Visual processing and working memory deficits in schizophrenia
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The relationship between visual processing and working memory deficits in schizophrenia – a study using EEG.
IRAS ID
117700
Contact name
Corinna Haenschel
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
City University, Psychology
Research summary
Schizophrenia is one of the most disabling mental disorders with a lifetime prevalence of 1%. The central role of cognitive deficits for the course, outcome, and treatment of schizophrenia is increasingly being recognized. Working memory deficits are a cardinal neuropsychological feature of schizophrenia, which may help to explain impairments in other cognitive tasks and some of the social disabilities associated with the disorder.
Importantly, the underlying neural basis of working memory deficits remains poorly understood. I recently showed that deficits in processing the initial visual perception of objects are of particular importance when committing them to memory. The current project aims to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the contribution of visual problems to working memory impairments. Evidence indicates that the visual system processes information about colour and the brightness of objects in a scene independently. The current study examines whether working memory problems are especially associated with processing the brightness rather than colour of items to be remembered. To understand the brain processes underlying these problems brain activity will be recorded from 20 patients with schizophrenia and 20 matched controls with no indications of colour blindness (using the Colour Assessment & Diagnosis test & Acuity-Plus Test) using Electroencephalography (EEG). EEG allows us to accurately identify the timing and coordination of activity related to working memory across different areas of the brain and its impairments in schizophrenia. This is especially important as complex mental processes are dependent on precisely coordinating activity across a variety of areas of the brain, and a breakdown in this coordination has been theorized to explain many of the problems exhibited by patients with schizophrenia. The aim is to provide the basis for developing and accessing treatment programmes to alleviate working memory problems in schizophrenia.REC name
London - Stanmore Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/0969
Date of REC Opinion
29 Jul 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion