GLOBAL PSYCHIATRY ARCHIVES

Objective:  Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a global health concern. Patients with AUDs often relapse. Various psychosocial factors, as well as cognitive factors, determine relapse. Failure of response inhibition is often associated with relapse. This study aimed to evaluate the association of craving and relapse precipitants with executive function in AUD.
Materials and methods: The study was conducted in the outpatient setting of a tertiary care hospital in North India (between September 2017 to August 2018) on patients with AUD, who presented with a recent relapse.
A total of 46 adult patients with AUD, who relapsed after a quit attempt were enroled in the study. Cross-sectional assessment of relapse precipitants (by using relapse precipitant inventory), craving (by using the obsessive-compulsive drinking scale (OCDS)), and executive function (EF) (by using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)) was done along with various socio-demographic and clinical variables.
Results: The mean age of onset of alcohol use was 21.48±4.25years and the mean duration of alcohol use was 15.13±7.70 years. The average number of relapses in the study population was 3.59±2.06. There is a significant positive correlation between a negative mood state (as a relapse precipitant) and total relapse score with craving. There is a significant association of relapse and craving with deficits of EF (perseverative and non-perseverative errors). Similarly, lessened cognitive vigilance also significantly correlate with EF deficits resulting in a relapse of AUD.
Conclusion: There is a close association of craving, and relapse with deficits of EF, in AUD. Craving and relapse in AUD may be the result of deficits in EF. Future research addressing the cognitive deficits may help in the prevention of craving and relapse.

Objective:  Since 2000, over 350,000 US military personnel have been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) (VA, 2010). Whilst epidemiological studies report up to a fourfold increased risk for dementia associated with brain injury amongst veterans there is limited controlled research into the long-term neuropsychological burden of injury.
Main aim:  The study aimed to determine whether Australian Vietnam war veterans with service-related TBI were more likely to exhibit cognitive deficits, 30-50 years after injury when compared to healthy veteran controls.
Materials and methods: 69 male veterans 60-85 years old, underwent psychiatric and neuropsychological assessment; 40 with a TBI (mean age = 68.0 ± 2.5) and 29 without (mean age = 70.1 ± 5.3). The TBI cohort included 15 mild, 16 moderate and nine severe TBI.
Results: After adjustment for identified covariates, veterans with moderate-to-severe TBI performed significantly worse than controls on composite measures of memory and learning (M = -0.55 ± 0.69, t(67) = 2.86, p=0.006, d=0.70) and attention and processing speed (M = -0.71 ± 1.08, t(52) = 2.53, p=0.014, d=0.69). There were no differences in cognitive performance between veterans with mild TBI (mTBI) and controls.
Conclusion: Results from this study suggest that amongst ageing veterans, a moderate-to-severe TBI sustained during early adulthood is associated with later-life cognitive deficits in memory and learning, attention and processing speed.

Objectives
Guarana (Paullinia cupana) from the Sapindaceae family, native to the Amazon basin, is a natural stimulant herb that can be found in popular energy drinks, pharmaceutical shops or local herb shops. With the use of natural health products increasing, guarana has gained a fair amount of popularity in the past years. In this systematic review, we examined the effects of guarana supplementation on cognitive performance. A secondary objective was to compare guarana with caffeine on cognitive performance.


Methods
Searches were made in PubMed using the terms ‘Guarana’ or ‘Paullinia cupana’. Filters focused on Controlled Clinical trials. Inclusion criteria were met by studies using interventions with guarana, while focusing on guarana’s effects on cognition. Participants needed to be young, healthy adults. Studies not published in English or Greek were excluded. The last date of our search was March 7, 2019.


Results
A total of 29 studies were identified and screened. After screening, 17 studies were excluded. The remaining 12 studies were found eligible for data extraction. After reading the full text of the 12 studies, 3 studies were excluded. In the end, 9 studies were found eligible for our systematic review (n = 369 participants). In these studies, guarana showed to improve reaction time and accuracy of performance at cognitive tasks. No significant differences were found when comparing guarana with caffeine.


Conclusion
Guarana seems to improve reaction time and accuracy of performance at tasks, but no significant effects were found when compared with caffeine. High quality randomized controlled clinical trials with a low risk of bias are needed to further study the herb.