Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet and Hospital, SE-171 76 Stockholm, Sweden.
Psychiatry Res. 2012 Dec 30;200(2-3):144-52. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2012.05.008. Epub 2012 May 30.
Neurocognitive deficits are a core feature of schizophrenia. Deficits covering a wide range of functions have been well documented. However there is still a lack of longitudinal studies regarding the development of neurocognitive impairment. The current study examined the effect of time in long-term treated patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls on cognitive functions. A neurocognitive test-battery was administered to 36 patients and 46 controls on two occasions with approximately 4.5 years interval. Patients performed significantly worse on all measures on both occasions. The only significant decline over time was the ability to shift mental set between different rules or categories (measured by Trail Making Test B). This decline was present in both patients and controls. Improvement on attention (tested by Continuous Performance Test) was found in patients only and improvement on verbal learning (tested by Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test) was found only in controls. Education was significantly related to outcome in patients and age was related to outcome in controls. We conclude that neurocognitive function is relatively stable over 4.5 years in patients with long-term treated schizophrenia, in line with previous scientific research. The authors discuss the impact of age and education and limitations of the study.
神经认知缺陷是精神分裂症的核心特征。已经有大量文献记录了涵盖广泛功能的缺陷。然而，关于神经认知损伤发展的纵向研究仍然缺乏。本研究考察了长期接受精神分裂症治疗的患者和健康对照组随时间推移对认知功能的影响。对 36 名患者和 46 名对照组进行了两次神经认知测试，两次测试之间的间隔约为 4.5 年。患者在两次测试中的所有指标上的表现均明显更差。唯一随时间显著下降的是在不同规则或类别之间转换心理定势的能力（通过 Trail Making Test B 测量）。这种下降在患者和对照组中都存在。只有患者的注意力（通过连续性能测试测试）得到改善，而只有对照组的词语学习能力（通过 Rey 听觉词语学习测试测试）得到改善。教育在患者中与结果显著相关，年龄在对照组中与结果相关。我们得出结论，长期接受治疗的精神分裂症患者的神经认知功能在 4.5 年内相对稳定，与之前的科学研究一致。作者讨论了年龄和教育的影响以及研究的局限性。
