The Cognitive Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Members of the General Population in Italy: A Preliminary Study on Executive Inhibition

Self-Regulation in Eating Behaviors: The Role of Executive Function in Response to Food Stimuli

Human nutrition is characterized by both automatic and self-regulated processes. One of the dimensions that may be employed in monitoring eating behaviors is the cognitive control played by the executive functions (EFs). The role of EFs in affecting eating behaviors has been assessed in empirical studies, but further analyses are needed in a current society characterized by a food-abundant environment. Accordingly, this study attempted to evaluate the association between weight status and executive functions in response to food-related stimuli. One hundred and forty-four young adults took part in the study (25.7% in overweight condition). The participants completed a set of computerized cognitive tasks to assess cognitive and motor inhibition and working memory in two different conditions: (i) classic versions of the tasks and (ii) modified versions with food cues. The results indicate that food stimuli may influence executive performance and that there is an association between food cue-related executive functioning, particularly in the domain of motor inhibition, and working memory. These results suggest that self-regulation in nutrition may involve executive control. Although further studies are needed, this work suggests the importance of a multidimensional perspective in the analysis of eating behaviors and the relevance of EFs in monitoring our approach to food stimuli in an environmental context.

Adapting Minds: Exploring Cognition to Threatened Stimuli in the Post-COVID-19 Landscape Comparing Old and New Concerns about Pandemic

The global population has been significantly affected by the pandemic in terms of physical and mental health. According to transactional theory, individuals have undergone an adaptation process influenced by cognitive control abilities. Emotional responses to COVID-19-related stimuli may interfere with top-down attentional processes, thereby hindering adaptation. This study aimed to investigate the impact of COVID-19-related stimuli on attentional processing and to determine whether psychological factors could modulate these effects. A sample of 96 healthy undergraduate students participated in an emotional Stroop task in which they were presented with a series of stimuli, including both neutral and negative COVID-19-related as well as non-COVID-19 stimuli. COVID-19-related PTSD, as an index of distress (PTSS), and trait anxiety were evaluated. Results showed that participants were more accurate in identifying COVID-19-related stimuli compared to non-COVID-19 stimuli. Being female and having higher retrospective PTSS scores related to COVID-19 were predictive of faster reaction times for both neutral and negative COVID-19-related stimuli. This heightened attentional bias toward COVID-19-related stimuli suggests that individuals may be more sensitive to stimuli associated with the pandemic. The results suggest that the association between COVID-19 stimuli and attentional biases extends beyond emotional valence, being retrospectively influenced by mental health, suggesting potential pathways to future mental health challenges.

Inhibition changes across the lifespan: experimental evidence from the Stroop task

Individuals constantly exert inhibitory control over their thoughts and behaviors to plan actions that compete with habits and impulses. Cognitive inhibition enhances the selection of task-relevant stimuli and is closely related to neural changes that occur across the lifespan. Since few studies have focused on the entire lifespan, this study aimed to assess cognitive inhibition abilities in a sample of 425 healthy participants (age range: 7-88 years) using the Stroop task. The participants were grouped according to age into children, adolescents, young adults, adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults. A series of ANOVAs considered Group as the independent variable and Performance indices as the dependent variables. The children did not show an interference effect (Stroop effect), likely due to the lack of an automated reading process as a consequence of ongoing brain maturation. Adolescents and young adults performed significantly faster than older adults did. The results indicate that response speed reaches its peak during adolescence and young adulthood and then slightly decreases until older age. Nevertheless, when compared with the other groups, only older adults showed significant differences in the Stroop effect, suggesting that inhibitory abilities remain relatively consistent throughout adulthood but rapidly worsen in recent years due to the physiological decline in cognitive and brain functioning associated with aging.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Use of Antidepressants by Young Adults in the ASL TO4 Regione Piemonte (Italy)

The association between younger age and poorer mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic has been documented. Whether these changes were associated with a change in antidepressant (AD) use is not well understood. This study aimed to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on AD use by young adults in the ASL TO4 Regione Piemonte (Italy). The impact of the pandemic on the weekly prevalence of AD users was assessed using interrupted time-series analysis with autoregressive integrated moving average models. A total of 1071 subjects (18-22 years with ≥1 AD dispensation) were included in the study. The observed prevalence was lower than the predicted value for several weeks after the introduction of the lockdown. However, it was consistently higher than the predicted values from week 134. The maximum difference between observed and predicted values (25 subjects per 10,000 young adults) was found at week 170. Changes in AD use were observed in both genders and were more pronounced for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. In conclusion, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of young adults is likely to be significant in the coming years, which may place a future burden on pharmaceutical public health and community health.

The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown Measures and COVID-19 Infection on Cognitive Functions: A Review in Healthy and Neurological Populations

The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected people's mental health all over the world. This review aims to present a comprehensive overview of the literature related to the effects of COVID-19 lockdown measures and COVID-19 infection on cognitive functioning in both healthy people and people with neurological conditions by considering only standardized tests. We performed a narrative review of the literature via two databases, PUBMED and SCOPUS, from December 2019 to December 2022. In total, 62 out of 1356 articles were selected and organized into three time periods: short-term (1-4 months), medium-term (5-8 months), and long-term (9-12 months), according to the time in which the tests were performed. Regardless of the time period, most studies showed a general worsening in cognitive performance in people with neurological conditions due to COVID-19 lockdown measures and in healthy individuals recovered from COVID-19 infection. Our review is the first to highlight the importance of considering standardized tests as reliable measures to quantify the presence of cognitive deficits due to COVID-19. Indeed, we believe that they provide an objective measure of the cognitive difficulties encountered in the different populations, while allowing clinicians to plan rehabilitation treatments that can be of great help to many patients who still, nowadays, experience post-COVID-19 symptoms.

