Neurological soft signs as a marker of cognitive impairment severity in people living with HIV

Toro, Pablo; Ceballos, María Elena; Pesenti, José; Inostroza, M.F.; Valenzuela, Daniela; Henríquez, Fernando; Forno, Gonzalo; Herold, Christina; Schröder, Johannes; Calderón, Jorge

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2018.04.062

Cited by 14 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Arabzadeh et al, 2014; Arango et al, 1999; Chan et al, 2011; Chen and Chan, 2003), but also to otherwise healthy first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia (Solanki et al, 2012). That NSS correspond to a rather global cognitive deficit is further supported by a recent investigation in patients with HIV associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND), which clearly involved an increase of NSS scores with more pronounced cognitive impairments (Toro et al, 2018). From this perspective, the present findings underline the transdiagnostic character of NSS.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…As it was argued already by Heinrichs and Buchanan (1988) the notion that antipsychotic medication exerts a protective effect on NSS is widely supported by the results of longitudinal studies (Bachmann et al, 2014; Bachmann and Schröder, 2018). Moreover, NSS were also demonstrated in patients who did not receive any neuroleptic medication (Dazzan and Murray, 2002; Schröder and Heuser, 2008), as well as in first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia (Neelam et al, 2011) or in patients with HAND (Toro et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neurological soft signs (NSS) and cognitive impairment in chronic schizophrenia

Herold

Duval

Lässer

et al. 2019

Schizophrenia Research: Cognition

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Recent studies indicate that neurological soft signs (NSS) in schizophrenia are associated with generalized cognitive impairments rather than changes in specific neuropsychological domains. However, the majority of studies solely included first-episode patients or patients with a remitting course and did not consider age, course, education or severity of global cognitive deficits as potential confounding variables. Therefore, we examined NSS with respect to cognitive deficits in chronic schizophrenia, i.e. patients who are particularly vulnerable to both, NSS and cognitive impairments.Eighty patients with chronic schizophrenia (43.36 ± 15a) and 60 healthy controls (47.52 ± 14.8a) matched for age, sex and years of education were examined on the Heidelberg NSS scale and a broad neuropsychological battery including short term, working, logical and autobiographic memory (AM), theory of mind (ToM), psychomotor speed and cognitive flexibility.When contrasted with the controls, patients showed significantly higher NSS scores and impairments in all neuropsychological domains but short-term memory. NSS were significantly associated with all neuropsychological domains considered but short-term memory and semantic AM. Except for episodic AM (which was significantly correlated with NSS in patients only) these correlations applied to both groups and were confirmed when age, years of education and severity of global cognitive deficits (Mini Mental State Examination) were controlled for.Results demonstrate that NSS reflect a rather wide range of cognitive impairments in schizophrenia, which also involves episodic AM and ToM. These associations were not accounted for by age, education or severity of global cognitive deficits and facilitate the clinical usage of NSS as a screening instrument.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurological soft signs (NSS) and cognitive impairment in chronic schizophrenia

Herold

Duval

Lässer

et al. 2019

Schizophrenia Research: Cognition

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“…The observations in the current work suggest the earlier application of nanoparticle carried antiretroviral medicine is possibly more beneficial for controlling nodular lesions in the white matter. Consequently, the related mild cognitive impairment and neurological soft signs may be better improved [ 38 ] . As we have known, the white matter tracts in CC and deep white matter conducts communication between two hemispheres and among global lobes and gyri [ 24 ] as cables carry signals between process-units.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Severer nodular lesion in white matter than in gray matter in simian immunodeficiency virus-infected monkey, but not closely correlated with viral infection

2020

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Immune cell accumulation and white matter anomaly are common features of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) -infected patients in combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) era. Neuroimaging tests on cART treated patients displayed prominent diffuse white matter lesions. Notably, immune cell nodular lesion (NL) was a conspicuous type of pathological change in HIV/SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) infected brain before cART. Therefore, we used SIV infected brain to investigate the distribution of those NLs in gray and white matters. We found a significant higher number of NLs in white matter than that in gray matter. However, virus infection correlated with macrophage NLs but not with microglia NLs, especially in white matter. In addition, NLs interrupted white matter integrity more severely, since even tiny nodules could disconnect nerve fibers in white matter tracts. In the gray matter with dense myelinated axons, NLs obviously encroached those fibers; in the area of few myelinated axons, small nodules well co-localized with extracellular matrix between neurons.

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“…Neurological soft signs (NSS) are minor motor and sensory deficits that can be easily examined in any clinical examination (1). While the majority of studies investigated NSS in patients with schizophrenia, signs can be also demonstrated in affective and personality disorders and in patients with organic brain changes, such as HIV associated neurocognitive disorder (2) or Alzheimer's disease (3). Hence, NSS are not specific for any severe neuropsychiatric condition, but rather correspond to psychopathological symptoms, cognitive deficits and their underlying structural and functional brain changes.…”

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confidence: 99%