Wright Bernice, Peters Emmanuelle, Ettinger Ulrich, Kuipers Elizabeth, Kumari Veena
King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), Department of Psychology, London, UK.
University of Bonn, Department of Psychology, Bonn, Germany.
Schizophr Res. 2016 May;173(1-2):101-8. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2016.03.017. Epub 2016 Mar 24.
Cognitive impairment, particularly in attention, memory and executive function domains, is commonly present and associated with poor functional outcomes in schizophrenia. In healthy adults, environmental noise adversely affects many cognitive domains, including those known to be compromised in schizophrenia. This pilot study examined whether environmental noise causes further cognitive deterioration in a small sample of people with schizophrenia. Eighteen outpatients with schizophrenia on stable doses of antipsychotics and 18 age and sex-matched healthy participants were assessed on a comprehensive cognitive battery including measures of psychomotor speed, attention, executive functioning, working memory, and verbal learning and memory under three different conditions [quiet: ~30dB(A); urban noise: building site noise, 68-78dB(A); and social noise: background babble and footsteps from a crowded hall without any discernible words, 68-78dB(A)], 7-14days apart, with counter-balanced presentation of noise conditions across participants of both groups. The results showed widespread cognitive impairment in patients under all conditions, and noise-induced impairments of equal magnitude on specific cognitive functions in both groups. Both patient and healthy participant groups showed significant disruption of delayed verbal recall and recognition by urban and social noise, and of working memory by social noise, relative to the quiet condition. Performance under urban and social noise did not differ significantly from each other for any cognitive measure in either group. We conclude that noise has adverse effects on the verbal and working memory domains in schizophrenia patients and healthy participants. This may be particularly problematic for patients as it worsens their pre-existing cognitive deficits.
认知障碍，尤其是在注意力、记忆力和执行功能领域，在精神分裂症中普遍存在且与不良功能预后相关。在健康成年人中，环境噪音会对许多认知领域产生不利影响，包括那些在精神分裂症中已知受损的领域。这项初步研究调查了环境噪音是否会导致一小部分精神分裂症患者的认知进一步恶化。对18名服用稳定剂量抗精神病药物的精神分裂症门诊患者和18名年龄及性别匹配的健康参与者，在三种不同条件下[安静：约30dB(A)；城市噪音：建筑工地噪音，68 - 78dB(A)；社交噪音：拥挤大厅中的背景嘈杂声和脚步声，无任何可辨认的话语，68 - 78dB(A)]，间隔7 - 14天，对包括心理运动速度、注意力、执行功能、工作记忆以及言语学习和记忆等方面的综合认知能力进行评估，两组参与者的噪音条件呈现相互平衡。结果显示，所有条件下患者均存在广泛的认知障碍，且两组在特定认知功能上由噪音引起的损伤程度相同。相对于安静条件，患者组和健康参与者组在城市噪音和社交噪音下，延迟言语回忆和识别以及社交噪音下的工作记忆均受到显著干扰。在城市噪音和社交噪音条件下，两组在任何认知测量上的表现彼此之间均无显著差异。我们得出结论，噪音对精神分裂症患者和健康参与者的言语和工作记忆领域有不利影响。这对患者来说可能尤其成问题，因为它会加剧他们原有的认知缺陷。
