José María Ruiz Sánchez de León

Complutense University of Madrid | UCM · Experimental Psychology

This study introduces the translation and validation of the Prefrontal Symptoms Inventory (PSI) into English, aiming to provide an ecologically valid tool for assessing prefrontal symptoms in English‐speaking populations in the United States. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a crucial role in executive functions and other higher‐order cognitive pr...

Despite the efforts made throughout the 20th century to develop standardized batteries to measure musical ability, there seems to be no consensus as to the construct’s gold standard. The Profile of Music Perception Skills (PROMS) was created with the aim of overcoming some of the limitations of previous assessment tests. The Mini-PROMS is the short...

The social stigma of people with addictions is a topic that has aroused great interest in recent years. The present study aims to analyze the accuracy with which Psychology students estimate the presence of prefrontal symptomatology in people they imagine having to treat for addictions in their professional future. That estimate is compared with th...

Introduction: Ten years ago, Revista de Neurologia published the validation of a new free tool: the Prefrontal Symptoms Inventory (PSI), from which an abbreviated version (PSI-20) was subsequently extracted. Over this decade, authors have demonstrated its excellent psychometric properties and clinical usefulness. This systematic review, conducted i...

The role of morphemes in lexical recognition has been extensively explored in recent years, although the evidence from older adults is extremely scarce. In this study, we carry out a lexical decision task to assess the interference generated by morphological composition of pseudo-words (i.e., the longer and more error prone decisions on pseudo-word...

Introduction: The theoretical framework of the Alzheimer’s disease continuum considers transition between stages in a unidirectional manner. Here we examine the rate of reversion from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to normal cognition (NC) and explore a set of potential variables associated with this phenomenon. Methods: A total of 985 Spanish com...

The habit formation model to explain addiction involves the transition from an initial phase in which the prefrontal cortex ceases to control the behavior, to a phase in which control is transferred to the dorsal striatum, progressing towards compulsive consumption. This model, widely supported by empirical evidence, implies that each subject is at...

El modelo de formación de hábitos de la adicción implica la transición desde una fase inicial en la que la corteza prefrontal deja de controlar el comportamiento, a una fase en la que el control se transfiere al estriado dorsal, pasando al consumo compulsivo. Este modelo, ampliamente apoyado por la evidencia empírica, implica que cada sujeto se enc...

Las alteraciones emocionales y motivacionales son inherentes a cualquier lesión cerebral o patología neurodegenerativa e influyen de un modo determinante en el proceso de evaluación e intervención neuropsicológica. Sin embargo, en el campo del daño cerebral frecuentemente han sido contempladas como variables contaminadoras de la cognición, y las ex...

The compulsive habit model proposed by Everitt and Robbins has accumulated important empirical evidence. One of their proposals is the existence of an axis, on which each a person with a particular addiction can be located depending on the evolutionary moment of his/her addictive process. The objective of the present study is to contribute in addre...

The UPPS model of impulsivity has recently been proposed, has been widely applied to substance abuse and is one of those recommended in the context of Research Domain Criteria, RDoC. However, its application to the abuse of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has been very limited. In the present work, a sample of n=748 (67% females)...

Compulsiveness has been considered one of the core characteristics of addictive behaviours. One of the abusive behaviours that has acquired importance in recent times involves the use of mobile phones. The aim of this study is to obtain a version of the Obsessive-Compulsive Drug-Use Scale (OCDUS) to study the compulsivity associated with mobile pho...

Introduction: In the field of retrospective memory, an explicit and implicit memory are known to exist. This study analyses the effect of the prospective memory on a recognition task and a lexical decision task. Method: In experiment 1 (n = 78, of which 39 belonged to the experimental group and 39 belonged to the control group), a recognition task...

Las quejas de memoria son un motivo de consulta recurrente en adultos jóvenes y mayores que acuden a centros asistenciales y deberían ser evaluadas con instrumentos que muestren propiedades psicométricas óptimas. El “Cuestionario de fallos de memoria en la vida cotidiana” (MFE-30) permite medir los olvidos y errores que las personas perciben diaria...

