The purpose of this project is to continue a study already in progress and obtain a full sample size. Memory functioning will be studied--by both behavioral and regional cerebral blood flow techniques--in 60 schizophrenics, 60 major depressives, and 120 non-patient controls. The behavioral techniques include previously validated tests of verbal memory for structured narrative prose; visual memory for a structured geometric figure; and rote learning, free recall, and recognition of a list of unrelated common words selected other discrete neuropsychological tests are also given as control tests. The regional cerebral blood flow technique measures gray matter flow at 16 locations during a resting baseline, during learning of a word list, and during recognition of that list. The design and data analysis are intended to provide a cross- disciplinary test of the hypothesis that schizophrenia and depression have differential verbal memory and visual memory deficits, respectively, but that both have similar deficit in initial attention or registration for memory. These hypotheses address major theories of the etiology and phenomenology of these disorders, with implications for treatment as well as diagnosis. An important additional outcome-valuable in its own right--is the characterization of a normal control group, stratified by age, education, sex, and hospitalization experience. This will permit a much wider and more accurate use--in many research and clinical settings--of the behavioral and blood flow tests used in this proposal.
| Wood, F B; Flowers, D L (1990) Hypofrontal vs. hypo-Sylvian blood flow in schizophrenia. Schizophr Bull 16:413-24 |
