Sleep problems are commonly seen among the elderly people and these problems affect the quality of sleep and the quality of life.

The current research was conducted in order to determine the quality of sleep and the quality of life of the elderly people.

The research was conducted with 187 elderly people. Personal information form, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Turkish Version of WHOQOL-Bref-Quality of Life Scale were used for the data collection.

The ages of the participant individuals ranged from 65 to 83 and mean age was 72.5 ± 5.24. It was determined that all of the elderly people had a bad quality of sleep. There was a significant negative correlation between areas of the quality of life and the quality of sleep. It was found out that scores of all of the areas of the quality of life were low among the elderly who were illiterate and had a chronic physical disease and that their quality of sleep was worse. The widowed and women had lower scores in physical, psychological and social areas of the quality of life scale and their quality of sleep was worse.

The quality of sleep and the quality of life are closely interrelated among the elderly people. A decrease in the quality of sleep causes a decrease in the quality of life. The quality of sleep should be continued by ensuring sleep hygiene among the elderly people and thus the quality of life should be increased.

Many authors insist on the psychiatric accompaniment of patients in oncology. Today in developed countries, the role of psychiatrists has become a necessity in the context of a multidisciplinary working (psychiatrists, oncologists, radiotherapists…) The work of psychiatrists became necessary because of the prevalence of cancer and because of the development of therapeutic methods and specificity of the disease itself.

The authors of this work focus on the current state of accompaniment and the role of psychiatrists in the care of patients regarding the structures of Oncology Nursing.

The study was conducted at the National Institute of Oncology (INO) People interviewed: 50 doctors practicing in the INO.

Information was collected prospectively from a self-administered questionnaire completed by physicians

40% of psychiatric manifestations appear after the diagnosis of cancer, 61% of oncologists reassure patients considering the symptoms as normal, 11.1% prescribe psychotropic especially anxiolytics.

The specificity of cancer requires the presence of psychiatrists in the service of cancerology

Chronic prostatitis has been long considered a psychosomatic illness. We have previously studied alexithymic and obsessive-compulsive features in chronic prostatitis patients.

To evaluate introverted, extroverted and total hostility in patients with chronic prostatitis.

Patients diagnosed with chronic prostatitis at a tertiary care ID clinic were evaluated with the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire (HDHQ), a questionnaire with 5 subscales designed to assess total hostility or punitiveness and direction of hostility. Patients were categorized according to the NIH Consensus Classification System for Prostatitis Category and the NIH Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index (CPSI) was calculated.

82 patients (median age 37.5 yrs old; IQR 30-45.5 yrs) were evaluated. According to the NIH Prostatitis Classification patients were categorized as type II: 45.1%, IIIa: 9.7%, IIIb: 39%, IV: 2.4%. Median CPSI score was 19.5 (IQR: 14.5-24.3). Median introverted, extroverted and total hostility scores were 3 (IQR: 2-6), 9 (IQR: 7-13) and 13 (IQR: 9-18) respectively. Results from the Extroverted Hostility HDHQ subscale correlated (r squared = −0.25, p = 0.024) with subscales of the TAS (Toronto Alexithymia Scale). These results were independent of CPSI scores.

Chronic prostatitis patients’ total hostility scores are similar to those of the general population reported by other studies. However, chronic prostatiitis patients show more outward directed hostility. The relationship between TAS subscale scores and measures of extroverted hostility needs further elucidation. Patients with chronic prostatitis are potentially at risk for psychiatric disturbances and thus may need psychiatric counseling and therapy.

Mothers after childbearing are vulnerable to many stress related disorders.

to emphasize the role of the past obstetric complications, as so present infant pathology as risk factors for the mother's post partum stress related disorders.

The case analysis.

