Auditory Working Memory Impairments in Individuals at Familial High Risk for Schizophrenia

Overview

Journal Neuropsychology

Publisher American Psychological Association

Specialty Neurology

Date 2012 May 9

PMID 22563872

Citations 20

Authors

Larry J Seidman

Eric C Meyer

Anthony J Giuliano

Hans C Breiter

Jill M Goldstein

William S Kremen

Heidi W Thermenos

Rosemary Toomey

William S Stone

Ming T Tsuang

Stephen V Faraone

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objectives: The search for predictors of schizophrenia has accelerated with a growing focus on early intervention and prevention of psychotic illness. Studying nonpsychotic relatives of individuals with schizophrenia enables identification of markers of vulnerability for the illness independent of confounds associated with psychosis. The goal of these studies was to develop new auditory continuous performance tests (ACPTs) and evaluate their effects in individuals with schizophrenia and their relatives.

Methods: We carried out two studies of auditory vigilance with tasks involving working memory (WM) and interference control with increasing levels of cognitive load to discern the information-processing vulnerabilities in a sample of schizophrenia patients, and two samples of nonpsychotic relatives of individuals with schizophrenia and controls. Study 1 assessed adults (mean age = 41), and Study 2 assessed teenagers and young adults age 13-25 (M = 19).

Results: Patients with schizophrenia were impaired on all five versions of the ACPTs, whereas relatives were impaired only on WM tasks, particularly the two interference tasks that maximize cognitive load. Across all groups, the interference tasks were more difficult to perform than the other tasks. Schizophrenia patients performed worse than relatives, who performed worse than controls. For patients, the effect sizes were large (Cohen's d = 1.5), whereas for relatives they were moderate (d = ~0.40-0.50). There was no age by group interaction in the relatives-control comparison except for participants <31 years of age.

Conclusions: Novel WM tasks that manipulate cognitive load and interference control index an important component of the vulnerability to schizophrenia.

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