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Effortful cognitive resource allocation and negative symptom severity in chronic schizophrenia
Eric Granholm1, Steven P Verney, Dimitri Perivoliotis
1Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System (116B), 3350 La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego, CA 92161, USA. egranholm@ucsd.edu
Schizophrenia Bulletin
|September 8, 2006
Summary
Schizophrenia patients with reduced cognitive effort allocation showed more negative symptoms. This suggests effortful processing is linked to cognitive deficits and negative symptoms in schizophrenia.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Cognitive Psychology
Background:
- Investigated the link between negative symptoms, visual processing deficits, and cognitive resource allocation in schizophrenia.
- Examined effortful processing in older patients with chronic schizophrenia and healthy controls.
Purpose of the Study:
- To understand how cognitive effort relates to negative symptoms and information processing in schizophrenia.
- To determine if reduced cognitive effort explains early visual processing impairments.
Main Methods:
- Recorded pupillary responses during a span of apprehension task in 58 schizophrenia patients and 71 controls.
- Used pupillary responses as an index of mental effort and resource allocation during varying task loads.
Main Results:
- Both groups increased cognitive effort for larger arrays. Patients with smaller pupillary responses had greater negative symptom severity.
- Reduced cognitive effort allocation in patients correlated significantly with negative symptomatology.
- Some patients with normal effort showed impaired visual processing, indicating other factors are involved.
Conclusions:
- Cognitive effort and performance are interconnected, influencing interpretations of cognitive impairments in schizophrenia.
- Findings highlight the association between negative symptoms, neurocognition, and effortful processing deficits.
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