Neurological Unit of Clinical Research, Lisbon Faculty of Medicine, Lisbon, Portugal.
Psychiatry Res. 2011 Sep 30;189(2):180-4. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2011.03.007. Epub 2011 Apr 5.
Patients with schizophrenia tend to neglect their own pain and are known to have impairments in the processing of facial expressions. However, the sensitivity to dynamic expressions of pain has not been studied in these patients. Our goal was to test this ability in schizophrenia and to probe the underlying cognitive processes. We hypothesized that patients would have a reduced sensitivity to expressions of pain and that this impairment would correlate with deficits in attention, working memory, basic emotions recognition and with positive symptoms. We applied a battery of tests composed of the Comprehensive Affect Testing System (CATS), Sensitivity to Expressions of Pain (STEP), Toulouse-Pierón, Stroop and Digit Span tests to two groups of individuals, 27 patients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia and 27 healthy volunteers, matched on age, education and gender. Symptoms were assessed using Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. The sensitivity to expressions of pain was found to be impaired in schizophrenia and a bias to attribute lower pain intensities may be present at some discrimination levels. STEP performance was correlated with working memory but not with Affect Naming or attention. These findings may contribute to the improvement of cognitive remediation strategies.
精神分裂症患者往往会忽略自己的疼痛，并且已知他们在处理面部表情方面存在障碍。然而，对于这些患者的动态疼痛表达的敏感性尚未进行研究。我们的目标是在精神分裂症患者中测试这种能力，并探究潜在的认知过程。我们假设患者对疼痛的表达会有较低的敏感性，并且这种损伤与注意力、工作记忆、基本情绪识别以及阳性症状的缺陷有关。我们应用了一系列测试，包括综合情感测试系统（CATS）、疼痛表达敏感性测试（STEP）、图卢兹-皮隆测试、斯特鲁普测试和数字跨度测试，对两组个体进行了测试，一组是 27 名被诊断为精神分裂症的患者，另一组是 27 名年龄、教育和性别相匹配的健康志愿者。使用简明精神病评定量表评估症状。发现精神分裂症患者对疼痛的表达的敏感性降低，在某些辨别水平上可能存在归因于较低疼痛强度的偏差。STEP 表现与工作记忆相关，但与情感命名或注意力无关。这些发现可能有助于改进认知矫正策略。