Introduction: The short Prefrontal Symptoms Inventory (PSI-20) is a questionnaire that investigates symptoms of prefrontal malfunctioning in daily life. It has been shown to have good psychometric properties and has been applied in the general population and clinical samples from Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. Aims: To normalise and...

Introducción. El inventario de síntomas prefrontales abreviado (ISP-20) es un cuestionario que investiga síntomas de mal funcionamiento prefrontal en la vida diaria. Ha mostrado buenas propiedades psicométricas y se ha aplicado en población general y muestras clínicas de España y otros países de habla hispana. Objetivo. Normalizar y estandarizar e...

The Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a multisystemic disorder. It is considered a neuromuscular disease but also involves cognitive (executive functions, social cognition, attention, memory and language), emotional or behavior changes in over 50% of the reported cases and to of frontotemporal diagnosis lobar degeneration of behavioral variant...

En este libro encontrará los últimos avances de la neuropsicología aplicados al estudio de las conductas adictivas desde una perspectiva biopsicosocial. A lo largo de sus páginas reconocerá cómo la ciencia psicológica de la adicción se ha aliado con las neurociencias para derrocar al errado dogma dominante: la adicción ya ha dejado de ser una enfer...

Introducción: En el ámbito de la memoria retrospectiva se acepta la existencia de una memoria explícita y una implícita. El presente trabajo analiza la posible existencia de esos mismos niveles en la memoria prospectiva. Métodos: El Experimento 1 (n = 78, de los que n = 39 en el grupo experimental y n = 39 en el grupo control) plantea una tarea c...

The Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a multisystemic disorder. It is considered a neuromuscular disease but also involves cognitive (executive functions, social cognition, attention, memory and language), emotional or behavior changes in over 50% of the reported cases and to of frontotemporal diagnosis lobar degeneration of behavioral variant...

Psychometrics and neuroscience should collaborate with respect to their theoretical models and to their methods. Here we show how we think this can be done based on the consideration of evidence accumulated within the neuropsychological study of the executive function concept and the intelligence concept analyzed in differential psychology. We sugg...

Objective: The quality of perceived stress coping in chronic pain is related to the performance of the prefrontal cortex as the main structure of control and coordination of superior behavior control. The present study explores the presence of prefrontal symptomatology, in the form of problems to manage cognition, emotions and behavior, and perceiv...

Use/abuse of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) has in recent years become a topic of great interest. Current discussion addresses whether it must be considered addictive behaviour and if it is a problem that primarily affects adolescents and youth. This study aims to understand the problems that affect people of all ages in controll...

El uso/abuso de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) es un tema que suscita enorme interés en los últimos años. Está en discusión si debe recibir la consideración de conducta adictiva y si es un problema que afecte prioritariamente a adolescentes y jóvenes. El presente estudio pretende conocer los problemas que afectan a las pe...

Background The LOTCA (Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment) battery is a cognitive screening test which is widely used in occupational health. However, no work has been found that explores its use in addiction treatment. Objectives of Study To explore the convergent validity of LOTCA with neuropsychological tests that assess relat...

Este documento, titulado Ejercicios de mejoría cognitiva y motora para personas con enfermedad de Parkinson, es un cuaderno de trabajo para la neuroestimulación en su propio domicilio. Está basado en la evidencia científica que desde hace años se ha venido acumulando, y su objetivo principal es que a usted le resulte útil para entrenar, no solo los...

Introducción. El inventario de síntomas prefrontales (ISP) es un cuestionario autoinformado creado en España que interroga sobre alteraciones cognitivas, emocionales y comportamentales en las actividades de la vida diaria y que resulta aplicable tanto en población general como en múltiples poblaciones clínicas. Existe una versión abreviada de 20 ít...

Introduction: The Prefrontal Symptoms Inventory (PSI) is a self-reported questionnaire, created in Spain, which asks about cognitive, emotional and behavioural alterations in activities of daily living and which can be applied in both the general population and in multiple clinical populations. There is a shorter 20-item version (PSI-20) with exce...

