Search

Background: Measure of insight into cognition self-report (MIC-SR) has been designed for the assessment of insight into cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, focusing on the areas with known impairment, including memory, problem solving, and attention. Objectives: The current work strives to put the concurrent validity and reliability of the Persian version of MIC-SR to the test. Methods: The standard forward-backward method was utilized for translating the MIC-SR from English to Persian. In total, 66 individuals received the Persian version of the MIC-SR (33 schizophrenia patients), the interview-based cognition assessment (Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale (SCoRS)), and a standardized performance-based cognitive battery (the brief assessment of cognition in schizophrenia (BACS)). Coronbach’s alpha was used for the calculation of internal consistency, while intercorrelations among the MIC-SR subscales were calculated as well. Then, Pearson correlations were calculated between the MIC-SR subscales and SCoRS and BACS for the purpose of examining the validity. Results: The Cronbach’s alpha value obtained for the Persian MIC-SR was 0.83. The entirety of Persian MIC-SR measures was considerably correlated with the SCoRS patient’s rating. Moreover, considerable correlations were found among the WHO-quality of life and Persian MIC-SR subscales of attention and problem solving. However, none of the correlations between the BACS subscales and MIC-SR were significant. Conclusions: The Persian version of the MIC-SR demonstrated satisfying psychometric properties that can assess awareness of cognitive impairments in patients with schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor performance on the antisaccade task has been proposed as a candidate endophenotype in schizophrenia. Caveats to this proposal, however, include inconsistent findings in first-degree relatives of individuals with schizophrenia, and substantial heterogeneity in individuals with the disorder. In this study, we examined antisaccade performance in patients and relatives, and sought to establish whether antisaccade measures could differentiate between two patients clusters identified in the Western Australian Family Study of Schizophrenia with either pervasive cognitive deficits (CD) or cognitively spared (CS). Ninety-three patients (CD = 47, CS = 46), 99 relatives and 62 healthy controls carried out a standard antisaccade task. Results showed: (i) significantly greater error rate, and prolonged latencies to correct responses and self-correction saccades in patients compared with controls; (ii) high error rates in relatives of poorly performing patients; (iii) longer latencies of self-correction saccades in relatives compared to controls; and (iv) higher error rate and longer latencies of self-correction saccades in the CD subgroup compared with CS. Unaffected relatives as a group were unimpaired in error rate as compared to healthy controls. These findings suggest that the antisaccade error rate and latency of self-correction saccades are useful measures in specific applications of genetic research in schizophrenia, without fully meeting endophenotype co-familiality requirements. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

Background: There are similar findings about the similarities and differences of cognitive dysfunctions in patients with schizophrenia and methamphetamine-induced psychosis (MIP). This study aimed to compare cognitive functioning in schizophrenia and MIP patients, using a performance-based cognitive assessment battery and an interview-based assessment of cognition. Methods: Three groups participated in this study including, (a) 30 patients with MIP, (b) 30 patients with schizophrenia, and (c) 30 healthy individuals. All participants received the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS), a standardized performance-based cognitive battery, the Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale (SCoRS), and the interview-based assessment of cognition. Findings: Both groups of patients with schizophrenia and MIP performed poorly on all the BACS cognitive domains compared with the healthy controls. The two patient groups were significantly different on the three BACS subscales including verbal fluency, verbal memory, and speed of information processing. Schizophrenia patients performed worse than the MIP group concerning these three subscales. However, the two patient groups were similar in executive function, working memory, and motor speed. Moreover, the SCoRS-informant, SCoRS-global, and PANSS-negative significantly differed between schizophrenia and MIP patients. Conclusion: Although cognitive dysfunctions are mostly similar in patients with MIP and schizophrenia, there are some differences especially in the functions related to prefrontal and temporal lobes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial processing deficits are the reason for many daily life problems of schizophrenia (SCZ) patients. In this study, we aimed to examine the possibility of abnormal bias to one hemifield, in form of hemispatial neglect and extinction, in auditory modality in SCZ. Twenty-five SCZ patients and 25 healthy individuals were compared on speech tasks to study the auditory neglect and extinction, as well as an auditory localization task for studying neglect. In the speech tasks, participants reproduced some nonsense syllables, played from one or two speakers on the right and/or left sides. On the localization task, examinees discriminated the subjective location of the noise stimuli presented randomly from five speakers. On the speech task, patients had significantly lower hit rates for the right ear compared with controls (p = 0.01). While healthy controls showed right ear advantage, SCZs showed a left ear priority. In the localization task, although both groups had a left-side bias, this bias was much more prominent for the patients (all p < 0.05). SCZ could potentially alter the auditory spatial function, which may appear in the form of auditory neglect and extinction on the right side, depending on the characteristics of patient population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The altered serum profiles of several trace elements have been reported in Schizophrenia (SCZ). This study was designed to elucidate whether the serum levels of Copper (Cu) and Magnesium (Mg), the two essential trace elements which contribute to neurotransmitter transmission, are altered in patients with SCZ. We also investigated whether there is an interrelation between cognitive functioning and the serum levels of Cu and Mg. Methods: Sixty patients with SCZ and 30 healthy controls participated in this study. The patient group was divided into the following: i) early patients (n=35, â¤5 years of illness initiation), and ii) chronic patients (n=25, â¥5 years of illness duration). The serum levels of Cu and Mg were measured by atomic absorption spectroscopy and ion-selective electrode potentiometry, respectively. To assess cognitive abilities, a Persian adaptation of the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS) was administered. Results: The present research results revealed significantly higher Cu serum levels in both patient groups [early patients (M=94.6), chronic patients (M=97.5)], compared to the controls (M=71.0) (P<0.001); however, no significant difference was observed among the study groups for Mg [patients with the recent onset (M=2.0), chronic patients (M=2.0), and controls (M=1.9)] P=0.1. While the serum Cu profile of healthy individuals revealed a negative correlation with working memory (r=-0.42, P=0.02), and executive functioning (r=-0.40, P=0.03), no significant correlation was observed between Cu serum levels of patients and BACS cognitive domains. Conclusion: findings suggested that the high Cu serum concentration might impact the cognitive decline in healthy individuals; however, no significant correlation was observed in the Patients; i.e. most likely because cognition is severely impaired in SCZ. Additional studies examining trace elements in drug-naïve patients with SCZ are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Spatial working memory (SWM) and mental imagery involve the processes of encoding, maintaining, and transforming spatial information. Patients with schizophrenia show impairments in both SWM and mental imagery. Yet, there is scarce evidence on the relationship between impairment in the two cognitive functions in the patients. Objectives: The goal of the present study was to investigate motor imagery ability and SWM function and their relationship in schizophrenic patients. Methods: The present case-control study compared the performance of 18 schizophrenic patients and 18 normal persons. The motor imagery was evaluated with the mental hand rotation task (HRT) and SWM was examined with the Dot test of visuospatial working memory (VSWM) across the three delays. Results: The comparison of HRTresults between the patients and the controls showed a slower and less accurate performance of the patients. On the Dot test of VSWM, performance was significantly less accurate at the three delays in schizophrenic patients relative to the controls. Moreover, there was a negative significant correlation between mental rotation accuracy and distance inaccuracy across the three delays in schizophrenic patients. Conclusions: These results provide further evidence that impaired passive maintenance of internal representation might be the underlying mechanism of motor imagery dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]