Roesch-Ely Daniela, Hornberger Eva, Weiland Stephan, Hornstein Christiane, Parzer Peter, Thomas Christine, Weisbrod Matthias
Department of General Adult Psychiatry, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
Schizophr Res. 2009 Feb;107(2-3):255-61. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2008.09.021. Epub 2008 Nov 11.
Cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, especially those related to prefrontal cortex (PFC) functions, influence functional outcome. There is evidence for sex differences in cognition in schizophrenia, but the results in the literature are still controversial.
This study evaluated different modalities of working memory (WM) and executive control (EC), functions that are both associated with the PFC, between sexes in schizophrenic patients and controls.
We used a battery of neuropsychological tests for assessing auditory, spatial, and visual-matching WM and used a dual task for assessing EC. The study included 50 inpatients (25 female) partially remitted and taking atypical neuroleptics, as well as 40 controls (20 female) matched for age and education.
Significant sex differences were found in the dual task; female patients detected fewer correct trials than male patients and controls did. Moreover, female patients performed significantly worse in the single visual subtest of the dual task. For the controls, no sex differences were found. Males showed higher positive symptoms than females, but no other differences in psychopathology, disease characteristics, or extrapyramidal symptoms were found between sexes.
The present study shows an absence of sex differences in WM in healthy subjects and in patients with schizophrenia. However, in the dual task and in the single visual subtest, female patients performed worse than males. This finding suggests that in contrast to males, nonacute female inpatients show an underlying attentional deficit that may contribute to impairment in higher-order functions such as EC.
精神分裂症中的认知缺陷，尤其是那些与前额叶皮质（PFC）功能相关的缺陷，会影响功能结局。有证据表明精神分裂症患者在认知方面存在性别差异，但文献中的结果仍存在争议。
本研究评估了精神分裂症患者和对照组男女之间工作记忆（WM）和执行控制（EC）的不同模式，这两种功能均与PFC相关。
我们使用了一系列神经心理学测试来评估听觉、空间和视觉匹配的WM，并使用双重任务来评估EC。该研究包括50名部分缓解且正在服用非典型抗精神病药物的住院患者（25名女性），以及40名年龄和教育程度匹配的对照组（20名女性）。
在双重任务中发现了显著的性别差异；女性患者检测到的正确试验次数少于男性患者和对照组。此外，女性患者在双重任务的单一视觉子测试中表现明显更差。对于对照组，未发现性别差异。男性的阳性症状比女性更高，但在精神病理学、疾病特征或锥体外系症状方面未发现其他性别差异。
本研究表明，健康受试者和精神分裂症患者在WM方面不存在性别差异。然而，在双重任务和单一视觉子测试中，女性患者的表现比男性更差。这一发现表明，与男性不同，非急性女性住院患者存在潜在的注意力缺陷，这可能导致诸如EC等高级功能受损。
