Percorrer por autor "Maroco, Joao"
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- Can Subjective Memory Complaints Identify A beta Positive and A beta Negative Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment Patients?Publication . Mendes, Tiago; Cardoso, Sandra; Guerreiro, Manuela; Maroco, Joao; Silva, Dina; Alves, Luisa; Schmand, Ben; Gerardo, Bianca; Lima, Marisa; Santana, Isabel; de Mendonca, AlexandreBackground: The use of biomarkers, in particular amyloid-beta (A(beta) changes, has allowed the possibility to identify patients with subjective memory complaints (SMCs) and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) who suffer from Alzheimer's disease (AD). Since it is unfeasible that all patients with aMCI could presently undergo biomarkers assessment, it would be important that SMCs might contribute to identify the aMCI patients who have AD amyloid pathology. Objectives: To know whether aMCI patients with amyloid biomarkers (A beta(+)) present greater SMCs as compared to those without amyloid biomarkers (A beta(-)). Methods: Participants were selected from a cohort of nondemented patients with cognitive complaints and a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation, on the basis of 1) diagnosis of aMCI
- Delay discounting in mild cognitive impairmentPublication . Coelho, Sara; Guerreiro, Manuela; Chester, Catarina; Silva, Dina; Maroco, Joao; Paglieri, Fabio; de Mendonca, AlexandreIntroduction: Patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) may make suboptimal decisions particularly in complex situations, and this could be due to temporal discounting, the tendency to prefer immediate rewards over delayed but larger rewards. The present study proposes to evaluate intertemporal preferences in MCI patients as compared to healthy controls. Method: Fifty-five patients with MCI and 57 healthy controls underwent neuropsychological evaluation and a delay discounting questionnaire, which evaluates three parameters: hyperbolic discounting (k), the percentage of choices for delayed and later rewards (%LL), and response consistency (Acc). Results: No significant differences were found in the delay discounting questionnaire between MCI patients and controls for the three reward sizes considered, small, medium, and large, using both k and %LL parameters. There were also no differences in the response consistency, Acc, between the two groups. Conclusions: Patients with MCI perform similarly to healthy controls in a delay discounting task. Memory deficits do not notably affect intertemporal preferences.
- Mental time travel in mild cognitive impairmentPublication . Coelho, Sara; Guerreiro, Manuela; Chester, Catarina; Silva, Dina; Maroco, Joao; Paglieri, Fabio; de Mendonca, AlexandreIntroduction: Mental Time Travel (MTT) is the people's ability to remember themselves in the past and to imagine themselves in the future, and influence important life domains such as making decisions and planning future actions. It is widely recognized that patients with aMCI have deficits in episodic memory, but they also show impairments in semantic memory. It has been controversial whether MTT tasks are disturbed in aMCI mainly in relation to internal details related to episodic information, or external details, representing semantic and other extraneous information. The present study assessed whether patients with aMCI are affected in MTT regarding generation of internal details and external details, in past and future dimensions. Furthermore, it analyzed production in individual detail categories (internal: event details, thought/emotion, place, time, perceptual
- Neuropsychological contribution to predict conversion to dementia in patients with mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's diseasePublication . Silva, Dina; Cardoso, Sandra; Guerreiro, Manuela; Maroco, Joao; Mendes, Tiago; Alves, Luisa; Nogueira, Joana; Baldeiras, Ines; Santana, Isabel; de Mendonca, AlexandreBackground: Diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) confirmed by biomarkers allows the patient to make important life decisions. However, doubt about the fleetness of symptoms progression and future cognitive decline remains. Neuropsychological measures were extensively studied in prediction of time to conversion to dementia for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients in the absence of biomarker information. Similar neuropsychological measures might also be useful to predict the progression to dementia in patients with MCI due to AD. Objective: To study the contribution of neuropsychological measures to predict time to conversion to dementia in patients with MCI due to AD. Methods: Patients with MCI due toADwere enrolled from a clinical cohort and the effect of neuropsychological performance on time to conversion to dementia was analyzed. Results: At baseline, converters scored lower than non-converters at measures of verbal initiative, non-verbal reasoning, and episodic memory. The test of non-verbal reasoning was the only statistically significant predictor in a multivariate Cox regression model. A decrease of one standard deviation was associated with 29% of increase in the risk of conversion to dementia. Approximately 50% of patients with more than one standard deviation below the mean in the z score of that test had converted to dementia after 3 years of follow-up. Conclusion: In MCI due to AD, lower performance in a test of non-verbal reasoning was associated with time to conversion to dementia. This test, that reveals little decline in the earlier phases of AD, appears to convey important information concerning conversion to dementia.
- Psychopathy and behavior problems: a comparison of incarcerated male and female juvenile delinquentsPublication . Pechorro, Pedro Santos; Vieira, Duarte Nuno; Poiares, Carlos Alberto; Vieira, Rui Xavier; Maroco, Joao; Neves de Jesus, Saul; Nunes, CristinaThe objective of the present study was to compare incarcerated male and female juvenile offenders regarding psychopathic traits, behavior problems, psychopathy taxon, conduct disorder, self-reported delinquent behavior, and crime seriousness. Within a total forensic sample of 261 detainee participants, subdivided in a male group (n = 217) and a female group (n = 44), statistically significant differences were found. Female juvenile offenders show less callous-unemotional traits, more emotional symptoms, more prosocial behaviors, less self-reported delinquent behavior, and lower crime seriousness. Conduct disorder prevalence was very high, but no statistically significant gender differences were found. The predictive importance of psychopathic traits, behavior problems, psychopathy taxon, and conduct disorder for the prediction of group membership (female versus male) was established by binary logistic regression. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.