The broad goal of the project is to advance our understanding of the relationship between aging, cognitive impairment and pathophysiology in schizophrenia. Some, but not all, studies support the neurodegenerative hypothesis that the extent of age- related cognitive decline in schizophrenia is greater than the decline found in normal aging. Discrepant findings may be due to differences in the sensitivity of cognitive tasks used (traditional neuropsychological v. information processing or IP). Specific IP tasks are very sensitive to schizophrenia in younger patients, but aging effects on these tasks have not been studied in older schizophrenia patients. In addition, the findings from IP, brain imaging and psychophysiology studies suggest that the IP resources of patients with schizophrenia are easily overloaded, possibly due to abnormalities in thalamocortical- reticular brain circuits. Despite current interest in this resource-limitations hypothesis, few schizophrenia studies have attempted to directly measure processing resource overload. Pupillary responses recorded during cognitive tasks can be used to index the extent of resource allocation to the task, which is thought to be mediated by the thalamocortical-reticular circuits that may be involved in the pathophysiology of information overload in schizophrenia. METHODS: In cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, a novel, innovative application of pupillography methods will be used to examine the relationship between aging and processing resource limitations indexed on well-studied IP tasks in 100 middle-age and older outpatients with schizophrenia and 100 age-comparable normal comparison participants.
AIMS : To determine whether older patients with schizophrenia show the characteristic patterns of impairments found on well-studied IP tasks in younger patients, whether older patients with schizophrenia show abnormal resource limitations on pupillary response measures, and whether the extent of age- related decline on these measures is greater in older patients with schizophrenia than in nonpsychiatric participants. Abnormal age-related decline on these measures would suggest an abnormally accelerated depletion of processing resources with aging in schizophrenia in late life and would support the neurodegeneration hypothesis.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01MH061381-02
Application #
6392759
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BBBP-5 (01))
Program Officer
Heinssen, Robert K
Project Start
2000-07-01
Project End
2005-06-30
Budget Start
2001-07-01
Budget End
2002-06-30
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2001
Total Cost
$175,000
Indirect Cost
Name
Veterans Medical Research Fdn/San Diego
Department
Type
DUNS #
933863508
City
San Diego
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
92161
Ng, Rowena; Fish, Scott; Granholm, Eric (2015) Insight and theory of mind in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Res 225:169-174
Granholm, Eric; Ben-Zeev, Dror; Fulford, Daniel et al. (2013) Ecological Momentary Assessment of social functioning in schizophrenia: impact of performance appraisals and affect on social interactions. Schizophr Res 145:120-4
Granholm, Eric; Link, Peter; Fish, Scott et al. (2010) Age-related practice effects across longitudinal neuropsychological assessments in older people with schizophrenia. Neuropsychology 24:616-24
Emmerson, Lindsay C; Ben-Zeev, Dror; Granholm, Eric et al. (2009) Prevalence and longitudinal stability of negative symptoms in healthy participants. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 24:1438-44
Emmerson, Lindsay C; Granholm, Eric; Link, Peter C et al. (2009) Insight and treatment outcome with cognitive-behavioral social skills training for older people with schizophrenia. J Rehabil Res Dev 46:1053-8
Granholm, Eric; Fish, Scott C; Verney, Steven P (2009) Pupillometric measures of attentional allocation to target and mask processing on the backward masking task in schizophrenia. Psychophysiology 46:510-20
Granholm, Eric; McQuaid, John R; Link, Peter C et al. (2008) Neuropsychological predictors of functional outcome in Cognitive Behavioral Social Skills Training for older people with schizophrenia. Schizophr Res 100:133-43
Fish, Scott C; Granholm, Eric (2008) Easier tasks can have higher processing loads: task difficulty and cognitive resource limitations in schizophrenia. J Abnorm Psychol 117:355-63
Granholm, Eric; Verney, Steven P; Perivoliotis, Dimitri et al. (2007) Effortful cognitive resource allocation and negative symptom severity in chronic schizophrenia. Schizophr Bull 33:831-42
Granholm, Eric; McQuaid, John R; McClure, Fauzia Simjee et al. (2005) A randomized, controlled trial of cognitive behavioral social skills training for middle-aged and older outpatients with chronic schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry 162:520-9

Showing the most recent 10 out of 14 publications