La detección de déficits cognitivos en actividades de la vida diaria es un tema de creciente interés en la investigación neuropsicológica y ocupacional. Estos déficits están vinculados a toma de decisiones disfuncionales, accidentes domésticos y de tráfico, problemas psicopatológicos, conductas adictivas, inicio de procesos degenerativos, etc. Su d...

Introduction: Subjective memory complaints (SMC) in the elderly have been suggested as an early sign of dementia. This study aims at investigating whether specific cognitive complaints are more useful than others to discriminate Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) by examining the dimensional structure of the Everyday Memory Questionnaire (EMQ). Materi...

El parpadeo atencional es un efecto que aparece cuando, en una presentación rápida de series visuales en la que existen dos objetivos a ser detectados, la detección del primero reduce la probabilidad de detección del segundo, si ambos estímulos están separados temporalmente entre 200 y 500 milisegundos. Se ha sugerido que el contenido emocional de...

The cognitive, emotional and behavioural alterations secondary to acquired brain injury and degenerative dementias can be quantitatively and quantitatively appraised by administering self-reports that ask both patients and reliable informants about the difficulties patients have in their everyday life. Subjects and methods. The Prefrontal Symptoms...

Resumen La " Escala de estrés percibido " (EEP) es uno de los autoinformes más utilizados en la actualidad para estimar el grado en que las personas sienten que controlan las circunstancias de la vida o se ven desbordadas por ellas. Se realizó un análisis factorial exploratorio sin restricciones sobre una muestra de participantes de población gener...

The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) is currently one of the most used self-reports to estimate the extent to which people feel that they control the challenges of life or are overwhelmed by them. An unrestricted exploratory factor analysis over a sample of participants from the general population (n= 1023) and a confirmatory analysis in a clinical sam...

Estimation of daily symptoms of frontal dysfunction is considered to be essential in order to endow neuro-psychological assessments with ecological validity. The questionnaires available today were constructed to estimate executive problems in daily life in populations with neurological damage. There is a need for instruments focused on measuring t...

Introducción. La estimación de síntomas cotidianos de disfunción frontal se considera imprescindible para aportar validez ecológica a las evaluaciones neuropsicológicas. Los cuestionarios disponibles se construyeron para estimar problemas ejecutivos en la vida diaria en poblaciones con daño neurológico. Se requieren instrumentos enfocados a medir e...

La personalidad es un constructo que, hasta los últimos años, no había suscitado demasiado interés entre los neuropsicólogos. Sin embargo, durante la década pasada han proliferado los estudios interesados en buscar correlatos cerebrales, estructurales y funcionales de rasgos de personalidad propuestos por las distintas teorías, especialmente el mod...

Personality is a construct that, until recent years, had not attracted much interest among neurologists and neuropsychologists. However, during the past decade, studies have proliferated that seek brain, structural and functional correlates of personality traits proposed by different theories, especially the Big Five model of personality. These stu...

Cuando se presentan dos objetivos separados temporalmente entre 200 y 500 ms en un paradigma de Presentación Rápida de Series Visuales (PRSV), y ambos se encuentran enmascarados, los sujetos muestran un déficit a la hora de informar del segundo objetivo (O2), habiendo identificado previamente el primero (O1). Este fenómeno, al que se conoce con el...

El presente trabajo analiza las diferencias entre la impulsividad disfuncional, como la tendencia a tomar decisiones irreflexivas y rápidas, con consecuencias negativas para el individuo, y la impulsividad funcional, que se asocia más al entusiasmo, la audacia y la alta actividad, definiendo así a los sujetos en condiciones de asumir riesgos pero c...

The factorial structure of the Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX) is an unresolved issue in scientific literature. One-to-five-factor solutions have been found in several studies by applying different research methods. Only a few of these studies used appropriate analysis procedures to suit a Likert scale-type of answer or investigated large enough s...

