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Visuospatial deficits in schizophrenia: central executive and memory subsystems impairments
Eduardo A Leiderman1, Sergio A Strejilevich
1Asociación AREA de investigación y desarrollo en Salud Mental, and Department of Psychology, Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina edule@psi.uba.ar
Schizophrenia Research
|April 22, 2004
Summary
Schizophrenia impairs both object and spatial visual working memory, affecting subsystems and central executive functions. Deficits stem from encoding or retrieval issues, not memory maintenance.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
Background:
- Schizophrenia is associated with visual working memory deficits.
- It remains unclear if these deficits affect specific memory subsystems or the central executive component.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the specific components of visual working memory (object, spatial, central executive) affected in schizophrenia.
- To differentiate between encoding/retrieval versus maintenance deficits.
Main Methods:
- Developed single and dual tasks for object and spatial working memory with 5s and 30s delays.
- Assessed performance in 15 schizophrenic patients and 14 healthy controls.
Main Results:
- Schizophrenic patients performed worse than controls across all tasks and delays.
- Both groups performed worse on object than spatial tasks.
- Schizophrenic patients showed greater dual-task decrements than controls, indicating central executive involvement.
Conclusions:
- Visuospatial deficits in schizophrenia involve both memory subsystems and the central executive.
- The pattern suggests impairments in encoding or retrieval, not solely in memory maintenance.