Institute for Social and Psychiatric Initiatives, New York University School of Medicine, 500 1st Ave, NBV 22N14, New York, NY 10016, USA.
J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2012 Spring;24(2):165-75. doi: 10.1176/appi.neuropsych.11070154.
Cognitive and olfactory deficits occur in schizophrenia, but little is known whether sex modifies these deficits. We examined the relationship between olfaction and cognition in 55 schizophrenia patients and 32 healthy controls. Patients and controls demonstrated significant differences performing cognitive tasks. In patients, sex modified all relationships of odor identification to cognition. Female patients showed significantly stronger trends than male patients correlating better smell identification with higher scores on intelligence, memory, and attention, whereas their correlations of odor identification with executive functioning contradicted those of male patients. Odor acuity significantly correlated with several cognitive measures, especially in male patients, in whom better acuity was generally associated with better cognition. Female patients again differed significantly from males; odor acuity correlations with cognitive measures were weaker, or contradicted, those of male patients. These findings indicate significant sex differences in olfactory processing in schizophrenia. Combining the sexes in research analyses may obscure important differences.
精神分裂症患者存在认知和嗅觉缺陷，但对于性别是否会影响这些缺陷知之甚少。我们研究了 55 名精神分裂症患者和 32 名健康对照者的嗅觉与认知之间的关系。患者和对照组在认知任务上表现出显著差异。在患者中，性别改变了气味识别与认知之间的所有关系。女性患者的相关性明显强于男性患者，与嗅觉识别能力的相关性与智力、记忆力和注意力等方面的高分呈正相关，而她们与执行功能的相关性与男性患者相反。嗅觉敏锐度与多项认知测试显著相关，尤其是在男性患者中，嗅觉敏锐度通常与认知能力较好相关。女性患者再次与男性患者有显著差异；嗅觉敏锐度与认知测试的相关性较男性患者弱，或者与男性患者相反。这些发现表明，精神分裂症患者的嗅觉处理存在显著的性别差异。在研究分析中合并性别可能会掩盖重要的差异。