Resumen El deterioro cognitivo leve (DCL) es una entidad que ayuda a identificar a aquellos individuos que tienen mayor proba-bilidad de desarrollar una demencia. La estimulación cog-nitiva se ha planteado como un posible tratamiento, con la finalidad de mejorar su rendimiento cognitivo y retrasar así la evolución a demencia. Se seleccionan 38 paci...

Introduction: The concept of cognitive reserve has gradually attracted more interest as a greater body of evidence has been collected on its relationship with the resistance of the brain to decline in its functioning when faced with neurological threats or disorders. Although a large amount of research has been conducted on (degenerative, traumati...

Introducción. El concepto de reserva cognitiva ha ido ganando interés en la medida en que se ha acumulado evidencia sobre su relación con la resistencia del cerebro a declinar en su funcionamiento ante amenazas o alteraciones neurológicas. Aunque se ha estudiado en un gran número de alteraciones (degenerativas, traumáticas, psicopatológicas), pocos...

Aim: The purpose of this study was to apply the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) in a sample of people in treatment for addictive behaviours and to study the results. Methods: The test was applied to a sample of 101 outpatients in treatment for addiction to substances. The results were studied in relation to gender, age, level of ed...

Los conocimientos científicos actuales permiten afirmar que la adicción es un proceso unitario, independientemente de la sustancia de abuso, e incluso en los casos en que no se utilizan sustancias, como en la adicción al juego, siendo el proceso neuropsico¬lógico subyacente esencialmente el mismo. Esta es una de las múltiples razones que justifican...

In recent years, the presence of cognitive complaints in young adults has been related with attentional and executive deficit profiles, although not pathognomonic, which seem to justify the occurrence of everyday errors. This study aims to analyze whether the occurrence of such complaints and their magnitude are associated with a slightly dysexecut...

In recent years, the presence of cognitive complaints in young adults has been related with attentional and executive deficit profiles, alt-hough not pathognomonic, which seem to justify the occurrence of every-day errors. This study aims to analyze whether the occurrence of such complaints and their magnitude are associated with a slightly dysexec...

Introduction: This work explores two issues related with the appearance of subjective memory complaints in young adults: on the one hand, the possibility of the complaints being a result of attentional and executive deficits and, on the other, whether certain characteristics of the personality favour and modulate the clinical expression of these c...

IntroductionNon-pharmacological therapies for normal ageing and dementia are a set of treatment programmes intended to improve the performance of cognitive processes, improve emotional well-being, promote independence in daily life activities, and ultimately increase patients’ quality of life.Methods We applied a battery of tests assessing four maj...

Introducción. El presente trabajo explora dos cuestiones relacionadas con la aparición de quejas subjetivas de memoria en adultos jóvenes: la posibilidad de que dichas quejas sean resultado de déficits atencionales y ejecutivos, y, por otro lado, si determinadas características de la personalidad propician y modulan la expresión clínica de las quej...

Introduction: Neuroimaging findings associate personality traits and their disorders with an altered functioning of certain areas of the brain, especially in the frontal lobe. There is a need for instruments that can be applied in clinical practice to explore these relations based on their behavioural manifestations. Patients and methods: The sa...

Introducción. Los hallazgos de neuroimagen asocian los rasgos de la personalidad y sus trastornos al funcionamiento alterado de determinadas localizaciones cerebrales, especialmente en el lóbulo frontal. Se requieren instrumentos aplicables en la clínica que exploren estas relaciones a partir de sus manifestaciones comportamentales. Pacientes y mét...

Introduction: The detection of neurocognitive disorders in addicts would allow subjects with functional impairment to be assigned to cognitive rehabilitation programmes. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a screening test that can be a valuable aid with this kind of patient. Aims: To use the MoCA with a sample of subjects with addiction...

It is important to know which personality factors are associated with addiction so to distinguish addicts that require specialized treatment from those who do not, and to identify those addicts who achieve abstinence from those who continue their substance use despite the negative consequences. Cloninger’s model includes biological and psychosocial...

