scholarly journals Characterizing the sensorimotor domain in schizophrenia spectrum disorders

Author(s):  
Stefan Fritze ◽  
Fabio Sambataro ◽  
Katharina M. Kubera ◽  
Geva A. Brandt ◽  
Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg ◽  
...  

AbstractThe rapidly evolving field of sensorimotor neuroscience reflects the scientific and clinical relevance of sensorimotor abnormalities as an intrinsic component of the disease process, e.g., in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). Despite previous efforts, however, prevalence rates and relationships between different categories of sensorimotor abnormalities in SSD patients are still subject of ongoing debate. In this study, we examined five different categories of the sensorimotor domain (Neurological soft signs (NSS), parkinsonism, catatonia, akathisia, and tardive dyskinesia) according to well-established clinical ratings scales and the respective cut-off criteria in a sample of 131 SSD patients. We used a collection of statistical methods to better understand prevalence, overlap and heterogeneity, as well as psychopathological and cognitive correlates of sensorimotor abnormalities. 97.7% of the SSD patients considered by this study exhibited at least one categorically defined sensorimotor abnormality that tended to co-vary within three different sensorimotor subgroups (moderate, hyperkinetic and hypokinetic). Finally, hyperkinetic and hypokinetic groups differed significantly in their neurocognitive performance compared with the moderate group. The results suggest different patterns of clinical overlap, highlight the relationship between sensorimotor and cognitive domain and provide clues for further neurobiological studies.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Carruthers ◽  
Gemma Brunetti ◽  
Susan Rossell

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders are chronic and debilitating mental illnesses characterised by both cognitive impairments and sleep deficits. In this systematic review protocol, we outline an approach to examine the available literature investigating the relationship between sleep and cognition in individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorder.


Author(s):  
Rebecca J. Hamblin ◽  
Jennifer Moonjung Park ◽  
Monica S. Wu ◽  
Eric A. Storch

Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often have good insight into the irrational nature of their obsessions and the excessive character of their compulsions, but insight exists along a continuum and is markedly poor in some patients. This chapter reviews the assessment and phenomenological correlates of variable insight in OCD in both pediatric and adult populations. It reviews the definition of insight and its relationship to the evolution of diagnostic criteria for obsessive-compulsive disorder, as well as the major assessment tools used to measure and quantify insight for clinical and research purposes. The relationships between insight and clinical characteristics of OCD, including symptom severity, comorbidity, and treatment response are reviewed, followed by a review of neurobiological correlates of insight and the relationship between poor insight and schizophrenia spectrum disorders.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yujia Zhang ◽  
Sara K. Kuhn ◽  
Laura Jobson ◽  
Shamsul Haque

Abstract Background Patients suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders demonstrate various cognitive deficiencies, the most pertinent one being impairment in autobiographical memory. This paper reviews quantitative research investigating deficits in the content, and characteristics, of autobiographical memories in individuals with schizophrenia. It also examines if the method used to activate autobiographical memories influenced the results and which theoretical accounts were proposed to explain the defective recall of autobiographical memories in patients with schizophrenia. Methods PsycINFO, Web of Science, and PubMed databases were searched for articles published between January 1998 and December 2018. Fifty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria. All studies implemented the generative retrieval strategy by inducing memories through cue words or pictures, the life-stage method, or open-ended retrieval method. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement guidelines were followed for this review. Results Most studies reported that patients with schizophrenia retrieve less specific autobiographical memories when compared to a healthy control group, while only three studies indicated that both groups performed similarly on memory specificity. Patients with schizophrenia also exhibited earlier reminiscence bumps than those for healthy controls. The relationship between comorbid depression and autobiographical memory specificity appeared to be independent because patients’ memory specificity improved through intervention, but their level of depression remained unchanged. The U-shaped retrieval pattern for memory specificity was not consistent. Both the connection between the history of attempted suicide and autobiographical memory specificity, and the relationship between psychotic symptoms and autobiographical memory specificity, remain inconclusive. Patients’ memory specificity and coherence improved through cognitive training. Conclusions The overgeneral recall of autobiographical memory by patients with schizophrenia could be attributed to working memory, the disturbing concept of self, and the cuing method implemented. The earlier reminiscence bump for patients with schizophrenia may be explained by the premature closure of the identity formation process due to the emergence of psychotic symptoms during early adulthood. Protocol developed for this review was registered in PROSPERO (registration no: CRD42017062643).


