Processing sentence context in women with schizotypal personality disorder: an ERP study.
Accumulating evidence suggests that schizophrenic patients do not use context efficiently. Also, studies suggest similarities in clinical and cognitive profiles between schizophrenic and schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) individuals, and epidemiological studies point to a genetic link between the two disorders. This study examined electrophysiological correlates of processing sentence context in a group of SPD women in a classical N400 sentence paradigm. The study assessed if the dysfunction in context use found previously in schizophrenia and male SPD also exists in female SPD. We tested 17 SPD and 16 matched normal control women. The results suggest the presence of abnormality in context use in female SPD similar to that previously reported for male schizophrenic and SPD individuals, but of lesser degree of severity. In SPD women, relative to their comparison group, a more negative N400 was found only to auditory congruent sentences.
Niznikiewicz
Margaret A
MA
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Neuroscience Laboratory, Brockton/West Roxbury VAMC, Brockton, Massachusetts 02301, USA. margaret_niznikiewicz@hms.harvard.edu
Friedman
Michelle
M
Shenton
Martha E
ME
Voglmaier
Martina
M
Nestor
Paul G
PG
Frumin
Melissa
M
Seidman
Larry
L
Sutton
John
J
McCarley
Robert W
RW
D000328:Adult; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004594:Electrophysiology; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011932:Reading; D012569:Schizotypal Personality Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology