The association of symptoms of schizophrenia and dysfunction of specific brain regions

Most previous attempts to determine the neurophysiological mechanisms associated with schizophrenia have examined schizophrenia as an unitary, or at most a binary (e.g., positive versus negative), entity. This study made use of a system-level approach in which individual symptoms were examined for their relationship to the dysfunction of specific brain regions. Twenty-seven patients with schizophrenia were assessed for severity of alogia, affective flatness, hallucinations, and delusions. Dysfunction of specific brain regions was assessed using neuropsychological tests sensitive to damage of selective brain regions. Of these, the reliable ones used in the analyses were word fluency for left-frontal functioning, design fluency for right-frontal functioning, and digit-sequences recall for left-temporohippocampal functioning. As expected, alogia was associated with left-frontal dysfunction. Unexpectedly, alogia was also associated with right-frontal dysfunction. In addition, as expected, affective flatness was associated with right-frontal dysfunction, but this association was not significantly greater than that of affective flatness with left-temporohippocampal dysfunction. By contrast, hallucinations and delusions were not associated with dysfunction of any of these brain regions. A neuropsychological model is presented to account for two patterns of affective flatness and alogia: their co-occurrence, associated with general frontal dysfunction, and affective flatness occurring without alogia, associated with right-, but not left-, frontal dysfunction.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Stolar, Neal Myles

Contributors dc:contributor

• Banich, Marie T.

• Biology, Neuroscience
• Psychology, Psychobiology
• Psychology, Clinical
• Psychology, Physiological

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 1992 Stolar, Neal Myles

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

AAI9215887
(UMI)AAI9215887

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/22808