Turning it Upside Down: Areas of Preserved Cognitive Function in Schizophrenia |
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Authors: | James M Gold Britta Hahn Gregory P Strauss James A Waltz |
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Institution: | (1) Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, P.O. Box 21247, Baltimore, MD 21228, USA |
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Abstract: | Patients with schizophrenia demonstrate marked impairments on most clinical neuropsychological tests. These findings suggest
that patients suffer from a generalized form of cognitive impairment, with little evidence of spared performance documented
in several large meta-analytic reviews of the clinical literature. In contrast, we review evidence for relative sparing of
aspects of attention, procedural memory, and emotional processing observed in studies that have employed experimental approaches
adapted from the cognitive and affective neuroscience literature. These islands of preserved performance suggest that the
cognitive deficits in schizophrenia are not as general as they appear to be when assayed with clinical neuropsychological
methods. The apparent contradiction in findings across methods may offer important clues about the nature of cognitive impairment
in schizophrenia. The documentation of preserved cognitive function in schizophrenia may serve to sharpen hypotheses about
the biological mechanisms that are implicated in the illness. |
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