David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Recognition of self and other linked to social function in schizophrenia
By Andrew Czyzewski
19 November 2008
Am J Psychiatry 2008; 165: 1465-1472
The difficulty schizophrenia patients have in recognizing information as "self" or "other" is intimately linked to social function, say US scientists who believe the two may have common neurocognitive underpinnings.
Melissa Fisher (University of California, San Francisco) and co-workers claim that a greater understanding of these processes will spur the development of more informed treatment approaches and ultimately improved quality of life for patients.
The team comments in the American Journal of Psychiatry: "Chronic psychosis has long been conceptualized as a disorder of the self and the self's relationship to the other - aspects of the illness that are most troubling to patients and to society at large.
"Additionally, since social cognitive performance is now recognized as a crucial factor mediating functional outcome for patients, it must increasingly become a focus of treatment."
The researchers investigated the potential relationship between these two functions, noting prior brain imaging studies suggesting a link.
They recruited 91 outpatients with schizophrenia and 30 mentally healthy controls. They were assessed with basic tests for social cognition including facial memory, facial emotion identification, and vocal prosody recognition, and also for source memory of previously learned words that were self-generated, externally presented, and entirely new.
Schizophrenia patients demonstrated significantly lower source memory for self-generated items (self-referential source memory) relative to controls but showed intact external source memory. Patients also showed significant social function impairments relative to controls.
Among the control group, self-referential source memory and social cognition were strongly correlated; however, this relationship was markedly diminished in schizophrenia patients.
"In healthy subjects, this specific ability to recognize 'self as source' is strongly and uniquely related to their ability to identify facial and vocal emotion and to recognize faces, likely because we normally process social stimuli (the 'other') in part by activating internal representations of our own sense of 'self,'" Fisher et al comment.
They add: "Subjects with schizophrenia, however, are impaired in this process - because of, we suggest, disturbances in the neurocognitive systems that normally facilitate the accurate processing of both self-referential and social information."
Abstract
By Andrew Czyzewski
19 November 2008
Am J Psychiatry 2008; 165: 1465-1472
The difficulty schizophrenia patients have in recognizing information as "self" or "other" is intimately linked to social function, say US scientists who believe the two may have common neurocognitive underpinnings.
Melissa Fisher (University of California, San Francisco) and co-workers claim that a greater understanding of these processes will spur the development of more informed treatment approaches and ultimately improved quality of life for patients.
The team comments in the American Journal of Psychiatry: "Chronic psychosis has long been conceptualized as a disorder of the self and the self's relationship to the other - aspects of the illness that are most troubling to patients and to society at large.
"Additionally, since social cognitive performance is now recognized as a crucial factor mediating functional outcome for patients, it must increasingly become a focus of treatment."
The researchers investigated the potential relationship between these two functions, noting prior brain imaging studies suggesting a link.
They recruited 91 outpatients with schizophrenia and 30 mentally healthy controls. They were assessed with basic tests for social cognition including facial memory, facial emotion identification, and vocal prosody recognition, and also for source memory of previously learned words that were self-generated, externally presented, and entirely new.
Schizophrenia patients demonstrated significantly lower source memory for self-generated items (self-referential source memory) relative to controls but showed intact external source memory. Patients also showed significant social function impairments relative to controls.
Among the control group, self-referential source memory and social cognition were strongly correlated; however, this relationship was markedly diminished in schizophrenia patients.
"In healthy subjects, this specific ability to recognize 'self as source' is strongly and uniquely related to their ability to identify facial and vocal emotion and to recognize faces, likely because we normally process social stimuli (the 'other') in part by activating internal representations of our own sense of 'self,'" Fisher et al comment.
They add: "Subjects with schizophrenia, however, are impaired in this process - because of, we suggest, disturbances in the neurocognitive systems that normally facilitate the accurate processing of both self-referential and social information."
Abstract