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S181-S182
Author(s):  
Lebogang Phahladira ◽  
Laila Asmal ◽  
Bonginkosi Chiliza ◽  
Hilmar Luckhoff ◽  
Stefan du Plessis ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The relationship between schizophrenia and depression is complex. Longitudinal studies on the course of depression in first episode schizophrenia populations are scarce and there are conflicting results on the predictive value of some baseline measures. Methods We conducted an open label longitudinal cohort study which included 126 patients with first-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders treated with long-acting antipsychotic medication over 24 months. Depression was assessed at three monthly intervals using the Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia. Changes in depression over time were assessed using the linear mixed-effect models for continuous repeated measures. The relationship between depression and other clinical parameters was assessed with regression models. Results Depressive symptoms were most prominent at baseline and showed highly significant reductions in the first three months (p<0.0001). Majority of the patients with depression improved with antipsychotic medication alone and we found associations between depressive symptoms with insight and poorer quality of life, however only illness awareness (p=0.0035) was the only significant predictor on depression in our regression analysis. There were a few differences between patients who experienced depression during the acute phase of treatment and those in the post-acute phase. Discussion Our findings suggest that depression in schizophrenia is common and generally responds well to treatment. The relationship between depression and insight has implications for further treatment considerations


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler C. Dalal ◽  
Anne-Marie Muller ◽  
Ryan A Stevenson

Recent literature has suggested that atypical sensory processing observed in schizophrenia may contribute to clinical symptomatology. Specifically, multisensory temporal processing was shown to be strongly associated with hallucination severity. Here, we explored whether this relationship extends to a broader spectrum of schizotypal traits, in line with the DSM-5’s shift towards a more dimensional approach to diagnostic criteria within Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders. Fifty-one participants completed an audiovisual temporal order judgment task as a measure of multisensory temporal processing and self-reported levels of schizotypal traits using the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire. These data revealed two novel findings. First, less precise multisensory temporal processing was related to higher overall levels of schizotypal traits. Second, this relationship was specific to the cognitive-perceptual domain, and more specifically, the Unusual Perceptual Experiences and Odd Beliefs or Magical Thinking measures. Previous literature has shown that less precise multisensory temporal processing was related to the severity of hallucinations in schizophrenia. These findings provide a novel, direct extension of this previous work by demonstrating that this relationship applies to traits across the schizophrenia spectrum, including at the subclinical level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 275 ◽  
pp. 115-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanie Pellet ◽  
Philippe Golay ◽  
Alexandra Nguyen ◽  
Caroline Suter ◽  
Alban Ismailaj ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Caitlin O. B. Yolland ◽  
Sean P. Carruthers ◽  
Wei Lin Toh ◽  
Erica Neill ◽  
Philip J. Sumner ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective: There is ongoing debate regarding the relationship between clinical symptoms and cognition in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). The present study aimed to explore the potential relationships between symptoms, with an emphasis on negative symptoms, and social and non-social cognition. Method: Hierarchical cluster analysis with k-means optimisation was conducted to characterise clinical subgroups using the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms and Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms in n = 130 SSD participants. Emergent clusters were compared on the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery, which measures non-social cognition and emotion management as well as demographic and clinical variables. Spearman’s correlations were then used to investigate potential relationships between specific negative symptoms and emotion management and non-social cognition. Results: Four distinct clinical subgroups were identified: 1. high hallucinations, 2. mixed symptoms, 3. high negative symptoms, and 4. relatively asymptomatic. The high negative symptom subgroup was found to have significantly poorer emotion management than the high hallucination and relatively asymptomatic subgroups. No further differences between subgroups were observed. Correlation analyses revealed avolition-apathy and anhedonia-asociality were negatively correlated with emotion management, but not non-social cognition. Affective flattening and alogia were not associated with either emotion management or non-social cognition. Conclusions: The present study identified associations between negative symptoms and emotion management within social cognition, but no domains of non-social cognition. This relationship may be specific to motivation, anhedonia and apathy, but not expressive deficits. This suggests that targeted interventions for social cognition may also result in parallel improvement in some specific negative symptoms.


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