The visual backward masking deficit in Schizophrenia

• Published in: Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 301 - 311
• Main Author: McClure, Robert K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01.02.2001; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Antipsychotic Agents - therapeutic use; backward masking; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition Disorders - etiology; Humans; intermediate phenotype; Medical sciences; neurocognitive deficits; Perceptual Masking; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychoses; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - drug therapy; Schizophrenic Psychology; visual masking; visual-spatial working memory; neurocognitive deficits; visual masking; interstimulus interval (ISI); visual-spatial working memory; intermediate phenotype; schizophrenia; critical stimulus duration (CSD); backward masking; critical interstimulus interval (CSI); Mood disorder; Short term; Human; Cognitive disorder; Neuroleptic; Pathogenesis; Psychotropic; Memory; Vision disorder; Schizophrenia; Bipolar disorder; Cognition; Review; Psychosis; Chemotherapy; Phenotype; Visual stimulus; Treatment; Negative symptom; Information processing; Delayed time
• ISSN: 0278-5846
• DOI: 10.1016/S0278-5846(00)00166-4

1. Subjects with schizophrenia have an impairment very early in visual information processing, requiring a longer minimal stimulus duration than normal controls to identify a target stimulus. Subjects with schizophrenia have a deficit in visual backward masking, identifying fewer target stimuli than normal controls when the target is briefly obscured by a second visual stimulus When interstimulus interval is increased parametrically, subjects with schizophrenia have trouble identifying target stimuli at intervals that do not affect the performance of normal controls. 2. The visual backward masking deficit: is trait-related; is associated with negative symptoms but has also been associated with measures of thought disorder; may or may not be related to treatment with neuroleptic medication or other neurocognitive deficits of schizophrenia; is of unclear etiology, though researchers have speculated that it involves magnocellular channels and/or the cortical dorsal visual processing stream; has been shown to be heritable in one study. 3. If visual information processing deficits are observed in the unaffected siblings of schizophrenic patients, it may be a candidate intermediate phenotype.