Neurological soft signs (NSS) and cognitive impairment in chronic schizophrenia

Publication date: June 2019Source: Schizophrenia Research: Cognition, Volume 16Author(s): Christina J. Herold, Céline Z. Duval, Marc M. Lässer, Johannes SchröderAbstractRecent studies indicate that neurological soft signs (NSS) in schizophrenia are associated with generalized cognitive impairments rather than changes in specific neuropsychological domains. However, the majority of studies solely included first-episode patients or patients with a remitting course and did not consider age, course, education or severity of global cognitive deficits as potential confounding variables. Therefore, we examined NSS with respect to cognitive deficits in chronic schizophrenia, i.e. patients who are particularly vulnerable to both, NSS and cognitive impairments.Eighty patients with chronic schizophrenia (43.36 ± 15a) and 60 healthy controls (47.52 ± 14.8a) matched for age, sex and years of education were examined on the Heidelberg NSS scale and a broad neuropsychological battery including short term, working, logical and autobiographic memory (AM), theory of mind (ToM), psychomotor speed and cognitive flexibility.When contrasted with the controls, patients showed significantly higher NSS scores and impairments in all neuropsychological domains but short-term memory. NSS were significantly associated with all neuropsychological domains considered but short-term memory and semantic AM. Except for episodic AM (which was significantly correlated with NSS in patients only) these...
Source: Schizophrenia Research: Cognition - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research