Purpose: Patient motivation is essential for successful rehabilitation, so apathy may hinder physiotherapists' interventions aimed at increasing physical activity. We examined the relationship between apathy and physical activity to identify the factors that influence it. Methods: Pearson product-moment correlations were pooled from eligible studies to examine the relationship between apathy and physical activity. Subgroup meta-analyses and meta-regressions were also conducted. Results: From the systematic review (28 articles) and main meta-analysis (22 studies; N = 12,541), the results showed a negative correlation between apathy and physical activity (r = -0.13; 95% CI: -0.18, -0.09; p < 0.0001 based on Pearson's r-values; r = -0.40; 95% CI: -0.68, -0.02; p = 0.043 based on Spearman's ρ-values). The correlation was statistically significant in patients with Parkinson's disease and in older adults who were healthy, depressed, fallers, or had mild cognitive impairment. A meta-regression showed an effect of age, with a stronger correlation between apathy and physical activity in older adults compared to younger adults (p = 0.003). Conclusion: Higher levels of apathy are associated with lower levels of physical activity, and this negative association is stronger with age. Therefore, apathy may limit exercise therapy efficacy and carry prognostic implications for patients whose condition requires physical activity.

The majority of mental health conditions emerges before adulthood, with prevalence increasing especially during childhood and adolescence. Coupled with high comorbidity between disorders, there is an urgent need to identify transdiagnostic mechanisms that underpin both risk and resilience to developmental psychopathology. Here we propose executive functions (EFs), a set of cognitive processes relevant for goal-directed control of thought and actions, as a promising candidate for such a mechanism. We review evidence that EF development is shaped by both genetic and environmental factors and relies on protracted maturation of neural networks, particularly frontoparietal and cingulo-opercular systems. Disruptions in these systems are associated with elevated risk for internalising and externalising disorders. We therefore propose EFs as a cognitive endophenotype of developmental psychopathology-heritable, measurable, and lying on the pathway from gene to disorder. We review evidence showing that impaired EF is a shared feature across psychiatric conditions and predictive of future symptomatology, supporting its transdiagnostic relevance. We also propose a mechanistic refinement of the EF construct, moving beyond capacity-based interpretations to a model in which EF performance reflects dynamic and contextually informed cost-benefit computations. Disruptions in reward and effort processing-manifesting as anhedonia and apathy-are common across mental health conditions and may compromise EF performance by altering these computations. This integrative perspective helps explain the limited efficacy of traditional EF training interventions on improving mental health symptoms and underscores the importance of motivational and contextual factors. We conclude by outlining a future research agenda focussed on disentangling the specific subprocesses underpinning EFs and their mechanistic links to developmental psychopathology. Recognising EFs as a transdiagnostic cognitive endophenotype governed by rational control processes opens new avenues for precise, developmentally informed, and targeted interventions in youth mental health.

In the Suscipe prayer concluding his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) offers God his liberty together with three faculties: memory, understanding, and will. This triad, inherited from St. Augustine of Hippo's De Trinitate, identifies within human cognition an image of the divine Trinity inscribed in the architecture of thought. The imago Dei itself, however, belongs to the human person by nature, not by the exercise of cognitive capacities. This essay argues that clinical neurology has independently corroborated the functional distinctiveness of this tripartite scheme. The selective loss of each faculty produces a qualitatively distinct syndrome: amnesia (paradigmatically the amnestic syndrome, and the predominant initial presentation of Alzheimer's disease); an acquired impairment of abstraction and reasoning; and abulia, apathy, or akinetic mutism. These three syndromes dissociate from one another, supporting the notion that the Augustinian triad identifies real joints in the architecture of the mind. Recent evidence of cognitive motor dissociation and preserved covert cognition in apparently unresponsive patients suggests the Augustinian distinction between "will as the soul's deepest orientation" and "will as motor initiation" may be empirically tractable, with direct bioethical implications for patient care. Coma represents the most complete dissolution of these functions; yet, on the tradition's account, the imago Dei belongs to the person by nature and no neurological injury can extinguish it.

Crossmodal correspondence plays a subtle yet important role in how we perceive and interpret our environment. Sounds and smells, in particular, might co-occur in our daily lives (e.g., spraying a perfume), yet their interaction remains underexplored. Understanding how these modalities interact can inform multisensory design and sensory marketing. This study investigates whether affects indirectly mediate crossmodal associations between sounds and odors.

We here report the discovery of a series of fluoro-substituted 3-phenoxy-azetidines useful for modulating levels of monoamines in cerebral cortical areas of the brain. The compounds were characterized by in vivo studies using, in particular, behavioural, and microdialysis methods. Furthermore, the compounds were tested in binding assays for the human serotonin (5-HT), noradrenaline (NA), and dopamine (DA) transporters in order to assess the risk for addiction/dependency. Optimization of this class of compounds for improving cognitive functions while minimizing the effect on monoamine transporters resulted in the selection of a candidate drug 1 (IRL757). After 1 was successfully assessed in different animal models for motivation/goal-directed behaviour (unpublished data), it is currently being evaluated in humans for the treatment of apathy in neurological disorders in general, and in particular in Parkinson's disease (PD).

Dementia is a growing public health challenge, approximately 130,000 to 150,000 people were living with the condition in Sweden in 2023. Dementia is generally associated with psychological symptoms such as depression, anxiety, apathy, and reduced quality of life. Treatment generally consists of a combination of pharmacological and non-pharmacological nursing interventions. Mental health nurses play a central role in promoting person-centred care and applying evidence-based nursing practices, where dog-assisted interventions may represent a potential component of care. The aim of the study was to describe experiences of dog-assisted interventions for people with dementia. The study was carried out as a mixed methods systematic review based on a total of 14 quantitative and qualitative scientific articles. Three categories were identified: psychological and emotional well-being, social interaction and relational significance, and increased ability and independence in daily life. Dog-assisted interventions may constitute a valuable complement to nursing care in dementia care by promoting well-being and participation among people with dementia. There is a need for increased knowledge in form of larger studies focusing on qualitative methodology, to strengthen the evidence and thereby promote implementation in clinical practice.

This review synthesizes evidence on the phenomenology, neurobiology, assessment, and treatment of neuropsychiatric symptoms in primary progressive aphasia (PPA), with emphasis on variant-specific patterns and consequences.