The thirty-year-old, women left the maternity ward with her baby unnoticed on the fourth day after giving birth. She was referred to psychiatry ward, after finding her by the police. In the past history the patient had spontaneous miscarriage in the first pregnancy. She has waited with her husband 6 years long for the next baby. The second pregnancy was at risk, the labor was premature and the infant has palatoschisis. The mother had difficulties with feeding. She feared about baby's life, and had feeling of being neglected by the staff. In psychiatry ward she did not reveal any symptoms of mental illness. She was interested in her child, however the period of the flight was covered with memory gap. The predominance of immature defense mechanisms, as so mild cognitive dysfunctions were revealed in psychological testing. The dissociative fugue was diagnosed. The patient was discharged without any medication to ambulatory psychotherapy.

The interaction of past and present traumatic experiences in the patient with cognitive dysfunctions and immature defense mechanisms could impair ability of post-partum coping with fear about the child and consequently led to the loss of conscious control over the memory. Early diagnosing and supporting problematic patients of the maternity ward is needed.

Response inhibition (RI) is a basic component of human behaviour responsible for suppressing actions or thoughts which are inappropriate in a certain context. This cognitive function is well-studied in laboratory conditions, but there is limited data how it is influenced by emotional context and psychosocial stress.

The effect of emotional factors on RI can be investigated with an emotional go/nogo task, while psychosocial stress can be induced with the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Electroencephalography (EEG) is an excellent method for studying the neural correlates of RI: the two major event-related potentials (ERPs) implicated in the process are the frontal N2 and P3 components.

In this respect, our aim was to investigate how psychosocial stress and emotional context modulate these ERPs.

Seven healthy adult volunteers performed emotional go/no go tasks while brain responses were recorded by EEG. The task was carried out on two different occasions: at baseline condition and after moderate psychosocial stress induced by the TSST.

We successfully replicated the robust go vs. nogo effect on the frontal N2 and P3 amplitudes. However, ERPs were not affected by positive or negative emotional context in the baseline condition. In contrast, after TSST a significantly enhanced valence effect was observed on the go-related N2 amplitude and a greater go vs. nogo N2 latency difference was detected.

These findings highlight the importance of the stress-regulating system on emotionally modulated RI and render this paradigm a promising tool for investigating RI in anxiety and mood disorders.

Several studies have reported that Bipolar Disorder (BD) is characterized by neuropsychological deficits both during affective episodes and euthymic phases; in particular, bipolar patients (BPs) show psychomotor slowing and impairment of memory during Major Depressive Episodes and frontal-executive deficits in Hypomania.

The aim of the present study is to compare possible differences in cognitive performances of BPs during euthymia or during an affective episode.

22 BPs with an affective episode (depressive = 7, mixed = 7, manic = 8) and 5 euthymic patients underwent neuropsychological tests, after assessing the diagnosis by SCID-I. The cognitive abilities tested by raters included attention, verbal abilities, memory, abstract reasoning, executive functioning and semantic knowledge. One-way ANOVAs were performed on mean total scores of neuropsychological tests comparing euthymics versus BPs in the different phases of illness.

The 20% of euthymic patients showed attentive, verbal and memory deficits; the 40% showed perceptual and executive functioning deficits. Depressed (p = 0.03) and manic (p = 0.01) patients showed worse scores at Trail Making Test A (TMT-A) than euthymics. Manic patients presented the most severe deficits in memory as showed by the scores of Corsi's test (F = 4.96, p = 0.01), Recall of Prose (F = 4.06, p = 0.02) and California Verbal Learning Test (F = 3.67, p = 0.03).

Euthymic patients showed deficits in several cognitive domains. Manic patients had more severe deficits in attention and memory in comparison with depressed, mixed and euthymic patients. Controlled studies with larger samples are needed to confirm these data.

Counterfactual thoughts (CFT) are mental representations of alternatives to past events, actions or states. For example, “If only I had studied, I would have passed the exam”).

CFT in healthy subjects is associated with learning, behavioral regulation and planning.

Damage to the prefrontal brain regions has been related to decreased generation and use of CFT. Due to the fact that frontal deficits are documented in patients with schizophrenia, it is expected that these patients could also present impairments in CFT.

The aim of our study was to examine the role of the generation of CFT in schizophrenia patients.

