- Email: [email protected]
Laterality, thought disorder, and memory in schizophrenia
THURSDAY,, MAY 19
nonresponding is specific to schizophrenia, but OR response frequency may be reduced in schizophrenic and manic patients when compared to normals.
66. OBSERVING THOUGHT DISORDER AND INFORMATION-PROCESSING DEFICITS IN SCHIZOPHRENIA THROUGH PARALLEL MEASUREMENT W. Perry, T. Feiger, & D. Braff University of California at San Diego, Dept. of Psychiatry, La
Jolla, CA To better understand the possible relationship between impaired cognition and neurophysiological abnormalities in schizophrenia, new paradigms are needed. For example in the case of thought disorder, subjects are typically rated on the basis of their disordered cognition over some period of time, and at some later point tested on a series of neuropsychological or psychophysiological measures. To further our understanding of the cognitive impairments observed in schizophrenia we have reduced the temporal gap between measuring disordered cognition and neurophysiological processes by measuring the production of responses to the Rorschach (using Johnston and Holzman's TDI and Perry and Viglione's Ell) while measuring either skin conductance orienting responses (SCORs) or sensorimotor gating assessed via prepulse inhibition (PPl) of the human startle response. We have studied 15 schizophrenia patients exposed to a cornpater generated version of the Rorschach during which time they are presented with a I I$dB auditory startle pulse and a 74dB prepulse-I I$dB pulse pair. The PPi levels age assessed via EMG recording of orbicularis occuli muscles. Alternatively, subjects are presented with the Rorschach while their SCORs are recorded during their scanning of the stimuli. The findings allow for quantitative and qualitative analyses of the relationship between disordered cognition and information-processing deficits. Morcover, this design allows us to speculate about the neural circuit abnormalities associated with thought disorder as well as the relationship between impaired cognitive processes, which have a largely unknown neural basis, and measures of information-processing, which have a better understood neural basis.
67. LATERALITY, THOUGHT DISORDER, AND MEMORY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA T.C. Manschreck 1.2,3, B.A. Maher2, & C. MillerVentor3
BIOLPSYCHIATRY 633 1994;35:615-747
cation. Left-handed schizophrenic patients were less able to take advantage of increasing context to assist in word recall. The locus of this performance difference was found in the primacy portion of the serial position curve. Left-hanGed subjects also had more evidence of formal thought disorder, specificallythe poverty of content dimension. These results could not be accounted for on the basis of chronicity, neuroleptic usage, or age of onset. Based on related research suggesting a relationship between context memory and MRI frontal volume in schizophrenia, we propose that left handed patients may suffer from a more pronounced form of selective memory disturbance and may also exhibit more frontal atrophy.
68. VISUAL ORGANIZATION, MEMORY AND THOUGHT DISORDER IN SCHIZOPHRENIA L.M. Osbom, S.M. Silverstein, S. Matteson, L. West, D. Kamin, & S. Schwarzkopf University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14620 Impairments in non-verbal memory in schizophrenia are thought, in part, to reflect an impairment in perceptual organization leading to deficient stimulus encoding. It is unclear, however, whether this organizational deficit reflects an impairment in visual-spatial processing (suggesting a right posterior cortical locus), or in generating efficient task strategies (suggesting a frontal cortex locus). This study investigated these different forms of inefficient visual organization in schizophrenia, and their relationships to non-verbal memory performance. The relationship between visual organization impairments and disorganized thinking was also examined. Acute schizophrenics (n- i I), outpatient schizophrenics (n- I 0), chronic treatment refractory schizophrenics (n-I 3) and acutely psychotic nonschizophrenics (n-! 3)completed the Hooper Visual Organization Test, the Rey Complex Figure Test, the Woodcock-Johnson Visual Closure Test, and an abbreviated Rorschach used to obtain Thought Disorder Index (TDi) ratings. Outpatient schizophrenics and psychotic nonschizophrcnics demonstrated superior nonverbal memory compared to chronic schizophrenics, indicating diagnostic and state differences in non.verbal memory performance. Chronic schizophrenics were also characterized by poorly organized task strategies. However, organizational impairment alone could not account entirely for the degree of impaired non.verbal recall. Impaired nonverbal memory in schizophrenia thus appears to reflect visual organizational disturbances mediated by frontal lobe dysfunction, as well as (among chronic schizophrenics) a memory-related disturbance. Among acute schizophrenics, perceptual organization impairment predicted levels of associative and disorganized thought disturbance on the TDI, supporting Breuner's view that a core dysfunction in information organization produces both perceptual and conceptual impairments in schizophrenia.
