Neuropsychological function in subjects with psychotic and affective disorders. Relationship to diagnostic category and duration of illness.
OBJECTIVE
To explore the links between neuropsychological performance, diagnostic category and duration of illness in subjects with psychotic and affective disorders.


METHODS
Memory and executive abilities were tested in consecutively admitted patients with schizophrenia (N = 20), other non-schizophrenic psychotic disorders (N = 29), bipolar disorder (N = 33) and major depression (N = 19).


RESULTS
Subjects with schizophrenia had poorer global memory performances than subjects with major depression, and poorer delayed verbal memory abilities than those from the other three diagnostic groups. Executive abilities explored by the Stroop test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test did not differ between diagnostic groups. Neuropsychological performances were not influenced by previous duration of illness.


CONCLUSIONS
Memory deficits are the most discriminatory cognitive features between subjects with schizophrenia and those with other psychotic or mood disorders. The fact that cognitive deficits are static whatever the diagnostic group indirectly suggests that they may have a neurodevelopmental origin in subjects with schizophrenia, but perhaps also in subjects with other psychotic and mood disorders.
Verdoux
H
H
Department of Psychiatry, University Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2, Hôpital Charles Perrens, 121 rue de la Béchade, 33076 Bordeaux cedex, France.
Liraud
F
F
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000150:complications*; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008606:Mental Processes; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D013997:Time Factors