The relationship between neuropsychological deficit and MMPI profile in chronic schizophrenics

The present study was an attempt to examine the relationship between personality variables and neuropsychological deficits in chronic schizophrenic subjects. The groups were composed of 73 chronic schizophrenic subjects with measureable cortical atrophy on CAT-Scan and 118 chronic schizophrenic subjects without identifiable brain damage. The relationship between neuropsychological deficit and personality variables was tested by means of discriminant analysis. As hypothesized, the brain-damaged group was found to have a stronger relationship between the neuropsychological deficits and the personality variables than the nonbrain-damaged group. Canonical correlation was used to demonstrate the underlying neuropsychological pattern which was found related to the personality profile of the MMPI for the entire sample of chronic schizophrenics. A frontal and anterior temporal lobe neuropsychological profile was found related to a particular personality profile.