|
Oades, R. D., Müller,
B., Schall, U., Bender, S., Wolstein, J. (2000).
Automatic vs. controlled attention in schizophrenia: Conditioned blocking
and sensory gating. Behavioural Pharmacology, 11, 346.
(Abstract of talk).
Introduction:
Patients with schizophrenia are impaired on tasks that require conscious
control of information processing: more controversial is their performance
where learned automatic processing suffices.
Methods:
We studied 1) the use of these stimulus-processing
strategies in conditioned blocking (CB)[CB reflects the delay in learning
that a stimulus added to a conditioned stimulus may have the same consequences:
here measured with the mouse-in-house task], and 2)
the effect of auditory sensory gating by a prepulse on event-related
potential (ERP) signs reflecting automatic/controlled processing in
a Go/no-go task.
Results:
1) We replicated in 100 DSMIV-patients
our report that impaired CB was more associated with nonparanoid diagnoses
of schizophrenia. Active thought disorder was associated with persistent
CB, while ideas-of-reference related to reduced CB. CB was associated
with neuropsychological signs of fronto-cingulate (Stroop) and
right-parietal (Mooney faces) performance (see poster below and
articles above).
 2)
Patients showed impaired P50 and N1 ERPs in the prepulse/no-prepulse
condition and of the 'P3' in the go/no-go comparison (prepulse-induced
nontarget positivity, PINTP). P50 and N1 stages improved over 3 months
of treatment, correlating with improved negative (figure 1)
and positive symptoms for state related improvements over the right
hemisphere  (figure
2), respectively. PINTP improvements related to a)
less 'disorganisation', b) better
signal-detection and Tower-of-London performance, and c)
increased serotonin and decreased dopamine activity in plasma samples
(see poster below).
Conclusions:
Automatic processing can be impaired, especially where certain negative
symptoms and ideas-of-reference are shown, but is sensitive to treatment.
Appropriate controlled processing requires improved balances in cingulate-parietal
and dopamine-serotonergic functions. Support: DFG OA1/4-1,4-2 & Scha628/4-1
|
|
