The evaluation of 160 meta-analyses of animal studies on potential treatments for neurological disorders reveals that the number of statistically significant results was too large to be true, suggesting biases.

Impairment in executive cognition (EC) is now recognized as relatively common among older persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and may be predictive of the development of dementia. However, both MCI and executive functioning are broad and heterogeneous constructs. The present study sought to determine whether impairments in specific domains of EC are associated with specific subtypes of MCI. 124 MCI patients were divided into four subgroups (amnestic versus nonamnestic, and single-versus multiple-domain) based on their performance of widely-used neuropsychological screening tests. These patients and 68 normal elderly were administered 18 clinical and experimental tests of executive function. Principal components analysis suggested two highly reliable EC components, planning/problem-solving and working memory, and a less reliable third component, judgment. Planning/problem-solving and working memory, but not judgment, were impaired among the MCI patients. This was true even among those with Apure amnestic@ MCI, the least impaired group overall. Multiple-domain MCI patients had more severe impairments in planning/problem-solving and working memory than single-domain patients, leading to the supposition that they, not pure amnestic MCIs, are at highest risk of imminent dementia. Keywords executive function; mild cognitive impairment; dementia; principal components analysis; flexibility; working memory; planningThe status of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) as an important clinical entity remains debated. Expert opinion ranges from it being early Alzheimer=s disease (AD) in virtually all cases (Morris et al., 2001) to it being a diagnostic nonentity (Milwain, 2000;Gauthier & Touchon, 2005; Whitehouse, 2007). Most opinions fall somewhere between these two extremes, and view MCI as a heterogeneous cognitive state that sometimes heralds the onset of progressive Address correspondence to: Jason Brandt, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Meyer 218, Baltimore, MD 21287-7218, phone 410-825-9048, fax 410-955-0504, jbrandt@jhmi.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/journals/neu. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptNeuropsychology. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 September 1. Published in final edited form as:Neuropsychology. Chertkow et al., 2007). Much recent research has focused on determining the characteristics of patients with MCI that predict the progression to AD or another dementia.It is now widely recognized that several ...

Objective: We compared eating behaviours, and depressive and anxiety symptoms in two countries with different confinement strictness strategies and different levels of COVID-19 pandemic. Method: A web-based cross-sectional survey was administered during and shortly after the COVID-19 related lockdown in Spain and Greece. Multivariable linear regression analyses were performed to identify country differences associated with eating behaviour, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Results: This study included 1,002 responders in Spain and 839 in Greece. The mean ± SD of restraint, emotional and external eating was 2.5 ± 0.79, 2.1 ± 0.81 and 2.6 ± 0.65 in Spain, whereas 2.7 ± 0.85, 2.3 ± 0.99 and 2.9 ± 0.74 in Greece. Spanish participants had lower average scores of restraint and external eating compared to Greek participants (p < .001), but no difference was seen for emotional eating. In Spain, 13.6%, and 12.3% of the survey respondents reported moderate to severe depressive and anxiety symptoms, respectively, whereas in Greece the respective values were 18.8 and 13.2%. After adjusting for several risk factors, a higher prevalence of anxiety symptoms was observed in Spain compared to Greece (p = .001), but no difference was seen for depressive symptoms. Conclusions: This study demonstrated high scores of inappropriate eating behaviours and a high frequency of depressive and anxiety symptoms in two Mediterranean countries during the COVID-19 outbreak. Our findings revealed that compared to Greek participants, Spanish participants, that faced more severe COVID-19 pandemic and stricter lockdown measures, were associated with lower restraint and external eating and increased anxiety symptoms, but not with depressive symptoms or emotional eating.