Forty subjects who met DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia and 40 healthy control participants were recruited. The two groups were matched in age, education, and handedness.

To investigate the generation of CTF we used an adaptation of the task made by Wells, Taylor & Turtle (1987). In this task, we presented to the subjects one history with 4 different scenarios. After the presentation of the history, we asked to the subjects that list alternatives to solve the problem presented in the history.

The schizophrenic patients generated less responses of CTF that controls. The patients obtained a mean of responses of 1.48 (1 SD). The mean for the controls was 2.08 (.971 SD). The control subjects generated significantly more counterfactual responses than schizophrenic patients ([t (78) = −2.670, p = .269]).

Our findings indicate that patients with schizophrenia have impoverished the generation of CFT compared to normal control participants.

Cognitive deficits are core features of schizophrenia and they are also observed in bipolar disorder with psychotic episodes. Clinical symptom severity and cognitive performance might be related and they both affect everyday functioning.

To examine the patterns of cognition and clinical symptoms in patients with psychosis spectrum disorders.

To learn how clinical symptom severity affect the cognitive performance in the two patient groups.

Twenty-five bipolar and 40 schizophrenic patients were enrolled in the study. The following measures were used to assess the cognitive performance: Digit Span Task, Corsi Blocks Task, Tower of Hanoi Task, Visual Patterns Test, Letter and Category Fluency Tasks, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was also administered. The two groups were compared with Mann-Whitney test; the connections between clinical scales and cognitive measures were investigated through partial correlation.

The bipolar patients showed better performance on the majority of the cognitive tasks. The schizophrenic group had higher scores on all subscales of the PANSS (p < 0.016). In the bipolar group only the Negative scale of the PANSS was correlated with the backwards task of the Corsi Blocks (p = 0.022 r = −0.584). The cognitive performance of the schizophrenic patients was more related to the clinical symptoms.

Our results are in accordance with the notion that clinical symptoms are correlated to cognitive performance. Improving working memory processes might ease the coping with everyday difficulties caused by the symptoms, so this should be considered during the treatment of these patients.

A significant part computer game players and internet users show clinical features of abuse and addiction (loss of control, withdrawal symptoms, tolerance, continuation of game play even with increasing negative consequence in social and academic life). Similar mechanisms are suggested to underlie the pathogenesis and maintenance of internet and computer game addiction and substance-related addictions.

Neuroscientific research on internet and computer game addiction is sparse, yet emerging. To review previous studies is the objective of the present project.

We aim to identify common findings regarding the neurophysiological processes underlying internet and computer game addiction. This could be helpful for establishing a sound model for these emerging disorders.

Neuroscientific studies on internet and computer game addiction were systematically searched in “Pubmed”, “Google scholar” and “PsychInfo”. Titles were examined first to screen potential articles, followed by abstracts, and then manuscripts were downloaded. The reference sections of downloaded manuscripts were examined for additional references not located in the searches.

Neuroscientific research on internet and computer game addiction is mainly located in the Asian area, probably due to a higher regional prevalence. Methodologies range from ERP, resting state EEG, resting state fMRI, VBM to PET, investigating very different concepts of addiction, including impulsivity, craving, reward processing and cue-reactivity.

Addicted internet and computer game users are overall suggested to have altered brain mechanisms similar to individuals with substance addictions. However, a sound model on the neurophysiologic alterations has not been established yet.

Albumin is a protein which serves as a transporter for a variety of metabolites and as a storage for a lot of substances. Although albumin cannot pass the blood-brain-barrier and thus influence the CNS directly, a negative relation between cognitive impairment and serum albumin level has been observed in studies of normal and pathological aging.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between albumin and social cognition in ADHD.

20 adult patients with ADHD and 20 healthy controls participated in a double-blind within subjects crossover study. Participants completed the Moral-Judgment-Test, Tuebingen Affect Battery, the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) and Cambridge Behaviour Scale (EQ). In addition, ADHD symptoms were assessed by the Wender Utah Rating Scale (WURS-K) and ADHD Self Rating Scale. Serum albumin levels were determined after blood withdrawal.

