To whom correspondence should be addressed; David Geffen School of Medicine, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA, 760 Westwood Plaza, Rm 77-361, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1759, US; tel: 310-268-3376, fax: 310-268-4056, e-mail:
Schizophr Bull. 2013 Nov;39(6):1192-200. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbt131. Epub 2013 Sep 26.
Social cognitive impairment is prominent in schizophrenia, and it is closely related to functional outcome. Partly for these reasons, it has rapidly become a target for both training and psychopharmacological interventions. However, there is a paucity of reliable and valid social cognitive endpoints that can be used to evaluate treatment response in clinical trials. Also, clinical studies in schizophrenia have benefited rather little from the surge of activity and knowledge in nonclinical social neuroscience. The National Institute of Mental Health-sponsored study, "Social Cognition and Functioning in Schizophrenia" (SCAF), attempted to address this translational challenge by selecting paradigms from social neuroscience that could be adapted for use in schizophrenia. The project also evaluated the psychometric properties and external validity of the tasks to determine their suitability for multisite clinical trials. This first article in the theme section presents the goals, conceptual background, and rationale for the SCAF project.
社会认知障碍在精神分裂症中较为突出，且与功能结果密切相关。部分基于这些原因，社会认知障碍已迅速成为训练和精神药理学干预的目标。然而，目前缺乏可靠且有效的社会认知终点，无法用于评估临床试验中的治疗反应。此外，精神分裂症的临床研究从非临床社会神经科学的大量活动和知识中获益甚少。由美国国立精神卫生研究所（National Institute of Mental Health）资助的研究项目“精神分裂症的社会认知和功能（Social Cognition and Functioning in Schizophrenia，SCAF）”试图通过从社会神经科学中选择可适用于精神分裂症的范式来应对这一转化挑战。该项目还评估了任务的心理测量特性和外部有效性，以确定其是否适合多站点临床试验。这篇主题部分的第一篇文章介绍了 SCAF 项目的目标、概念背景和基本原理。
