Parents play a key role in adolescent licensure in the United States, particularly for those with children diagnosed with CHD. Many seek strategies to facilitate discussions about driving safety, yet limited research on parental perceptions restricts resources available for these conversations.

This study examined parental perspectives on barriers and facilitators to safe, independent driving among adolescents with CHD and impacts of CHD on family driving experiences.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 parents of adolescents with CHD (93% mothers), and key themes were identified using conventional content analysis.

Two themes emerged: (1) parents see driving as a pivotal step towards adolescent independence, leading to both anticipation and apprehension; (2) driving introduces challenges specific to adolescence that may not be evident earlier. Ninety-seven percent of parents reported their adolescent had no current or expected driving restrictions, consistent with reports from parents of adolescents without CHD.

Parents perceived minimal CHD impact on driving, but concerns such as fatigue, cognitive effects, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were revealed often intensifying during adolescence and unrecognised. Provider-led discussions addressing driving readiness, CHD, and other health issues can support families during transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Verbal fluency tasks are widely used to assess language abilities and executive functions in both clinical and research settings. In post-stroke patients, prior research has indicated a significant hodological contribution to the neural basis of verbal fluency; however, this has largely been examined using lesion-based measures, predefined tractography approaches, and traditional diffusion metrics.

Quantitative anisotropy-based structural connectometry derived from correlational tractography was employed to determine the white matter circuits underlying semantic and phonemic fluency in 44 patients with post-stroke aphasia.

Both task types were found to be linked to anterior frontal connections of left-hemisphere dorsal and ventral associative pathways, as well as domain-general projection pathways. However, visual inspection of the connectomes, supported by supplementary cross-control analyses, suggested differences in the relative emphasis and distribution of pathways, with phonemic fluency aligning more with the dorsal stream, while semantic fluency showed greater reliance on the ventral stream and a wider range of cortico-subcortical connections.

The findings contribute to current understanding of the neural networks of verbal fluency in aphasia, with potential relevance for clinical practice and research.

Recent advancements in the development of novel therapies to treat phenylketonuria (PKU) have fueled a call for new assessment tools that are sensitive to PKU-related neurocognitive disruptions. The present study evaluated the NIH Toolbox, a computer-administered battery of neurobehavioral measures, for assessing cognitive function in children and adults with early-treated PKU.

Data were examined from 91 individuals with PKU (aged 8–55 years) enrolled in an ongoing NIH-funded longitudinal study of hyperphenylalaninemia. Participants completed the NIH Toolbox as well as several validation instruments including the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence-Second Edition, Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), and Conners’ Continuous Performance Test.

Consistent with prior research, crystallized cognition was intact in both children and adults. In contrast, fluid cognition deficits were observed primarily in younger children while older children and adults generally performed within expectations. NIH Toolbox composite scores demonstrated strong concurrent validity with Wechsler indices and moderate correlations with other established measures.

The NIH Toolbox shows promise as a valid and practical measure of neurocognitive function in PKU, supporting its potential integration into clinical trials and research protocols. Future research should prioritize longitudinal designs to assess test–retest reliability, sensitivity to change, and subgroup differences related to treatment modalities. Ongoing efforts, such as the PHEFREE consortium, will be critical for establishing the NIH Toolbox as a robust outcome measure for PKU intervention studies.

Physical neglect constitutes an experience of deprivation characterised by the absence of care, supervision, and stimulation, which may affect cognitive development during adolescence and hinder the learning of strategies to cope with demands. This study aimed to analyse coping styles and cognitive performance in adolescents in residential care with physical neglect as the predominant form of maltreatment, as well as to examine the association between both dimensions.

This observational, cross-sectional study included 45 adolescents in residential care, aged between 12 and 16 years, with physical neglect as the predominant type of maltreatment. The instruments used were the Adolescent Coping Scale (ACS), the Stroop Color and Word Test (SCWT), the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome for Children (BADS-C), and the Digit Span and Coding subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-V).

