Executive dysfunctions are considered to be putative markers of familial/genetic vulnerability to both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, familial resemblance must be demonstrated before executive functions are used as a potential endophenotype. The aim of this study was to investigate familial resemblance for executive functions in families of schizophrenic and bipolar subjects. We a...

Research has demonstrated impairments in executive functions in Bipolar Mood Disorder patients. Evidence shows that this impairment is present in both periods of active symptoms of the disorder, as well as euthymic stages, and is compounded by mood episodes, especially manic phases. The purpose of this study was to compare the executive performance of a sample of Brazilian bipolar patients in d...

There has been a long-standing debate in the fields of philosophy and cognitive science surrounding the relationship of language to cognition, but the exact nature of this relationship is still unclear (Sokolov, 1968/1972). In the current study, we explored the role of language in one aspect of cognition, namely problem solving, by administering the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) to stroke ...

A surge in the search for endophenotypes for psychiatric disorders has occurred in the past several years. An important criterion of an endophenotype is that it is heritable. Two of the most widely used executive cognitive functioning measures are the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and the Stroop Color-Word Test. Each has been considered as a possible endophenotype. However, research on the...

Authors explored grey-matter density in 29 methamphetamine abusers and 20 healthy comparison subjects using voxel-based morphometry. Grey-matter density changes and performances on the Wisconsin Card Sorting test (WCST) were also compared between 11 short-term (<6 months) and 18 long-term (>or=6 months) abstinent methamphetamine abusers. Methamphetamine abusers had lower grey-matter density in ...

This study aimed to explore the combined influence of age and cognitive control on the behavioural and electrophysiological indicators of local, restart and mixing costs. Two groups of middle-aged (49-60 y.o., N=40) and older (61-80 y.o., N=40) adults were split according to their overall z-score in a composite of six neuropsychological measures of executive function. All participants performed...

BACKGROUND Although conduct disorder (CD) is associated with an increased susceptibility to substance use disorders, little is known about decision-making processes or reward mechanisms in CD. This study investigated decision making under varying motivational conditions in CD. METHODS Performances on the Risky Choice Task (RCT) and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) were assessed in 156 a...

OBJECTIVE Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated reduced prefrontal cortical blood flow and metabolism in depression, but the neurobehavioral significance of these observations is not yet established. METHOD The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, a widely used neuropsychological index of prefrontal cortical function, was administered to 79 patients with major depression who had been unmedicated for...

Objectives: Although it has been shown that there are more profound deficits present in deficit schizophrenia (DS) patients than in non-deficit schizophrenia (NDS) patients, there still remain some matters requiring further investigation. In this context, we formulated three research aims: (1) to compare executive functions between the investigated groups, (2) to determine the relationship betw...

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is well known to test cognitive flexibility in terms of set-shifting capabilities. Many fMRI studies with behaving monkeys as well as human subjects have shown transient neural activity in the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), as indicated by an increase in the fMRI signal, following a rule change in the WCST or when using a WCST-like paradigm. We present a computa...