Object-location memory in schizophrenia: interference of symbolic threatening content.

INTRODUCTION

Monitoring environmental stimuli for their emotional relevance is inherently associated with spatial processing. In schizophrenia, deficits in spatial working memory on one hand, and abnormal emotion processing on the other, have been documented, but these have not been related to each other. In the present study, we investigated whether a specific aspect of spatial memory (i.e., object-location memory), is impaired in patients with schizophrenia. Moreover, we hypothesised that symbolic threatening content of objects would interfere with spatial processing in patients with schizophrenia but not in healthy controls.

METHODS

Spatial memory for symbolic pictorial stimuli was assessed in 40 patients with schizophrenia compared to 41 healthy matched control participants using an object-relocation task.

RESULTS

Patients with schizophrenia performed worse in relocating objects, independent of overall intellectual ability. More specifically, patients were particularly worse in the relocation of objects with a symbolic threatening content.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that a threatening semantic emotional content of schematic stimuli can interfere with spatial processing in schizophrenia. We hypothesise that a disproportional influence of the amygdala on other brain areas, such as the hippocampus, might underlie this specific emotional interference.