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Patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) consistently show prospective memory (PM) impairments, and the technique of implementation intentions has been shown to improve PM performance in these patients. PM is considered to have prospective and retrospective components. However, it remains unclear which component of PM is impaired in patients with SCZ and which component(s) is facilitated by implementation intentions (II). The present study aimed to examine these two issues. Forty-two patients with SCZ and 42 matched healthy controls were randomly assigned to an II group or a typical instruction group. All participants were administered a color-matching PM task. Results showed that, using a multinomial-modeling approach, patients with SCZ exhibited impairment in the retrospective component of PM. In addition, while II improved the prospective PM component in healthy controls, both prospective and retrospective PM components in patients with SCZ were improved. Together, our results shed light on the mechanism of PM impairment in SCZ patients and the mechanism of II in improving PM performance., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

We comprehensively examined prospective memory (PM) performance in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and explored the cognitive and psychopathological correlates of PM in this clinical population. Fifty-eight OCD patients and 58 healthy controls were assessed with computer-based PM tasks and related neurocognitive functions, and the participants also reported frequency of PM failures and compulsive behaviours in daily life. OCD patients had intact activity-based PM performance but had lower accuracy in time-based PM and longer reaction time to event-based PM cues compared to healthy controls. Among the neurocognitive functions, both the WCST (perseverative error) and the letter number span correlated with time-based PM. OCD patients reported similar number of PM failures in daily life as controls, which correlated with their intact event-based PM performance, suggesting a generally good insight into their PM functions. Neither clinician-assessed nor self-reported OCD symptoms correlated with PM performance. This study indicates that PM impairment tends to vary with the PM cue types in OCD patients. In addition, certain executive functions (i.e., mental shifting and updating) may contribute to time-based PM impairment in patients with OCD., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Prospective memory (PM) deficits have been consistently found in people with schizophrenia. Although there is evidence to suggest that PM deficits may be putative markers for schizophrenia, no longitudinal study has investigated the persistence of PM deficits., Aims: We examined whether PM deficits persist after the onset of schizophrenia, and compared the trajectories of time- and event-based PM performance 12 months after illness onset. We also examined whether the association between PM and clinical symptoms changes over time 12 months after illness onset., Method: We recruited 58 individuals with first-episode schizophrenia for a 12-month follow-up study. Comparison participants were 37 healthy individuals who were matched in terms of demographics and intelligence with the patient group. PM functions and clinical symptoms were measured at baseline, the sixth month, and the twelfth month, using a computerized PM task and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale., Results: People with schizophrenia showed a gradual improvement in both time- and event-based PM 12 months after illness onset. However, compared to event-based PM, deficit in time-based PM persisted and was relatively stable. At baseline, PM functions were not associated with clinical symptoms. However, an association between time-based PM and PANSS positive and general symptoms emerged 12 months after the onset of schizophrenia., Conclusion: People with first-episode schizophrenia exhibit persistent time-based PM deficit. Our findings support that PM deficit, in particular, time-based deficit, may be a putative neuropsychological marker of schizophrenia., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember to perform actions in the future. Schizophrenia spectrum disorders show impairments in PM but neural correlates of these impairments remain unclear. The present study aimed to examine brain activation during PM to identify impairments in individuals with schizotypal personality features., Method: Nineteen participants with schizotypal features and 22 healthy controls participated in a functional MRI experiment while performing a PM task., Results: Results showed that the prefrontal cortex (including Brodmann Area [BA] 10), middle temporal gyrus, and precuneus were activated when performing the PM task compared with baseline. The schizotypal and control groups did not differ in behavioral PM performance. However, participants with schizotypal features showed decreased activations in the inferior and medial frontal lobes (BA 45, and 8)., Conclusions: These results confirmed that the PM network involves prefrontal cortex, including BA 10. The lower activation in prefrontal cortex of individuals with schizotypal features when performing a PM task indicates brain activation abnormality. Notably, this abnormality may occur in the absence of any behavioral manifestation. Our findings support the hypothesis of frontal lobe involvement in PM deficits observed in individuals with schizotypal features.

Schizophrenia and normal aging have both been associated with structural and physiological changes in the prefrontal and temporal cortex and impairments in prospective memory (PM). This study aimed to compare PM performance in patients with schizophrenia, healthy older, and healthy younger individuals. Computerized event- and time-based PM tasks were administered to 30 patients with schizophrenia, 30 healthy older adults, and 30 healthy younger adults. The healthy older adults and patients with schizophrenia demonstrated deficits in time-based PM when compared with the healthy younger adults. However, only healthy older adults were found to be impaired in event-based PM when compared with the healthy younger adults. These findings suggest that patients with schizophrenia show a similar pattern of performance on one type but not another type of PM and provide only partial support for the accelerated aging hypothesis of schizophrenia.

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to carry out future intentions when prompted by a cue, and previous studies have suggested that emotional PM cues may enhance PM performance. This study examined the influence of emotional cues on PM performance in patients with schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. All participants were required to respond to emotional or neutral PM cues while completing a working memory task. Healthy participants showed improved PM performance with positive and negative cues. Patients with major depressive disorder were not impaired in PM performance and showed significant improvement in PM performance when cued by negative but not positive cues. Patients with schizophrenia had impaired PM performance irrespective of cue emotionality. In addition, the majority of patients with schizophrenia failed to show an emotional enhancement effect, and only those who had normal arousal ratings for negative PM cues showed emotional enhancement effect. These findings show for the first time that patients with schizophrenia exhibit PM impairments even with emotional cues, and suggest that arousal may be a critical factor for schizophrenia patients to utilize emotional cues to facilitate execution of future actions. In patients with major depressive disorder, our findings suggest that the negative bias in attention and retrospective memory may also extend to memory for future actions. These novel findings have both theoretical and clinical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]