Acts of control in schizophrenia: dissociating the components of inhibition

Background. Inhibitory deficits have been frequently reported in schizophrenia. Such deficits are usually associated with activities of prefrontal cortex and related networks. An understanding of intentional inhibitory control requires knowledge of how actions are planned and initiated and the components involved in stopping these actions. Methods. Patients with schizophrenia, a psychosis comparison group and a healthy control group participated in a visual choice reaction time (go) task and attempted to inhibit their responses to the go task when an auditory ‘stop’ signal was heard. Results. Schizophrenia patients demonstrated significantly slower response execution but the estimated speed of inhibition was not significantly different from that of healthy controls. Both patient groups were impaired in their ability to inhibit a response across a range of stop-signal delays. The poorer performance of schizophrenia patients only was related to a difficulty in reliably triggering the inhibitory response. Conclusions. Impaired response inhibition is not unique to schizophrenia. However, the nature of their problem is markedly different from that of other psychopathological groups. Possible neural mechanisms underpinning difficulties in triggering inhibitory responses and in the voluntary initiation of actions in schizophrenia are considered.

[1]  R. Passingham.  The frontal lobes and voluntary action , 1993 .

[2]  D. Weinberger,et al.  Evidence of dysfunction of a prefrontal-limbic network in schizophrenia: a magnetic resonance imaging and regional cerebral blood flow study of discordant monozygotic twins. , 1992, The American journal of psychiatry.

[3]  G. Logan.  On the ability to inhibit thought and action , 1984 .

[4]  J. Lohr,et al.  A disturbance in the control of muscle force in neuroleptic-naive schizophrenic patients , 1994, Biological Psychiatry.

[5]  G. Logan,et al.  On the ability to inhibit simple and choice reaction time responses: a model and a method. , 1984, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[6]  L. Petrangeli,et al.  Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry , 1997, Epidemiologia e Psichiatria Sociale.

[7]  J. Sweet,et al.  Identification of brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and normal medical patients using a brief neuropsychological screening battery , 1985 .

[8]  J. Bradshaw,et al.  Use of Advance Information in Patients with Schizophrenia , 2000, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology.

[9]  Anne B. Sereno,et al.  Antisaccades and smooth pursuit eye movements in schizophrenia , 1995, Biological Psychiatry.

[10]  G D Logan,et al.  Response inhibition in AD/HD, CD, comorbid AD/HD + CD, anxious, and control children: a meta-analysis of studies with the stop task. , 1998, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[11]  W. Perlstein,et al.  The Stroop task and attention deficits in schizophrenia: a critical evaluation of card and single-trial Stroop methodologies. , 1998, Neuropsychology.

[12]  H. Meltzer,et al.  Voluntary movement dysfunction in schizophrenics , 1989, Biological Psychiatry.

[13]  Human supplementary sensorimotor area. Electrical stimulation and movement-related potential studies. , 1995, Advances in neurology.

[14]  K. Nuechterlein.  Reaction time and attention in schizophrenia: a critical evaluation of the data and theories. , 1977, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[15]  R. Rafal,et al.  The neurology of inhibition: Integrating controlled and automatic processes. , 1994 .

[16]  Y. Matsue,et al.  Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements and Voluntary Control of Saccades in the Antisaccade Task in Schizophrenic Patients , 1994, The Japanese journal of psychiatry and neurology.

[17]  R. Douglas,et al.  Frontal lobe lesions in man cause difficulties in suppressing reflexive glances and in generating goal-directed saccades , 2004, Experimental Brain Research.

[18]  R. Murray,et al.  Saccadic eye movements in families multiply affected with schizophrenia: the Maudsley Family Study. , 1998, The American journal of psychiatry.

[19]  G. Logan,et al.  Inhibitory Control, Impulsiveness, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder , 2022 .

[20]  Motor Disorder in Psychiatry: Towards a Neurological Psychiatry , 1994 .

[21]  E. Johnstone,et al.  Neuropsychological assessment of young people at high genetic risk for developing schizophrenia compared with controls: preliminary findings of the Edinburgh High Risk Study (EHRS) , 1999, Psychological Medicine.

[22]  T. Robbins,et al.  Dissociation in prefrontal cortex of affective and attentional shifts , 1996, Nature.

[23]  H. Spinnler.  The prefrontal cortex, Anatomy, physiology, and neuropsychology of the frontal lobe, J.M. Fuster. Raven Press, New York (1980), IX-222 pages , 1981 .

[24]  Klaus P. Ebmeier,et al.  Estimation of Premorbid Intelligence in Schizophrenia , 1992, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[25]  E. Bullmore,et al.  Mapping Motor Inhibition: Conjunctive Brain Activations across Different Versions of Go/No-Go and Stop Tasks , 2001, NeuroImage.

[26]  E. Naito,et al.  Movement-related potentials associated with motor inhibition under different preparatory states during performance of two visual stop signal paradigms in humans , 1996, Neuropsychologia.

[27]  L. Schad,et al.  Sensorimotor Cortex and Supplementary Motor Area Changes in Schizophrenia , 1995, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[28]  D. Bjorklund,et al.  The Ontogeny of Inhibition Mechanisms: A Renewed Approach to Cognitive Development , 1993 .

[29]  Bruce F. Pennington,et al.  An interactive framework for examining prefrontal cognitive processes. , 1996 .

[30]  J. Fuster.  Frontal lobes , 1993, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[31]  R. Knight,et al.  Abnormal premovement brain potentials in schizophrenia , 1992, Schizophrenia Research.

[32]  Robert Kail,et al.  The Role of a Global Mechanism in Developmental Change in Speed of Processing , 1993 .

[33]  Taha Karaman,et al.  Bereitschaftpotential in schizophrenia , 1997, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[34]  G. Logan,et al.  Development of inhibitory control across the life span. , 1999, Developmental psychology.

[35]  J. Nigg.  On inhibition/disinhibition in developmental psychopathology: views from cognitive and personality psychology and a working inhibition taxonomy. , 2000, Psychological bulletin.

[36]  G. Logan,et al.  In search of the point of no return: the control of response processes. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[37]  R. Murray,et al.  Problem-solving and spatial working memory in patients with schizophrenia and with focal frontal and temporal lobe lesions , 1999, Schizophrenia Research.

[38]  G. E. Alexander,et al.  Parallel organization of functionally segregated circuits linking basal ganglia and cortex. , 1986, Annual review of neuroscience.

[39]  Bruce F. Pennington,et al.  Executive functions and working memory: Theoretical and measurement issues. , 1996 .

[40]  C. Pantelis,et al.  What have We Learned from Functional Imaging Studies in Schizophrenia? the Role of Frontal, Striatal and Temporal Areas , 1996, The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry.

[41]  B. Pennington.  Dimensions of executive functions in normal and abnormal development. , 1997 .

[42]  J Duffy,et al.  The orbitomedial frontal syndrome. , 1993, Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists.

[43]  R. Freedman,et al.  Familial transmission of two independent saccadic abnormalities in schizophrenia , 1998, Schizophrenia Research.

[44]  P. Holzman,et al.  A new look at reaction time in schizophrenia , 2000, Schizophrenia Research.