Impaired verbal memory is associated with impaired motor performance in schizophrenia: relationship to brain structure

• Published in: Schizophrenia research Vol. 43; no. 1; pp. 21 - 32
• Main Authors: Manschreck, Theo C, Maher, Brendan A, Candela, Steven F, Redmond, Deborah, Yurgelun-Todd, Deborah, Tsuang, Ming
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 25.05.2000; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Attention - physiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Mapping; Cerebral Cortex - physiopathology; Female; Frontal Lobe; Frontal Lobe - physiopathology; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical sciences; Memory; Mental Recall - physiology; Middle Aged; Motor; MRI; Neuropsychological Tests; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychomotor Disorders - diagnosis; Psychomotor Disorders - physiopathology; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychoses; Redundancy; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - diagnosis; Schizophrenia - physiopathology; Schizophrenic Psychology; Verbal Learning - physiology; Schizophrenia; Frontal Lobe; Motor; MRI; Redundancy; Memory; Human; Memory disorder; Frontal lobe; Cognitive disorder; Pathophysiology; Use; Stimulus redundancy; Psychomotor response; Central nervous system; Cognition; Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging; Psychosis; Verbal memory; Symptomatology; Language; Predictability; Information processing; Medical imagery; Clinical investigation; Comparative study; Brain (vertebrata)
• ISSN: 0920-9964; 1573-2509
• DOI: 10.1016/S0920-9964(99)00179-6

Deficient ability to take advantage of predictable elements in the performance of cognitive tasks has been proposed as an underlying factor for a number of deviances in schizophrenia. In a schizophrenic sample ( n=39), we propose and test the view that certain memory and motor anomalies arise because of a compromise in the capacity to take advantage of the redundant (predictable) features of cognitive tasks. Results demonstrate a relationship between reduced capacity to take advantage of predictable features of two different cognitive processing tasks, one verbal memory, and the other motor. Poorer verbal recall on high-redundancy word lists was associated with a reduced ability to produce synchronous finger tapping in response to a high redundancy auditory stimulus, and inversely correlated with formal thought disorder ratings. These relationships, we suggest, reflect a specific and common schizophrenic deficit in the use of redundancies, not attributable to a generalized deficiency in performance. Structural imaging evidence from a subsample of these subjects ( n=16) implicates frontal areas as the locus of this cognitive impairment.