Sex differences in cognition among persons with schizophrenia and healthy first-degree relatives

A systematic review comparing sex differences in cognitive function in schizophrenia and in rodent models for schizophrenia, implications for improved therapeutic strategies

“…Using the WeschlerMemory Scale R, the California Verbal Learning test, the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test or the Word List Learning Test, several studies have revealed better verbal learning and memory performance in females compared to males for both FE and HC groups (Albus et al, 1997;Ayesa-Arriola et al, 2014), for SP and HC groups (Bozikas et al, 2010) and in all groups (Hoff et al, 1998). Again, sexual dimorphism in verbal abilities (phonological and semantic fluency) was preserved in SPs (Gogos et al, 2010;Halari et al, 2006) as well as those in word memory in mixed and remitted SP subgroups (Gruzelier et al, 1999) and verbal episodic memory, processing speed and set-shifting efficacy when attention and executive function was measured in the Trail Making Test (Torniainen et al, 2011). Significantly better cognitive performance (verbal memory, speed of processing, and executive function) in females has been also preserved in SPs, in association with higher social functioning compared to male SPs (Vaskinn et al, 2011).…”

“…Spatial memory (Calkins et al, 2013;Hoff et al, 1998), spatial organisation (Albus et al, 1997) and visuospatial (Ayesa-Arriola et al, 2014) performance has also been reported to be higher in FE, SP and HC males than in females. Other cognitive domains have been reported to be differentially affected by sex, such as visual working memory (Torniainen et al, 2011), face memory (in withdrawn, mixed and remitted SP subgroups and HC groups (Gruzelier et al, 1999)), immediate and delayed memory , executive and concentration/speed domains (Hoff et al, 1998), attention and conceptualisation (Perlick et al, 1992) and problem solving (Ayesa-Arriola et al, 2014) where a male advantage has been observed.…”

“…Overall, female SPs have an older age of disease onset (Ayesa-Arriola et al, 2014;Kao et al, 2013;van der Werf et al, 2012;Zhang et al, 2012a), although some studies are equivocal (Perlick et al, 1992;Torniainen et al, 2011) with one study showed the opposite (Roesch-Ely et al, 2009). Considering the age at onset, in a late-onset FE group, specific female advantages have been reported for verbal learning and memory (Ayesa-Arriola et al, 2014).…”

Sex/gender differences in the brain and cognition in schizophrenia

“…Nevertheless, there was a significant group-by-sex interaction on some measures. Specifically, while women outperformed men in the relatives group on immediate verbal recall and the use of semantic clustering as a learning strategy, there was no sex difference in the schizophrenia group [179]. Similarly, Shipman and associates (2009) did not find any sex differences on memory for object location in schizophrenia patients, but observed significant sex differences in the group of controls [180].…”

Smaller than expected cognitive deficits in schizophrenia patients from the population-representative ABC catchment cohort

“…Moreover, the average mean duration of illness was over 12 years [20]. It has been demonstrated that male schizophrenia patients are more prone to a chronic course of the disorder and suffer from stronger cognitive deficits compared with female schizophrenia patients [11,13,32,37]. With regard to the over-reliance on chronically impaired schizophrenia patients, it has been well recognised that a substantial group of patients exhibit favourable outcomes (e.g.…”