Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:44:58.800Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Frontal lobe impairment in schizophrenia: relationship to intellectual functioning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

J. R. Crawford*
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia; and Departments of Psychology and Mental Health, University of Aberdeen
M. C. Obonsawin
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia; and Departments of Psychology and Mental Health, University of Aberdeen
M. Bremner
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia; and Departments of Psychology and Mental Health, University of Aberdeen
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr John R. Crawford, School of Psychology, Flinders University of South Australia, PO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia.

Synopsis

Schizophrenic subjects (N = 48) and individually matched healthy controls were administered the Verbal Scale of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (VIQ) and a test of verbal fluency. The verbal fluency and VIQ scores of the schizophrenic subjects were significantly lower than the scores of the control subjects. An additional sample of healthy subjects (N = 144) was used to generate a regression equation for the prediction of verbal fluency scores from Verbal IQ and age. The verbal fluency scores obtained by the schizophrenic subjects were significantly lower than the scores predicted from the regression equation, whereas a significant difference was not obtained in the matched controls. These results provide further evidence of frontal lobe dysfunction in schizophrenia.

Type
Brief Communication
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association, Committee on Nomenclature and Statistics (1980). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd edn.American Psychiatric Association: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Benton, A. L. (1968). Differential behavioural effects in frontal lobe disease. Neuropsychologia 6, 5360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borkowski, J. G., Benton, A. L. & Spreen, O. (1967). Word fluency and brain damage. Neuropsychologia 5, 135140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, J. R., Besson, J. A. O., Bremner, M., Ebmeier, K. P., Cochrane, R. H. B. & Kirkwood, K. (1992 a). Estimation of premorbid intelligence in schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 161, 6974.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crawford, J. R., Moore, J. W. & Cameron, I. M. (1992 b). Verbal fluency: a NART-based equation for the estimation of premorbid performance. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 31, 327329.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldberg, T. E., Weinberger, D. R., Berman, K. F., Pliskin, N. H. & Podd, M. H. (1987). Further evidence for dementia of the prefrontal type in schizophrenia? Archives of General Psychiatry 44, 10081014.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gruzelier, J., Seymour, K., Wilson, L., Jolley, A. & Hirsch, S. (1988). Impairments on neuropsychologic tests of temporohippocampal and frontohippocampal functions and word fluency in remitting schizophrenia and affective disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 45, 623629.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hanley, J. R., Dewick, H. C., Davies, A. D. M., Player, J. & Turnbull, C. (1990). Verbal fluency in Parkinson's disease. Neuropsychologia 28, 737741.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holcomb, H. H., Links, J., Smith, C. & Wong, D. (1989). Positron emission tomography: measuring the metabolic and neurochemical characteristics of the living human nervous system. In Brain Imaging: Applications in Psychiatry (ed. Andreasen, N. C.), pp. 235353. American Psychiatric Press: Washington.Google Scholar
Kolb, B. & Whishaw, I. Q. (1983). Performance of schizophrenic patients on tests sensitive to left or right frontal temporal parietal function in neurologic patients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 171, 435443.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Malmö, H. P. (1974). On frontal lobe functions: psychiatric patient controls. Cortex 10, 231237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E. (1984). Verbal fluency as a function of a measure of verbal intelligence and in relation to different types of cerebral pathology. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 23, 5357.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, H. E. (1982). National Adult Reading Test. Test Manual. NFER-Nelson: Windsor.Google Scholar
Nelson, H. E., Pantelis, C., Carruthers, K., Speller, J., Baxendale, S. & Barnes, T. R. E. (1990). Cognitive functioning and symptomatology in chronic schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine 20, 357365.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parker, D. M. & Crawford, J. R. (1992). Assessment of frontal lobe dysfunction. In Handbook of Neuropsychological Assessment (ed. Crawford, J., McKinlay, W. and Parker, D. M.), pp. 267291. Erlbaum & Associates: London.Google Scholar
Raven, J. C. (1943). The Mill Hill Vocabulary Scale. Lewis: London.Google Scholar
Saykin, A. J., Gur, R. C., Gur, R. E., Mozley, D., Mosley, L. H., Resnick, S. M., Kester, B. & Stafiniak, P. (1991). Neuropsychological function in schizophrenia. Selective impairment in memory and learning. Archives of General Psychiatry 48, 618624.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Szechtman, H., Nahmias, C., Garnett, E. S., Firnau, G., Brown, G. M., Kaplan, R. D. & Cleghorn, J. M. (1988). Effect of neuroleptics on altered cerebral glucose metabolism in schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 45, 523532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Waddington, J. L. (1990). Sight and insight: regional cerebral metabolic activity in schizophrenia visualised by positron emission tomography, and competing neurodevelopmental perspectives. British Journal of Psychiatry 156, 615619.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wechsler, D. (1955). Manual for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. Psychological Corporation: New York.Google Scholar