Trail making and olfaction in schizophrenia: implications for processing speed.
BACKGROUND
Previous research has established a relationship between smell identification deficits (SID) and particular aspects of cognitive function among patients with schizophrenia.


OBJECTIVE
To expand the extant literature, we examined the relationship between SID and the Trail Making Test to determine if processing speed is related to SID.


METHODS
Our sample included 60 inpatients from the New York State Psychiatric Institute's Schizophrenia Research Unit. We considered age, deficit syndrome, verbal intelligence quotient, and education in our analyses due to their documented relationship to smell identification ability.


RESULTS
Trails A errors and Trails A seconds accounted for a significant amount of the variance in University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test scores in a regression analysis (R2=.10, P=.008 and R2=.05, P=.04).


CONCLUSIONS
Linking neurocognition to smell identification deficits may prove to be an essential marker for schizophrenia research.
Goudsmit
Nora
N
Department of Medical Genetics, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY 10032, USA.
Wolitzky
Rachel
R
Seckinger
Regine Anna
RA
Corcoran
Cheryl
C
Stanford
Arielle
A
Rosenfield
Paul
P
Goetz
Ray
R
Malaspina
Dolores
D
D000328:Adult; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology*; D014145:Trail Making Test; D014888:Wechsler Scales