Participants showed a predominance of the non-productive coping style, together with lower-than-expected scores for their age and educational level in selective attention, processing speed, working memory, planning, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition. Lower cognitive and executive performance was related to greater use of the non-productive coping style. In addition, linear regression analyses showed that the global cognitive performance index was significantly associated with the non-productive coping style, even after statistically controlling for sex, age, and polyvictimization.

These findings suggest the importance of jointly considering coping styles and cognitive performance in adolescents in residential care with physical neglect, as well as the potential value of interventions that integrate emotion regulation, executive functions, and problem-solving.

Individuals with ADHD have difficulty providing precise estimates of time. Nevertheless, they may still be able to harness temporally predictable information to guide behavior and regulate action control. We therefore examined whether temporal cueing improves impulse control or, conversely, exacerbates impulsive tendencies, in adults with ADHD.

Adults with ADHD and matched controls performed a temporally cued Simon task. Target onset time was either predictable or unpredictable, and lateralized responses were either compatible or incompatible with target location. Analysis of reaction time (RT) distributions allowed us to decompose impulsive behavior into two key elements: the initial urge to react impulsively and the top-down suppression of these impulses. Individual differences in attention and impulsivity were assessed using a Continuous Performance Test (CPT).

Temporal cueing increased fast impulsive errors in both groups. However, temporal cues sped responses to compatible targets in controls but to incompatible targets in adults with ADHD. Distributional analyses revealed that although temporal predictability reduced inhibitory efficiency over time in controls, it actually improved the late-stage engagement of inhibitory processes in adults with ADHD. Furthermore, in the clinical group, greater RT variability in the CPT – reflecting attentional instability – was associated with larger cueing benefits, whereas higher CPT commission errors predicted weaker benefits.

By compensating for endogenous deficits in action control, temporal cues facilitated top-down suppression of impulsive responses, particularly in individuals with high attentional instability. Our findings demonstrate that temporal predictability can act as a functional scaffold for inhibitory control in ADHD.

Research has indicated that many medical and psychosocial factors contribute to cognitive deficits in sickle cell disease (SCD). Some studies of SCD in early childhood found cognitive functioning to be associated with socioeconomic status but not disease severity. The current study examined how the home environment is associated with cognitive functioning and school readiness in children with SCD.

Young children (n = 29; Mage = 4.4 years SD = 0.3) with SCD underwent an evaluation of cognitive and academic skills. Subsequently, researchers and caregivers completed the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME), an in-home measure of cognitive stimulation. Linear regression was used to examine the relationship between each of the HOME subscales and cognitive and academic measures while controlling for genotype.

The total score from the HOME inventory was associated with overall IQ, working memory, and school readiness. Among the subscales of the HOME inventory, Learning Materials, Modeling, and Variety were associated with cognitive and academic outcomes.

Stimulation in a child’s home may affect cognitive and academic development in young children with SCD. Future research should examine the benefits of increasing learning materials and the variety of activities in the homes of young SCD patients.

Cognitive dysfunction is a core feature of major depressive disorder (MDD). Although both repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and vortioxetine have demonstrated procognitive effects, direct comparative evidence remains limited. This study compared the clinical and cognitive outcomes of rTMS and vortioxetine in patients with MDD.

In this 8-week naturalistic study, 40 patients with MDD received either rTMS (n = 25) or vortioxetine (n = 15). Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). Cognitive performance was evaluated with the Perceived Deficits Questionnaire–Depression (PDQ-D), Trail Making Test Part B (TMT-B), Stroop Test, and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Longitudinal changes were analyzed using linear mixed-effects models. Week-8 outcomes were examined using ANCOVA adjusted for baseline cognitive performance and relevant clinical covariates.

Both groups showed significant improvements in depressive symptoms and cognitive performance over time, with no significant treatment × time interactions. Baseline cognitive performance strongly predicted week-8 outcomes. Domain-specific differences were observed in executive functioning: vortioxetine showed a modest advantage in WCST performance, whereas rTMS showed a non-significant trend toward better Stroop interference performance. No significant differences were detected in processing speed.

rTMS and vortioxetine were associated with comparable improvements in depressive symptoms and cognitive functioning in patients with MDD. Baseline cognitive status appeared to be a stronger predictor of outcome than treatment modality.

