Effortful cognitive resource allocation and negative symptom severity in chronic schizophrenia.

Full Abstract

BACKGROUND:
The relationship between negative symptoms, early visual information-processing deficits, and effortful processing resource allocation was investigated.

METHODS:
Older patients with chronic schizophrenia (n = 58) and healthy controls (n = 71) participated. Pupillary responses were recorded during performance of the span of apprehension task (blocks of 3- and 10-letter arrays) as an index of resource allocation or mental effort during the task.

RESULTS:
Patients and controls showed larger pupillary responses in higher relative to lower processing loads both during array processing and just prior to array onset (preparation). Both groups, therefore, invested more cognitive effort preparing for and then processing larger arrays. A subgroup of patients with abnormally small pupillary responses and impaired performance showed greater negative symptom severity relative to a subgroup of patients with normal pupillary responses. Smaller pupillary responses in the patients were also significantly correlated with greater negative symptom severity, independent of positive symptom severity. Patients with reduced effortful resource allocation, therefore, exhibited greater negative symptomatology. A subgroup of patients with normal pupillary responses still showed impaired detection accuracy relative to controls, suggesting that reduced cognitive effort or resource allocation problems cannot account for impairments in early visual information processing in this subgroup.

CONCLUSIONS:
The study illustrates important relationships between cognitive effort and performance that can impact conclusions about the nature of cognitive impairments and associations between negative symptoms and neurocognition in schizophrenia.

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Author information

Author/s: Granholm, Eric (E); Verney, Steven P (SP); Perivoliotis, Dimitri (D); Miura, Tamie (T);

Affiliation: Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System (116B), 3350 La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego, CA 92161, USA. egranholm(-atsign-)ucsd.edu

Grants: 1P30MH066248 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS) ; R01MH071410 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS) ; R01MH61381 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Schizophrenia bulletin (Schizophr Bull), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-May; vol 33 (issue 3) : pp 831-42

Dates: Created 2007/05/18; Completed 2007/08/17; Revised 2008/11/21;

PMID: 16956985, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Aged
Arousal
Attention
Chronic Disease
Cognition Disorders - diagnosis; psychology
Depression - diagnosis; psychology
Discrimination Learning
Female
Field Dependence-Independence
Humans
Male

Male
Middle Aged
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Physical Exertion
Psychomotor Performance
Psychotic Disorders - diagnosis; psychology
Reaction Time
Reference Values
Reflex, Pupillary
Schizophrenia - diagnosis
Schizophrenic Psychology
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