In the patient group serum albumin levels were negatively associated with ADHD pathology measured by WURS-K. In addition, a low level of albumin was related with poorer performance in theory of mind, moral judgment competence and affective prosody tasks.

The results suggest that albumin is related to social cognition in younger patients with ADHD. This is, to the knowledge of the authors, the first investigation, in which the association between albumin and cognition has been investigated in ADHD. Thus the findings of the present study need replication and the neural mechanisms have to be explored in future studies. Further studies are needed to exclude a possible medication effect.

The aim of this study was to investigate the contributions of cognitive, emotional and behavioural factors to the development of Post Concussional Syndrome (PCS) after mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI), particularly the role of attentional bias (AB).

80 MTBI patients completed baseline questionnaire assessments and 39 completed computer tasks. 42 patients completed the follow-up assessments. A series of self-report measures were used to assess cognitive, behavioural and emotional responses, and the visual probe task was adopt to measure reaction time (RT) and assess attentional bias (AB). The main outcomes were measured by the Rivermead Postconcussion Symptoms Questionnaire (RPQ).

PCS symptoms at 3 months were positively correlated with measures of stress response (r = 0.397, p = 0.011), particularly stress avoidance (r = 0.497, p = 0.001), anxiety (r = 0.33, p = 0.035), illness perception (r = 0.528, p = 0.000), and all or nothing behaviour (r = 0.422, p = 0.006). There were also significant correlations between PCS symptoms and Mean RT (r = 0.507, p = 0.012) and total AB (r = −0.425, p = 0.039). The positive correlations between PCS and RT indicates that PCS symptoms may be associated with slow information processing, whereas the negative correlation between AB and PCS symptoms may reflect that PCS symptoms are associated with threat avoidance.

There were significant correlations between PCS symptoms and a number of cognitive, emotional and behavioral factors, which is consistent with the proposed cognitive behavioral model. The significant findings from RT/AB reflect that PCS symptoms may be associated with slow information processing and trauma-related threat avoidance. This study provides a cognitive behavioural approach to a better understanding of PCS.

While deficits in facial emotion recognition in schizophrenia have consistently been shown, the underlying neuronal mechanisms remain unclear. Electrophysiological measures, such as event-related brain potentials related to facial emotion recognition yield insight into the time course of recognizing emotional faces.

In our study we aimed to delineate the neurophysiological correlates of facial emotion recognition and to investigate where, when, and what components in the course of emotional information processing show impairment in schizophrenia.

We collected data using a 128-channel EEG recording system for testing an experimental facial emotion recognition paradigm with 20 patients with schizophrenia and 20 matched healthy controls. Subjects were presented fearful and neutral emotional facial expressions on a monitor and asked to make decisions via a button press relating to either the gender or the emotion of the presented face.

Our findings revealed that ERPs of pateints with schizophrenia significantly differed from those of matched healthy controls in several components and areas characteristic to facial emotion processing, showing differences in both early and late ERP components of emotional face processing. Significant main effects of task (gender vs emotion) and emotion (fear vs neutral) were also found.

The finding that patients with schizophrenia, as compared to healthy controls, show differences in emotional face processing in several cortical areas and time intervals underlines the hypotheses that a deficit in affect recognition may originate from the impairment of a distributed facial emotion recognition network, including both early perceptual and later phases of facial emotion processing.

We measured mayer wave in the prefrontal cortex during the performance of original version TMT by multichannel NIRS using sensitive for detecting changes of oxyHb.

Sixteen healthy student volunteers performed four different screens of TMT-A, and then two different screens of TMT-B.

Mayer wave changed while in the prefrontal cortex during the performance of TMT-A and TMT-B. The changes were prominent during the TMT performed. Mayer wave changed in the rear prefrontal cortex during TMT.

Additional measurements and to present a detailed database.

Meyer wave reflects brain activity. You should consider in more detail.