RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND OCULOMOTOR MEASURES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA-PATIENTS AND NORMAL CONTROLS

Establishing the relationship between oculomotor and neuropsychologica l impairments might facilitate a more coherent description of schizoph renia-associated neurocognitive deficits, Therefore, we assessed sever al aspects of neuropsychological and oculomotor function in 25 medicat ed schizophrenia patients and 24 age-matched controls, Neuropsychologi cal tasks included the Wisconsin Cart Sort Test (WCST), the Trail Maki ng Test (TMT), the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, and finger tappi ng speed, Oculomotor functions assessed included smooth pursuit initia tion of smooth pursuit, predictive pursuit fixation, visually guided s accades, remembered saccades, and antisaccades. Among the schizophreni a patients, predictive pursuit performance correlated significantly wi th finger tapping (dominant hand), TMT (both parts), and one WCST meas ure (categories completed), The only other significant correlation amo ng the schizophrenia patients was between antisaccade performance and part A of the TMT Perseverative errors during the WCST and antisaccade performance were the only measures significantly correlated among the normal controls, Closely related neurocognitive deficits may be respo nsible for impairments in TMT, WCST, predictive pursuit, and antisacca de performance in schizophrenia. (C) 1997 Society of Biological Psychi atry.