Paulus M P, Geyer M A, Braff D L
Department of Psychiatry 0804, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093-0804, USA.
Am J Psychiatry. 1996 May;153(5):714-7. doi: 10.1176/ajp.153.5.714.
This study aimed to quantify the complexity of behavioral sequences of patients with schizophrenia and comparison subjects by using methods from nonlinear dynamical systems theory.
A simple choice task consisting of predicting 500 random right or left appearances of a stimulus was used to obtain binary response sequences in 22 patients with schizophrenia and 16 comparison subjects. Dynamical entropy was measured and the fluctuation spectrum of local subsequence entropies calculated to quantify the degree of interdependency between consecutive responses of patients and comparison subjects.
The response sequences generated by the schizophrenic patients exhibited a higher degree of interdependency than those of comparison subjects. Moreover, schizophrenic patients exhibited significantly less consistency in their response selection and ordering, characterized by a greater contribution of both highly perseverative and highly unpredictable subsequences of responses within a test session.
The result of the biological abnormality underlying schizophrenia may not be a simple increase or decrease of neuropsychological or neurobiological functions. Instead, the observed abnormalities in behavioral patterns reflect a quantifiable dysregulation and disorganization of these functions.
本研究旨在运用非线性动力系统理论的方法，对精神分裂症患者和对照受试者行为序列的复杂性进行量化。
采用一个简单的选择任务，即预测刺激物500次随机的左右出现情况，以获取22例精神分裂症患者和16名对照受试者的二元反应序列。测量动态熵并计算局部子序列熵的波动谱，以量化患者和对照受试者连续反应之间的相互依赖程度。
精神分裂症患者产生的反应序列表现出比对照受试者更高程度的相互依赖性。此外，精神分裂症患者在反应选择和排序上表现出明显更低的一致性，其特征是在一次测试过程中，高度固执和高度不可预测的反应子序列的贡献更大。
精神分裂症潜在的生物学异常结果可能不是神经心理学或神经生物学功能的简单增加或减少。相反，观察到的行为模式异常反映了这些功能可量化的失调和紊乱。
