinas’s recent commentators, whereas the mode argument has been frequently defended in the literature. However, the mode argument has also been criticized for an allegedly unjustified inference known as the “content fallacy”: just because something represents universally and thus immaterially, it does not follow that it is ontologically immaterial itself, unless further argumentation is provided. Several replies have been given to the “content fallacy” objection, but these leave the matter inconclusive at best in my opinion. I think the content fallacy can be overcome, but this requires taking into consideration Aquinas’s views on how the intellect actively causes or abstracts the cognitive representations of the essences it cognizes. The resulting argument, which I call the causal universality argument, is nowhere found in Aquinas’s works in a dialectically satisfying form. However, it is an argument entirely based on Aquinas’s theoretical framework. Thus, even if it is an argument Aquinas never intended to make, it is an argument he could have coherently given without adding anything new to his philosophy. Demonstrating the immateriality of the human intellect is important to Aquinas for several reasons. For example, it is a part of Aquinas’s larger project of trying to philosophically establish the incorruptibility and immortality of the human soul, which makes the resurrection of the human being at least a coherent possibility from a philosophical point of view. If the causal universality argument is sound relative to its proper theoretical context as I argue, then Aquinas has a good basis on which to argue for these further claims.

Faculty: Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences Degree programme: Master’s Programme in Neuroscience Study track: Neuroscience Author: Emma-Helka Erkkilä Title: The brain physiology of stress and the effects of burnout on executive functions Level: Master’s thesis Month and year: 08/2022 Number of pages: 35 Keywords: executive functions, emotion, cognition, stress, burnout Supervisor or supervisors: Docent Kaisa Hartikainen and Lic.Med. Mia Pihlaja Where deposited: Helsinki University Library Additional information: Abstract: BACKGROUND- Burnout as a result of prolonged and excessive stress may impair higher order cognitive functions of the brain such as executive functions and their efficiency. This Master's thesis examines the effects of chronic stress on the brain, more specifically the effects of burnout on executive functions. The aim of this study was to specifically research the effects of burnout on executive and emotional functions and their interaction. The research was conducted at the Behavioral Neurology Research Unit, Tampere University Hospital as part of Sustainable Brain Health project funded by the European Social Fund. MATERIAL AND METHODS- 54 voluntary examinees of whom 51 were analyzed. The examinees were divided into two groups based on BBI-15 survey (27 suffering from burnout and 24 control subjects without burnout). The examinees performed a computer-based Executive reaction time (RT) test, during which a 64-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. In additions all examinees received alternating transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) and placebo stimulation. From the Executive RT test, we obtained objective measures reflecting the efficiency of executive functions (RT and total errors) and specific executive functions such as working memory, inhibition and attention. Additionally, the emotional stimulus included in the test enabled the assessment of the emotional functions and the interaction between emotional and executive functions. The EEG and tVNS results were not in the scope of this master’s thesis, and they will be reported later on. RESULTS- The results of this thesis are preliminary. Distinct positive correlation was observed between burnout assessment based on the BBI-15 survey and the results of the BRIEF-A self-report which measures the subjective experience of challenges in executive functions in daily life. There was no statistically significant (p<0.05) difference between the groups in RTs or errors made in the Executive function RT test. Instead, the groups differed on how the threatening emotional stimulus affected the accuracy of responses. Subjects suffering from burnout made less errors with a threatening emotional stimulus compared to a neutral stimulus and vice versa the control subjects made more errors with the threatening emotional stimulus compared to neutral. This difference was statistically significant (p=0,025). DISCUSSION- Challenges experienced in everyday executive functions were linked with burnout. However, RTs and errors in the Executive reaction time test did not correlate with the severity of the burnout nor were the self-evaluated problems in executive functions depicted in the test performance. Instead, the subjects suffering from burnout differed from the control group in how the threatening stimulus affected the accuracy of responses in the test. It is possible that the subjects suffering from burnout benefit from the increase in arousal caused by the threatening emotional stimulus which was shown as improved accuracy of responses when there was a threatening stimulus, whereas the control group's accuracy of responses was disrupted by the threatening stimulus. We speculate that if the control group’s baseline level of arousal was optimal then the threatening emotional stimulus may have increased arousal to suboptimal level causing decrease in performance. Subjectively experienced challenges in executive functions and objective changes in the interaction between emotions and the executive functions were observed in the study. In conclusion, burnout causes changes in executive functions.