I'm Offering You My Pain: Priming COVID-19 Salience Increases Everyday Sadism

The COVID-19 pandemic and its link to the emergence of everyday sadism is a matter of public concern worldwide. However, previous studies are nearly silent regarding the causal relationship between the two variables. We address this gap by theorizing that exposure to information about coronavirus can increase sadistic behavior by inducing state boredom. We conducted three complementary controlled experiments, which comprised multiple participants populations (N = 784, student and community samples) and measurement techniques of sadism, to test our theoretical perspective. Based on self-report measures, Study 1 found that Chinese university students who were exposed to a reminder of COVID-19 exhibited a higher level of everyday sadism than participants in the control condition. Study 2 replicated this finding in a more generalized population. Additionally, results revealed that state boredom mediated this effect. Moving beyond subjective self-report data in Studies 1 and 2, Study 3 assessed a different behavioral operationalization of sadistic tendencies, namely, shredding worms. As expected, priming COVID-19 salience has an immediate, statistically significant influence on sadistic behavior in impactful real-world contexts. Overall, these findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic not only has grave effects on economy and society, but has implications for the malevolent side of human nature.

Cognitive rehabilitation in post-COVID-19 condition: A study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

Post-COVID-19 condition is frequently comprised of persistent cognitive sequela, including deficits in attention and executive functions (EFs), which can act as a barrier for regaining pre-illness functional levels. Goal Management Training (GMT) is a cognitive rehabilitation (CR) intervention for improving attention and EFs that has received empirical support in studies of other patient groups. The present study aims to determine the efficacy of GMT for improving everyday attention and EFs in adults who experience persistent cognitive deficits after COVID-19.

METHODS

This study protocol describes an open-label randomized controlled trial comparing the efficacy of GMT to a wait list control condition (WL), for improving persistent (> 2 months) cognitive sequela in post-COVID-19 condition. The study aims to recruit 240 participants aged 18 to 65 years with a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection and perceived attentional and EF difficulties in daily life. Participants will be block randomized (computer-algorithm) to either group-based GMT (n = 120) or WL (n = 120). GMT will be internet-delivered to groups of six participants in six two-hour sessions delivered once a week. The primary outcome will be the Metacognition Index of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function - Adult Version, a self-report measure assessing everyday EF difficulties, specifically metacognition, at six months post-treatment. Secondary outcomes include performance-based neurocognitive measures, and tertiary outcomes include rating scales of cognition, emotional health, quality of life, and fatigue.

CONCLUSION

Study findings could contribute to providing an evidence-based treatment option for symptoms that are frequent and debilitating following a prevalent condition.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

NCT05494424.

Remote auditory assessment using Portable Automated Rapid Testing (PART) and participant-owned devices

Remote testing of auditory function can be transformative to both basic research and hearing healthcare; however, historically, many obstacles have limited remote collection of reliable and valid auditory psychometric data. Here, we report performance on a battery of auditory processing tests using a remotely administered system, Portable Automatic Rapid Testing. We compare a previously reported dataset collected in a laboratory setting with the same measures using uncalibrated, participant-owned devices in remote settings (experiment 1, n = 40) remote with and without calibrated hardware (experiment 2, n = 36) and laboratory with and without calibrated hardware (experiment 3, n = 58). Results were well-matched across datasets and had similar reliability, but overall performance was slightly worse than published norms. Analyses of potential nuisance factors such as environmental noise, distraction, or lack of calibration failed to provide reliable evidence that these factors contributed to the observed variance in performance. These data indicate feasibility of remote testing of suprathreshold auditory processing using participants' own devices. Although the current investigation was limited to young participants without hearing difficulties, its outcomes demonstrate the potential for large-scale, remote hearing testing of more hearing-diverse populations both to advance basic science and to establish the clinical viability of auditory remote testing.

Mild Cognitive Disorder in Post-COVID-19 Syndrome: A Retrospective Cohort Study of 67,000 Primary Care Post-COVID Patients

Background:

Little is known about the impact of COVID-19 on mild cognitive disorder.

Objective:

The aim of this retrospective cohort study was to investigate whether COVID-19 diagnosis is associated with subsequent mild cognitive disorder (MCD) compared to acute upper respiratory infections (AURI).

Methods:

This retrospective cohort study used data from the Disease Analyzer database (IQVIA) and included 67,046 patients with first-time symptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 diagnoses in 1,172 general practices in Germany between March 2020 and September 2021. Diagnoses were based on ICD-10 codes. Patients diagnosed with AURI were matched to 67,046 patients with COVID-19 using propensity scores based on sex, age, index month, and comorbidities. The index date was the diagnosis date for either COVID-19 or AURI. Associations between the COVID-19 and MCD were studied using conditional Poisson regression models.

Results:

The incidence of MCD was 7.6 cases per 1,000 person-years in the COVID-19 group and 5.1 cases per 1,000 person-years in the AURI group (IRR = 1.49, 95% CI = 1.22–1.82). The incidence rate ratio decreased strongly with increasing age from 10.08 (95% CI = 4.00–24.42) in the age group≤50 to 1.03 (95% CI = 0.81–1.31) in the age group > 70. In addition, the association between COVID-19 and MCD was significant in women (IRR: 1.70, 95% CI: 1.34–2.16) but not in men (IRR: 1.08, 95% CI: 0.75–1.56).

Conclusion

The incidence of MCD was low but significantly higher in COVID-19 than in AURI patients, especially among younger patients. If a cognitive disorder is suspected, referral to a specialist is recommended.