International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

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Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Clinical neuropsychology is a discipline that aims to study the impairment of cognitive abilities and emotional–motivational deficits caused by lesions or dysfunctions of the central nervous system. In-depth knowledge of neural circuitry and cognitive functions may help in the evaluation, diagnosis and rehabilitation of people with cognitive disorders. Currently, the validation of more specific and sensitive cognitive scales with normative data worldwide may help clinicians to compare data related to a group of patients with a specific disease. However, cognitive evaluations are often influenced by mood state (e.g., anxiety, depression and apathy), thus creating significant bias in the final results. Indeed, the expansion of knowledge in research through the use of neuroimaging in large study cohorts is constantly transferred to clinical practice, and the clinical observation of patients often provides insights for new experimental research.

This Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) focuses on the utility of even more specific brief cognitive assessment in daily clinical practice in hospitals and how this can help medical teams to accurately monitor cognitive dysfunction and possibly in starting cognitive rehabilitation. Moreover, it would be useful if authors could highlight the problems encountered during cognitive evaluations and how they faced and then solved them to achieve good and reliable final results.

You are welcome to submit new research papers and reviews to this issue. Other acceptable manuscript types include methodological papers, position papers, brief reports, and commentaries.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Valerio Pisani
Guest Editor

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Keywords

cognitive assessment
neurodegenerative disease
disability
mood
self-rated questionnaire
social status
cognitive decline

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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11 pages, 1018 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Emotional Recognition and Its Relation to Cognition, Mood and Fatigue in Relapsing–Remitting and Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis

by Ornella Argento, Chiara Piacentini, Michela Bossa and Ugo Nocentini

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(24), 16408; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192416408 - 7 Dec 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1545

Abstract

(1) Background: Emotional recognition (ER), the ability to read into others’ minds and recognize others’ emotional states, is important in social environment adaptation. Recently it has been found that ER difficulties affect patients with multiple sclerosis (pMS) and relate to different gray matter atrophy patterns from secondary progressive (SP-pMS) and relapsing–remitting (RR-pMS). The aim of this study was to compare the performances of the two MS phenotypes on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (RMEt) and other cognitive, mood and fatigue measures. We also examined associations between performance on the RMEt and cognitive, mood and fatigue variables. (2) Methods: A total of 43 pMS (27RR-pMS/16SP-pMS) underwent a clinical assessment, the RMEt, the cognitive battery, and completed mood and fatigue questionnaires. Both groups’ performances on the RMEt were then correlated with all these measures. (3) Results: the RMEt scores of RR-pMS were significantly correlated with the impairment degree in some cognitive scores. SP-pMS scores correlated mainly with fatigue, anxiety, anger and depression. (4) Conclusions: ER performances relate to cognitive aspects in RR-pMS, whereas mainly to mood outcomes in the SP-pMS group. We can hypothesize that deficits in ER are a further sign of disease progression. Our data support the different roles of cognitive and emotional deficits related to different disease courses and lesional correlates. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Clinical Neuropsychology: Role in Health Care and Services)

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Review

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14 pages, 644 KiB

Open AccessReview

Locus Coeruleus Dysfunction and Trigeminal Mesencephalic Nucleus Degeneration: A Cue for Periodontal Infection Mediated Damage in Alzheimer’s Disease?

by Flavio Pisani, Valerio Pisani, Francesca Arcangeli, Alice Harding and Sim K. Singhrao

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(2), 1007; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20021007 - 5 Jan 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2969

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a leading neurodegenerative disease with deteriorating cognition as its main clinical sign. In addition to the clinical history, it is characterized by the presence of two neuropathological hallmark lesions; amyloid-beta (Aβ) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), identified in the brain at post-mortem in specific anatomical areas. Recently, it was discovered that NFTs occur initially in the subcortical nuclei, such as the locus coeruleus in the pons, and are said to spread from there to the cerebral cortices and the hippocampus. This contrasts with the prior acceptance of their neuropathology in the enthorinal cortex and the hippocampus. The Braak staging system places the accumulation of phosphorylated tau (p-tau) binding to NFTs in the locus coeruleus and other subcortical nuclei to precede stages I–IV. The locus coeruleus plays diverse psychological and physiological roles within the human body including rapid eye movement sleep disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression, regulation of sleep-wake cycles, attention, memory, mood, and behavior, which correlates with AD clinical behavior. In addition, the locus coeruleus regulates cardiovascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal activities, which have only recently been associated with AD by modern day research enabling the wider understanding of AD development via comorbidities and microbial dysbiosis. The focus of this narrative review is to explore the modes of neurodegeneration taking place in the locus coeruleus during the natural aging process of the trigeminal nerve connections from the teeth and microbial dysbiosis, and to postulate a pathogenetic mechanism due to periodontal damage and/or infection focused on Treponema denticola. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Clinical Neuropsychology: Role in Health Care and Services)

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