Brain Behavior Laboratory, Sha׳ar Menashe Mental Health Center, Mobile Post Hefer 37806, Israel; Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104-6021, USA.
Psychiatry Res. 2015 Mar 30;226(1):277-83. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2014.12.062. Epub 2015 Jan 13.
Memory is impaired in schizophrenia patients but it is not clear whether this is specific to the illness and whether different types of memory (verbal and nonverbal) or memories in different cognitive domains (executive, object recognition) are similarly affected. To study relationships between memory impairments and schizophrenia we compared memory functions in 77 schizophrenia patients, 58 elderly healthy individuals and 41 young healthy individuals. Tests included verbal associative and logical memory and memory in executive and object recognition domains. We compared relationships of memory functions to each other and to other cognitive functions including psychomotor speed and verbal and spatial working memory. Compared to the young healthy group, schizophrenia patients and elderly healthy individuals showed similar severe impairment in logical memory and in the ability to learn new associations (NAL), and similar but less severe impairment in spatial working memory and executive and object memory. Verbal working memory was significantly more impaired in schizophrenia patients than in the healthy elderly. Verbal episodic memory impairment in schizophrenia may share common mechanisms with similar impairment in healthy aging. Impairment in verbal working memory in contrast may reflect mechanisms specific to schizophrenia. Study of verbal explicit memory impairment tapped by the NAL index may advance understanding of abnormal hippocampus dependent mechanisms common to schizophrenia and aging.
精神分裂症患者的记忆力受损，但目前尚不清楚这是否是该疾病所特有的，以及不同类型的记忆（言语和非言语）或不同认知领域的记忆（执行功能、物体识别）是否受到类似的影响。为了研究记忆损伤与精神分裂症之间的关系，我们比较了 77 名精神分裂症患者、58 名老年健康个体和 41 名年轻健康个体的记忆功能。测试包括言语联想和逻辑记忆以及执行功能和物体识别领域的记忆。我们比较了记忆功能之间以及与其他认知功能（包括运动速度和言语及空间工作记忆）之间的关系。与年轻健康组相比，精神分裂症患者和老年健康个体在逻辑记忆和新联想学习能力（NAL）方面表现出相似的严重损伤，在空间工作记忆以及执行和物体记忆方面也表现出相似但程度较轻的损伤。言语工作记忆在精神分裂症患者中比在健康老年人中受损更为严重。精神分裂症患者的言语情景记忆损伤可能与健康衰老中的相似损伤具有共同的机制。相比之下，言语工作记忆的损伤可能反映了精神分裂症特有的机制。对 NAL 指数所反映的言语外显记忆损伤的研究可能有助于深入了解精神分裂症和衰老共有的异常海马依赖机制。
