Cognition and Brain Function in Schizotypy: A Selective Review

Abstract

Schizotypy refers to a set of personality traits thought to reflect the subclinical expression of the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia. Here, we review the cognitive and brain functional profile associated with high questionnaire scores in schizotypy. We discuss empirical evidence from the domains of perception, attention, memory, imagery and representation, language, and motor control. Perceptual deficits occur early and across various modalities. While the neural mechanisms underlying visual impairments may be linked to magnocellular dysfunction, further effects may be seen downstream in higher cognitive functions. Cognitive deficits are observed in inhibitory control, selective and sustained attention, incidental learning, and memory. In concordance with the cognitive nature of many of the aberrations of schizotypy, higher levels of schizotypy are associated with enhanced vividness and better performance on tasks of mental rotation. Language deficits seem most pronounced in higher-level processes. Finally, higher levels of schizotypy are associated with reduced performance on oculomotor tasks, resembling the impairments seen in schizophrenia. Some of these deficits are accompanied by reduced brain activation, akin to the pattern of hypoactivations in schizophrenia spectrum individuals. We conclude that schizotypy is a construct with apparent phenomenological overlap with schizophrenia and stable interindividual differences that covary with performance on a wide range of perceptual, cognitive, and motor tasks known to be impaired in schizophrenia. The importance of these findings lies not only in providing a fine-grained neurocognitive characterization of a personality constellation known to be associated with real-life impairments, but also in generating hypotheses concerning the aetiology of schizophrenia.

A Neural “Tuning Curve” for Multisensory Experience and Cognitive-Perceptual Schizotypy

“…93 Accordingly and consistent with the current results, substantial overlap has been found between schizotypy and schizophrenia in terms of etiological factors at the genetic, biological, and psychosocial levels, 94 but also concerning a wide range of perceptual, cognitive, and motor impairments. 95 We further show that inter-individual variability in auditory resting state dynamics, audio-tactile TBW, and perceptual schizotypy were accounted for by local concentrations of glutamatergic compounds (Glx) conditional on individual E/I genetic profiles. Specifically, for relatively lower values of the E/I score, indicating a putative genetic shift towards greater inhibition, higher concentrations of Glx were associated with higher values of PLE, narrower TBW and, ultimately, lower schizotypy.…”

Autistic and schizotypal traits and global functioning in bipolar I disorder

“…Indeed, BD has a number of genetic, symptomatological and epidemiological overlaps with SSD (Laursen, Agerbo, & Pedersen, 2009;Lichtenstein et al, 2009;Murray et al, 2004), and psychosis has been recognised as an important dimension in the psychopathology of BD (van Os & Kapur, 2009). In addition, schizotypy, which encompasses a set of personality traits that reflect subclinical expression of schizophrenia (Ettinger et al, 2015), is recognised as genetically related to SSD and is considered an endophenotype common to both SSD and BD (Ettinger, Meyhofer, Steffens, Wagner, & Koutsouleris, 2014;Mahon, Perez-Rodriguez, Gunawardane, & Burdick, 2013;Schurhoff, Laguerre, Szoke, Meary, & Leboyer, 2005). Schizotypy has been reported at elevated rates in individuals with BD compared to healthy controls, although this was conducted in a relatively small BD sample (N=92) (Heron et al, 2003).…”

Das Schizoidie-Konzept in der Psychiatrie

“…Bei den schizotypischen Patienten beträgt diese Negativabweichung nur ca. eine Standardabweichung [26,70]. Mit dem Ausprägungsgrad basaler kognitiver Dysfunktionen geht auch eine analog beeinträchtigte Verarbeitung wichtiger sozial-affektiver Informationen einher, die grundlegend für eine funktionstüchti-ge "theory of the mind" sind [21].…”