I Dartmouth Medical School, Concord, NH 03301; 2Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; 3New Hampshire Hospital, Concord, NH 03301
69. PERCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION IN ACUTE AND REMITTED SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS
Numerous observations have suggested that there is a disturbance in laterality functions in schizophrenia. Prominent among these has been a number of reports that left handed schizophrenic patients show more evidence of neurological dysfunction and more severe symptoms than right handed controls. We have previously found that thought disorder was more severe and frequent in left handed than among right handed schizophrenic subjects. Because subtle cognitive disorders are common in schizophrenia, we considered it useful to examine the possible relations between hand preference and cognitive dysfunction in a left handed schizophrenic sample. We investigated the nature of context memory performance, thought disorder, and handedness in 15 left-handed and 15 right-handed schizophrenic patients matched on word recall ability, age, sex, and edu-
S.M. Silverstein !, R.A. Knight 2, L. West t, L.M. Osborn I, D. Kamin I, & S. Schwarzkopf t 1University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester NY 14620; 2Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254 Perceptual organization (PO) dysfunction has been demonstrated in schizophrenia, and may be a stable characteristic of the poor premorbid form of this disorder. Using the Banks and Prinzmetal !)(3 paradigm, we examined perceptual organization in ! 4 acutely ill poor premorbid schizophrenics, ! ! acute good premorbid schizophrenics, 10 outpatient poor
nonresponding is specific to schizophrenia, but OR response frequency may be reduced in schizophrenic and manic patients when compared to normals.
66. OBSERVING THOUGHT DISORDER AND INFORMATION-PROCESSING DEFICITS IN SCHIZOPHRENIA THROUGH PARALLEL MEASUREMENT W. Perry, T. Feiger, & D. Braff University of California at San Diego, Dept. of Psychiatry, La
Jolla, CA To better understand the possible relationship between impaired cognition and neurophysiological abnormalities in schizophrenia, new paradigms are needed. For example in the case of thought disorder, subjects are typically rated on the basis of their disordered cognition over some period of time, and at some later point tested on a series of neuropsychological or psychophysiological measures. To further our understanding of the cognitive impairments observed in schizophrenia we have reduced the temporal gap between measuring disordered cognition and neurophysiological processes by measuring the production of responses to the Rorschach (using Johnston and Holzman's TDI and Perry and Viglione's Ell) while measuring either skin conductance orienting responses (SCORs) or sensorimotor gating assessed via prepulse inhibition (PPl) of the human startle response. We have studied 15 schizophrenia patients exposed to a cornpater generated version of the Rorschach during which time they are presented with a I I$dB auditory startle pulse and a 74dB prepulse-I I$dB pulse pair. The PPi levels age assessed via EMG recording of orbicularis occuli muscles. Alternatively, subjects are presented with the Rorschach while their SCORs are recorded during their scanning of the stimuli. The findings allow for quantitative and qualitative analyses of the relationship between disordered cognition and information-processing deficits. Morcover, this design allows us to speculate about the neural circuit abnormalities associated with thought disorder as well as the relationship between impaired cognitive processes, which have a largely unknown neural basis, and measures of information-processing, which have a better understood neural basis.
