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Saccadic and attentional abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia
P Maruff1, J Danckert, C Pantelis
1Neurophysiology and Neurovisual Research Unit, Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria, Australia.
Psychological Medicine
|October 30, 1998
Summary
Patients with schizophrenia struggle to inhibit reflexive attention shifts, impacting both eye movements and covert attention. This voluntary control deficit is a key finding in schizophrenia research.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Ophthalmology
Background:
- Schizophrenia is associated with impaired inhibition of reflexive attentional shifts.
- Investigating whether this deficit is specific to oculomotor control or extends to covert attention.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if attentional shift inhibition deficits in schizophrenia are modality-specific.
- To examine covert attentional shifts in patients with schizophrenia.
Main Methods:
- 15 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 15 controls performed antisaccade and covert orientating tasks (COVAT).
- COVAT involved varying cue-target probabilities to manipulate voluntary and reflexive orientating systems.
- Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was varied across conditions.
Main Results:
- Schizophrenia patients exhibited normal visually guided saccades but increased errors and latency on antisaccade tasks.
- Patients with schizophrenia failed to inhibit reflexive covert attention shifts using voluntary strategies.
- Performance was normal when only reflexive orientating was required or when voluntary and reflexive goals aligned.
Conclusions:
- The reflexive orientating mode appears intact in chronic schizophrenia.
- Patients with schizophrenia demonstrate a reduced capacity to use voluntary control to inhibit reflexive orientating.
- This impairment in voluntary attentional control affects both overt and covert shifts.