The reaction times of patients with schizophrenia

The reaction times of patients with schizophrenia Introduction 

Electrophysiologically schizophrenic patients have an inability to suppress a response to a sensory event. Healthy individuals show a decrease in evoked potential response to a second click (preceded by an identical first click), suggesting that a normal mental refractory period exists to duplicate sensory information. This phenomenon is not apparent in schizophrenic individuals. This loss is also seen in some nonschizophrenic family members who do not display psychotic symptoms (Tamminga 1997, Freedman et al. 1983, Judd et al. 1992, Siegel et al. 1984). 

Liddle (1992) found hallucinations/delusions positively associated with rCBF in the left parahippocampal gyrus and the left ventral striatum. Disorganization was associated with flow in the anterior cingulate and mediodorsal thalamus. 

Recently in a PET study, patients with hallucinations activated the left and right thalamus, right putamen, left and right parahippocampal area and right anterior cingulate (Silbersweig et al. 1995) 

PCP/ketamine is the drug class that most faithfully mimics schizophrenia in healthy persons and most potently and validly exacerbates schizophrenia symptoms in schizophrenic patients. Lahti et al. (1995) showed increased rCBF in the anterior cingulate and decreased rCBF in the hippocampus and lingual gyrus. 

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Because the reaction times of patients with schizophrenia are prolonged, the range of the program by which the cycle time may be directly observed has to be adapted (as it was done in patients with brain damages). 

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