Impairment of temporal attention in patients with schizophrenia

Abstract

Evidence is accumulating that attention impairment is a core cognitive deficit in patients with schizophrenia. Here we investigate whether they are impaired in the temporal deployment of attention. Specifically, we explore how allocation of processing resources at one time point might affect the processing of a subsequent event differently in normal and schizophrenia subjects. Thirty patients and 31 age- and education-matched control subjects participated in a rapid serial visual presentation task, in which two targets (T1 and T2) were presented in rapid succession among a number of distractors. Subjects were required to identify T1 and detect T2. The sensitivity of T2 detection was analyzed with signal detection theory. The results showed that the attentional blink (the impairment in T2 detection following the identification of T1) is increased in magnitude and protracted in the patients. This observation suggests a less efficient mechanism in temporal gating of attention and in processing rapidly changing visual stimuli in schizophrenia patients.

Supplementation of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) affects temporal, but not spatial visual attention

“…More specifically, diminished GABA levels are thought to reduce evoked gamma oscillations and in turn, to minimize neural synchrony, resulting in abnormally frequent integration of sensory input (Paine, Slipp & Carlezon Jr, 2011). Coincidentally, schizophrenia patients also tend to have increased AB magnitude (Li et al, 2002). Although only correlational in nature, these studies underline the possible impact of GABA concentrations on (visual) integration processes.…”

Alteration of Attentional Blink in High Functioning Autism: A Pilot Study

“…In the clinical population, an increase of AB has been demonstrated in patients with schizophrenia (Cheung et al 2002;Li et al 2002), Specific Language Impairment (Lum et al 2007), depression (Rokke et al 2002) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Armstrong and Munoz 2003;Carr et al 2006;Hollingsworth et al 2001;Li et al 2004;Mason et al 2005;Ray Li et al 2005). Lesions studies have demonstrated that abnormal AB can occur with different chronic focal brain lesions in a network of structures involved in vision and/or attention (Rizzo et al 2001) such as the frontal (Husain et al 1997;Richer and Lepage 1996) and the parietal (Shapiro et al 2002) cortices as well as the cerebellum (Raymond et al 1992;Schweizer et al 2007).…”

Progressive Age-Related Changes in the Attentional Blink Paradigm

“…Patients with spatial neglect (Masud et al, 1997), schizophrenia (Li et al, 2002), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (Hollingsworth et al, 2001), Parkinson's disease (Vardy et al, 2003) and prefrontal lesions (Rizzo et al, 2001) all demonstrate AB deficits. Such findings suggest that the AB task may be useful in understanding underlying attentional deficits associated with these disorders.…”