Peskin Noa, Koren Dan, Gabay Shai
Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel.
The Institute of Information Processing and Decision Making, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel.
Schizophr Res Cogn. 2020 Jul 21;22:100185. doi: 10.1016/j.scog.2020.100185. eCollection 2020 Dec.
The literature has long emphasized the involvement of cortical and subcortical networks in executive function impairments among patients with schizophrenia. However, previous studies have not examined the relative involvement of monocular (mostly subcortical) versus binocular (mostly cortical) neural tracks in patients' EF deficits. Patients with schizophrenia and healthy comparisons were administered a dichotic version of the Stroop task, in which eye-of-origin manipulation was employed to isolate the involvement of monocular (mostly subcortical; thalamic regions) versus binocular (mostly cortical; extrastriate cortex) visual pathways. The eye-of-origin manipulation, in which a color patch (e.g., a green patch) was presented to one eye, and a word (e.g., "RED") to the other eye, enabled a split of the conflicting information between the two monocular channels. This results in the presentation of conflicting information to the higher cortical regions, but not to the lower subcortical structures. In the Stroop color task, when the monocular neural channels were not exposed to the conflicting information, the differences in task performance between the patients and the HCs significantly increased, and only the patients exhibited larger task conflict. When monocular neural channels were not exposed to the conflicting information, a robust dysfunction of the patients' group was observed. This abnormality might result from impairments in cortical regions or reduced computational power available for solving the conflict. However, additional studies that take into account the resolution of monocular and binocular neural channels are needed to enrich our understanding of the interplay between cortical and subcortical mechanisms in patients' EF deficits.
长期以来，文献一直强调皮质和皮质下网络在精神分裂症患者执行功能障碍中的作用。然而，以往的研究并未考察单眼（主要是皮质下）与双眼（主要是皮质）神经通路在患者执行功能缺陷中的相对作用。对精神分裂症患者和健康对照者进行了双耳版的斯特鲁普任务，其中采用了眼源操纵来分离单眼（主要是皮质下；丘脑区域）与双眼（主要是皮质；纹外皮层）视觉通路的作用。眼源操纵是指将一个色块（如绿色块）呈现给一只眼睛，而将一个单词（如“红色”）呈现给另一只眼睛，从而能够将冲突信息在两个单眼通道之间进行分离。这导致冲突信息呈现给较高的皮质区域，而不是较低的皮质下结构。在斯特鲁普颜色任务中，当单眼神经通道未暴露于冲突信息时，患者与健康对照者在任务表现上的差异显著增加，且只有患者表现出更大的任务冲突。当单眼神经通道未暴露于冲突信息时，观察到患者组存在明显的功能障碍。这种异常可能是由于皮质区域受损或解决冲突可用的计算能力降低所致。然而，需要进行更多考虑单眼和双眼神经通道分辨率的研究，以丰富我们对患者执行功能缺陷中皮质和皮质下机制相互作用的理解。