To compare associations between neurocognitive testing and two different self-report paradigms: (1) recall-based (PROMIS Cognitive Function) and (2) real-time, task-specific (NASA-Task Load Index [NASA-TLX]) among 56 patients with breast cancer.

This is a secondary analysis from a phase II, single-arm trial of memantine to prevent cognitive decline among patients receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer (NCT04033419). Before chemotherapy and 4 weeks after their final cycle, participants completed neuropsychological assessment and self-report measures. Memantine was administered between assessments. At pre-chemotherapy, multivariable linear regression evaluated associations between a unit-weighted, composite neurocognitive test score with PROMIS Cognitive Function and NASA-TLX, controlling for age, cancer stage, and cognitive reserve. Explanatory analyses examined associations within individual neurocognitive subtests. Multivariable regression explored the extent to which pre-treatment self-reported cognition predicted post-treatment performance.

Pre-chemotherapy, higher NASA-TLX scores (greater perceived workload) were robustly associated with worse performance (β = −0.31 [−0.50, −0.12], p = .002). Relationships were strongest for executive function: Animal Fluency (IQR = 35): −3.3 (−5.8, −0.8), p = .011; COWA (IQR = 36) = −6.7 (−12.8, −0.7), p = .031; One Touch Stockings (IQR = 31): −0.70 (−1.0, −0.3), p < .001. Pre-treatment NASA-TLX was also associated with post-treatment performance in univariable but not multivariable models. PROMIS Cognitive Function and neurocognitive performance were not associated.

The NASA-TLX and neurocognitive performance were strongly associated, particularly in the executive function domain. Future work involving the NASA-TLX in cancer populations, including its use in everyday contexts, will help clarify whether it may enhance CRCI characterization.

Impairments in spatial working memory (SWM) have been observed in several disparate psychiatric conditions. The present study investigated how SWM varied across a range of psychiatric disorders in a large sample of young adults using the SWM test from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery.

A sample of 575 participants aged 18–29 years was enrolled from the general community and evaluated for psychiatric disorders using several screening evaluations. Performance on the SWM test was assessed, with outcome measures of strategy and total errors. Using Z-scores and Cohen’s d effect sizes, SWM was compared between each psychiatric disorder and healthy controls.

The majority of psychiatric diagnoses examined demonstrated SWM deficits in both strategy and total errors. Large effect sizes in strategy were observed for bulimia, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, social phobia, and agoraphobia. Large effect sizes in total errors were observed for agoraphobia, major depressive disorder, social phobia, intermittent explosive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bulimia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and gambling disorder.

Our findings suggest that SWM impairment is a transdiagnostic element of psychiatric illness rather than serving as a specific feature of any one diagnosis. Future directions include the exploration of how SWM deficits may be utilized in prognostic and therapeutic interventions.

Maternal mental health strongly influences child development and depression risk. This study investigated how positive and negative dimensions of prenatal maternal mental health differentially shape childhood depressive symptoms through cognitive mediators.

Participants were drawn from the Growing Up in Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) cohort. Of the 1198 mother–child dyads enrolled, 523 (52.6% boys) had sufficient data for the mediation analysis. Maternal mental health at 26 weeks’ gestation was assessed using a bifactor model derived from the Beck Depression Inventory-II, State–Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Child language ability was measured at age 2 years with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, executive function at age 7 years with the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function, and depressive symptoms at age 9 years with the Children’s Depression Inventory-2. Serial mediation models tested hypothesized pathways.

Distinct mediation pathways emerged. Positive maternal mental health was associated with enhanced early language ability, which in turn was associated with fewer depressive symptoms in later childhood (β = −0.017, 95% CI: −0.042, −0.003). Conversely, negative maternal mental health was associated with poorer executive functioning, which in turn was associated with more depressive symptoms (β = 0.040, 95% CI: 0.016–0.077).

Positive and negative maternal mental health are linked to childhood depressive symptoms through distinct neurocognitive pathways. By identifying language and executive function as specific developmental mediators, our findings point to targeted and developmentally sensitive intervention opportunities to disrupt intergenerational pathways of depression.