Faculty of Health, Science, Social Care and Education, Kingston University, London, United Kingdom.
Division of Psychology, Department of Life Sciences, College of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Brunel University of London, London, United Kingdom.
J Psychiatr Res. 2024 Oct;178:397-404. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2024.08.018. Epub 2024 Aug 14.
Cognitive impairments affect functional capacity in individuals with schizophrenia (SZH), but their neural basis remains unclear. The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and the Stroop Task (SCWT), are paradigmatic tests which have been used extensively for examining executive function in SZH. However, few studies have explored how deficits on these tasks link to brain volume differences commonly seen in SZH. Here, for the first time, we tested associations between FreeSurfer-derived frontal brain volumes and performance on both WCST and SCWT, in a well-matched sample of 57 SZH and 32 control subjects. We also explored whether these associations were dissociable from links to symptom severity in SZH. Results revealed correlations between volumes and task performance which were unique to SZH. In SZH only, volumes of right middle frontal regions correlated with both WCST and Stroop performance: correlation coefficients were significantly different to those present in the control group, highlighting their specificity to the patient group. In the Stroop task, superior frontal regions also showed associations with Stroop interference scores which were unique to SZH. These findings provide important detail around how deficits on these two paradigmatic executive function tasks link to brain structural differences in SZH. Results align with converging evidence suggesting that neuropathology within right middle frontal regions (BA9 and BA46) might be of particular import in SZH. No volumetric associations with symptom severity were found, supporting the notion that the structural abnormalities underpinning cognitive deficits in SZH differ from those associated with symptomatology.
认知障碍会影响精神分裂症（SZH）患者的功能能力，但它们的神经基础仍不清楚。威斯康星卡片分类测试（WCST）和斯特鲁普任务（SCWT）是用于检查 SZH 执行功能的典型测试。然而，很少有研究探讨这些任务的缺陷与 SZH 中常见的脑体积差异之间的联系。在这里，我们首次在一个匹配良好的 57 名 SZH 和 32 名对照组受试者样本中，测试了基于 FreeSurfer 的额叶脑体积与 WCST 和 SCWT 表现之间的关联。我们还探讨了这些关联是否与 SZH 中症状严重程度的联系不同。结果表明，与任务表现相关的体积与 SZH 相关。仅在 SZH 中，右中额叶区域的体积与 WCST 和斯特鲁普表现相关：相关系数与对照组中的显著不同，突出了它们对患者组的特异性。在斯特鲁普任务中，额上回区域也与斯特鲁普干扰评分存在关联，这与 SZH 相关。这些发现提供了关于这两个典型执行功能任务的缺陷与 SZH 中脑结构差异之间的联系的重要细节。结果与越来越多的证据一致，表明右侧中额叶区域（BA9 和 BA46）内的神经病理学可能对 SZH 特别重要。未发现与症状严重程度有关的体积关联，这支持了这样一种观点，即 SZH 认知缺陷的结构异常与与症状相关的异常不同。
