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Neuropsychological functioning in MRI-derived subgroups of schizophrenia
Abstracts /Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 15 (2000) 653-850
759
Validity of facial affect processing tasks in schizophrenia Forrest TJ Allen DN, van Kammen DE! Individuals with schizophrenia exhibit impairments in their ability to recognize and label facial emotions. Facial affect processing deficits may account for interpersonal deficits commonly observed in schizophrenia. A number of testing paradigms have been used to evaluate facial affect in schizophrenia. The present study was designed to examine the validity of one such test (see Feinberg, et al., 1986). We examined 34 male inpatients with SCID diagnoses of schizophrenia. Facial-affect recognition was evaluated using photographs of human faces developed by Ekman and Friesen. The test paradigm included 4 conditions: 1) inverted-face, identitymatching test (inverted to serve as a basic visuospatial skill or non-facial control task) in which subjects identify pairs of faces as same or different; 2) standard facial (upright) identity-matching task; 3) affect matching task, in which subjects are shown pairs of faces and asked to indicate whether the pair shows the ‘same emotion’ or ‘different emotion’; and 4) affect-labeling test, in which subjects are asked to choose from among 7 emotions to describe the affect of individually presented faces. The construct validity of these 4 individual facial affect conditions was evaluated via correlations with standard measures of neuropsychological function, psychiatric symptoms and premorbid adjustment. Neuropsychological tests assessed attention/concentration, frontal-executive functions, and memory. Positive, negative and affective symptoms were assessed using the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). Premorbid adjustment was assessed using the Premorbid Adjustment Scale (PAS). Results of the correlational analyses revealed numerous significant (p < 0.05) correlations between the 4 facial affect tasks and the neuropsychological, symptom, and premorbid adjustment variables. The pattern of correlations suggested that the facial affect tasks assessed different underlying constructs. These results provide support for the convergent and divergent validity of the facial affect tasks, and are discussed in light of current literature regarding facial affect processing in schizophrenia.
Neuropsychological functioning in MFU-derived subgroups of schizophrenia Cicerello AR, Cullurn CM, Kingsbury S, Nair TR, Garver DL. This study examined neuropsychological functioning in 2 MRI-derived subgroups of patients with familial schizophrenia. Patients who showed progressive ventricular enlargement observed across serial MRI scans (n= 6) were compared with patients whose ventricular size remained static over time (n = 10). The groups were administered a battery of neurocognitive tests and compared with respect to patterns of performance. Results indicated that there were no differences in age, race, level of psychotic symptomatology, DSM-IV subtype, age of illness onset, or duration of illness, although the ‘expanding’ group had approximately 2 more years of schooling than the ‘static’ group. The primary differences in mean neurocognitive performances were in the areas of attention and nonverbal memory, which were significantly worse in the static group relative to the expanding group. In fact, results of a discriminant function analysis revealed that the attention factor alone correctly classified 81.25% of subjects. Despite the lack of distinctively different patterns of neurocognitive performance, the static group had more areas of impairment and showed a larger percentage of patients who fell in the impaired range on a majority of measures. The results of this study provide evidence of clinically meaningful differences between these 2 MRI-derived subgroups of schizophrenia and further underscore the heterogeneity of the illness.
759
Validity of facial affect processing tasks in schizophrenia Forrest TJ Allen DN, van Kammen DE! Individuals with schizophrenia exhibit impairments in their ability to recognize and label facial emotions. Facial affect processing deficits may account for interpersonal deficits commonly observed in schizophrenia. A number of testing paradigms have been used to evaluate facial affect in schizophrenia. The present study was designed to examine the validity of one such test (see Feinberg, et al., 1986). We examined 34 male inpatients with SCID diagnoses of schizophrenia. Facial-affect recognition was evaluated using photographs of human faces developed by Ekman and Friesen. The test paradigm included 4 conditions: 1) inverted-face, identitymatching test (inverted to serve as a basic visuospatial skill or non-facial control task) in which subjects identify pairs of faces as same or different; 2) standard facial (upright) identity-matching task; 3) affect matching task, in which subjects are shown pairs of faces and asked to indicate whether the pair shows the ‘same emotion’ or ‘different emotion’; and 4) affect-labeling test, in which subjects are asked to choose from among 7 emotions to describe the affect of individually presented faces. The construct validity of these 4 individual facial affect conditions was evaluated via correlations with standard measures of neuropsychological function, psychiatric symptoms and premorbid adjustment. Neuropsychological tests assessed attention/concentration, frontal-executive functions, and memory. Positive, negative and affective symptoms were assessed using the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). Premorbid adjustment was assessed using the Premorbid Adjustment Scale (PAS). Results of the correlational analyses revealed numerous significant (p < 0.05) correlations between the 4 facial affect tasks and the neuropsychological, symptom, and premorbid adjustment variables. The pattern of correlations suggested that the facial affect tasks assessed different underlying constructs. These results provide support for the convergent and divergent validity of the facial affect tasks, and are discussed in light of current literature regarding facial affect processing in schizophrenia.
Neuropsychological functioning in MFU-derived subgroups of schizophrenia Cicerello AR, Cullurn CM, Kingsbury S, Nair TR, Garver DL. This study examined neuropsychological functioning in 2 MRI-derived subgroups of patients with familial schizophrenia. Patients who showed progressive ventricular enlargement observed across serial MRI scans (n= 6) were compared with patients whose ventricular size remained static over time (n = 10). The groups were administered a battery of neurocognitive tests and compared with respect to patterns of performance. Results indicated that there were no differences in age, race, level of psychotic symptomatology, DSM-IV subtype, age of illness onset, or duration of illness, although the ‘expanding’ group had approximately 2 more years of schooling than the ‘static’ group. The primary differences in mean neurocognitive performances were in the areas of attention and nonverbal memory, which were significantly worse in the static group relative to the expanding group. In fact, results of a discriminant function analysis revealed that the attention factor alone correctly classified 81.25% of subjects. Despite the lack of distinctively different patterns of neurocognitive performance, the static group had more areas of impairment and showed a larger percentage of patients who fell in the impaired range on a majority of measures. The results of this study provide evidence of clinically meaningful differences between these 2 MRI-derived subgroups of schizophrenia and further underscore the heterogeneity of the illness.