Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, International University of Sarajevo, Hrasnička cesta 15, Ilidža, 71210 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Roudebush VA Medical Center, Indianapolis, IN, United States; School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, United States.
Psychiatry Res. 2018 Dec;270:1010-1016. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.03.048. Epub 2018 Mar 23.
Many with schizophrenia experiences deficits in social cognition, neurocognition and metacognition. Yet the biological mechanisms which may underpin these cognitive deficits are poorly understood. Two candidate causes of these deficits are disturbances in oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (VP). To explore this we assessed plasma OT and VP in 34 schizophrenia patients and 31 healthy controls. We also concurrently assessed social cognition using the Reading the Mind from the Eyes test, neurocognition using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and metacognition using the Metacognitive Assessment Scale-Abbreviated. Group comparisons revealed lower plasma OT levels in the schizophrenia group. Plasma VP levels did not differ between groups. Correlations revealed that lower levels of OT were associated with poorer levels of metacognitive functioning in the schizophrenia group but not poorer social cognition or neurocognition. In a stepwise multiple regression, plasma OT level, neurocognition and social cognition contributed uniquely to the prediction of metacognition in the schizophrenia group. Results may suggest that disturbance in OT is linked with deficits in metacognition and may interact with other forms of cognitive deficits, interfering with the person's abilities to form a complex and integrated sense of self and others.
许多精神分裂症患者存在社会认知、神经认知和元认知方面的缺陷。然而，这些认知缺陷的生物学机制尚未得到充分理解。催产素 (OT) 和加压素 (VP) 紊乱可能是导致这些缺陷的两个候选原因。为了探究这一点，我们评估了 34 名精神分裂症患者和 31 名健康对照者的血浆 OT 和 VP。我们还同时使用“读心测试”评估社会认知，使用“威斯康星卡片分类测试”评估神经认知，使用“元认知评估量表-简化版”评估元认知。组间比较显示，精神分裂症组的血浆 OT 水平较低。两组间的 VP 水平无差异。相关性分析显示，精神分裂症组中 OT 水平较低与元认知功能较差有关，与社会认知或神经认知较差无关。在逐步多元回归中，血浆 OT 水平、神经认知和社会认知对精神分裂症组的元认知预测具有独特贡献。研究结果表明，OT 紊乱与元认知缺陷有关，可能与其他形式的认知缺陷相互作用，干扰个体形成复杂和综合的自我和他人意识的能力。