67. LATERALITY, THOUGHT DISORDER, AND MEMORY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA T.C. Manschreck 1.2,3, B.A. Maher2, & C. MillerVentor3
BIOLPSYCHIATRY 633 1994;35:615-747
cation. Left-handed schizophrenic patients were less able to take advantage of increasing context to assist in word recall. The locus of this performance difference was found in the primacy portion of the serial position curve. Left-hanGed subjects also had more evidence of formal thought disorder, specificallythe poverty of content dimension. These results could not be accounted for on the basis of chronicity, neuroleptic usage, or age of onset. Based on related research suggesting a relationship between context memory and MRI frontal volume in schizophrenia, we propose that left handed patients may suffer from a more pronounced form of selective memory disturbance and may also exhibit more frontal atrophy.
68. VISUAL ORGANIZATION, MEMORY AND THOUGHT DISORDER IN SCHIZOPHRENIA L.M. Osbom, S.M. Silverstein, S. Matteson, L. West, D. Kamin, & S. Schwarzkopf University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14620 Impairments in non-verbal memory in schizophrenia are thought, in part, to reflect an impairment in perceptual organization leading to deficient stimulus encoding. It is unclear, however, whether this organizational deficit reflects an impairment in visual-spatial processing (suggesting a right posterior cortical locus), or in generating efficient task strategies (suggesting a frontal cortex locus). This study investigated these different forms of inefficient visual organization in schizophrenia, and their relationships to non-verbal memory performance. The relationship between visual organization impairments and disorganized thinking was also examined. Acute schizophrenics (n- i I), outpatient schizophrenics (n- I 0), chronic treatment refractory schizophrenics (n-I 3) and acutely psychotic nonschizophrenics (n-! 3)completed the Hooper Visual Organization Test, the Rey Complex Figure Test, the Woodcock-Johnson Visual Closure Test, and an abbreviated Rorschach used to obtain Thought Disorder Index (TDi) ratings. Outpatient schizophrenics and psychotic nonschizophrcnics demonstrated superior nonverbal memory compared to chronic schizophrenics, indicating diagnostic and state differences in non.verbal memory performance. Chronic schizophrenics were also characterized by poorly organized task strategies. However, organizational impairment alone could not account entirely for the degree of impaired non.verbal recall. Impaired nonverbal memory in schizophrenia thus appears to reflect visual organizational disturbances mediated by frontal lobe dysfunction, as well as (among chronic schizophrenics) a memory-related disturbance. Among acute schizophrenics, perceptual organization impairment predicted levels of associative and disorganized thought disturbance on the TDI, supporting Breuner's view that a core dysfunction in information organization produces both perceptual and conceptual impairments in schizophrenia.
I Dartmouth Medical School, Concord, NH 03301; 2Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; 3New Hampshire Hospital, Concord, NH 03301
69. PERCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION IN ACUTE AND REMITTED SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS
Numerous observations have suggested that there is a disturbance in laterality functions in schizophrenia. Prominent among these has been a number of reports that left handed schizophrenic patients show more evidence of neurological dysfunction and more severe symptoms than right handed controls. We have previously found that thought disorder was more severe and frequent in left handed than among right handed schizophrenic subjects. Because subtle cognitive disorders are common in schizophrenia, we considered it useful to examine the possible relations between hand preference and cognitive dysfunction in a left handed schizophrenic sample. We investigated the nature of context memory performance, thought disorder, and handedness in 15 left-handed and 15 right-handed schizophrenic patients matched on word recall ability, age, sex, and edu-
S.M. Silverstein !, R.A. Knight 2, L. West t, L.M. Osborn I, D. Kamin I, & S. Schwarzkopf t 1University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester NY 14620; 2Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254 Perceptual organization (PO) dysfunction has been demonstrated in schizophrenia, and may be a stable characteristic of the poor premorbid form of this disorder. Using the Banks and Prinzmetal !)(3 paradigm, we examined perceptual organization in ! 4 acutely ill poor premorbid schizophrenics, ! ! acute good premorbid schizophrenics, 10 outpatient poor