Introducción. La investigación evidencia la presencia de sintomatología prefrontal en los adictos, aunque en su valoración se suelen usar cuestionarios creados para el daño cerebral sobrevenido. Objetivo. Elaborar un instrumento específico para la evaluación de dicha sintomatología en sujetos con adicciones. Sujetos y métodos. Se reclutaron 1.624 p...

Resulta importante conocer qué factores de personalidad se asocian con la adicción para poder distinguir a los adictos que requieren un tratamiento especializado de quienes no llegan a necesitarlo, así como diferenciar a los que consiguen la abstinencia de quienes persisten en el consumo a pesar de las consecuencias negativas. El modelo de Cloninge...

Introduction: One of the tests that is mostly widely used to evaluate aphasia in clinical practice is the Boston Naming Test (BNT), a classic test in which 60 black and white pictures are presented to subjects in order to evaluate their capacity to put a name to such pictures. Despite its psychometric goodness, the number of items in the test has...

Introduction: Non-pharmacological therapies for normal ageing and dementia are a set of treatment programmes intended to improve the performance of cognitive processes, improve emotional well-being, promote independence in daily life activities, and ultimately increase patients' quality of life. Methods: We applied a battery of tests assessing f...

Research has provided evidence of the presence of prefrontal symptoms in addicts, although they are usually evaluated using questionnaires that were created for acquired brain injury. To produce a specific instrument for evaluating those symptoms in subjects with addictions. For the study, 1624 participants were recruited (445 addicts and 1179 from...

This study examines the influence of stimulus modality in a procedural learning task to analize to what extent there may be one or more semantic processors for words and pictures. A semantic categorization task was administered to 256 participants manipulating both stimuli modality and concepts to categorize. Results show how reaction times (RT) de...

Among the non-pharmacological therapies proposed in the last few years, cognitive stimulation has received the most empirical support, especially in normal aging, mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Indeed, this therapeutic modality is the first-line intervention in the latter two diagnoses. There are a large number of cognitive stimulation pro...

Impulsivity is a stable correlate throughout the course of drug addiction. However, it has always been studied as a negative condition, linked to psychopathology. Dickman (1990) proposed two subdimensions of impulsivity, dysfunctional (DI) and functional (FI). He defines the latter as the tendency for rapid, goal-oriented decision-making characteri...

La impulsividad es una de las variables más consistentemente vinculadas a las distintas fases del proceso adictivo. Sin embargo, casi siempre se ha estudiado como una condición negativa, vinculada a psicopatología. Dickman (1990) propuso dos tipos de impulsividad, una disfuncional (ID) y otra funcional (IF). A ésta última la definió como la tendenc...

Although subjective memory complaints are one of the most common causes behind visits to health services, there are hardly any validated instruments in Spanish for evaluating their magnitude. Since memory complaint questionnaires usually include items referring to attentional and executive aspects, it has been hypothesised that they may well be rel...

The mobile phone is a relatively new technological tool, versatile and accessible, and very attractive, especially for young people, but whose use involves a risk of abuse and addictive behavior. In recent years there has been increasing interest in this problem, especially in view of the fact that it involves an increasingly younger population. Th...

The mobile phone is a relatively new technological tool, versatile and accessible, and very attractive, especially for young people, but whose use involves a risk of abuse and addictive behavior. In recent years there has been increasing interest in this problem, especially in view of the fact that it involves an increasingly younger population. Th...

Resumen: El presente estudio aborda la influencia de la modalidad de presentación de los estímulos en una tarea de aprendizaje procedimiental para analizar en qué medida pueden existir uno o varios procesadores semánticos para palabras y dibujos. Se administró una tarea de categoriza-ción semántica a 256 participantes, manipulando la modalidad de p...

Cognitive architectures are defined as the group of essential components belonging to a system which allows the analysis of its cognitions and behaviors. The aim of this study is to review one of the most plausible cognitive architectures from the neuroanatomic perspective: The Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) is a theory about how huma...