VERBAL FLUENCY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA - RELATIONSHIP WITH EXECUTIVE FUNCTION, SEMANTIC MEMORY AND CLINICAL ALOGIA

To examine whether poor verbal fluency in schizophrenia represents a d egraded semantic store or inefficient access to a normal semantic stor e, 25 normal volunteers and 50 DSM-III-R schizophrenic patients, match ed for age, sex and IQ, were recruited. Although schizophrenic patient s were impaired on both letter and category fluency, they showed a nor mal pattern of output in that category was superior to letter fluency, and an improvement in category fluency when a cueing technique was em ployed (Randolph et al. 1993). These results resemble those found in d isorders of frontostriatal systems (Parkinson's and Huntington's disea se) and suggest that poor verbal fluency in schizophrenia is because o f inefficient access to semantic store. A measure of improvement with cueing was directly related to performance on the Stroop executive tas k. Of all symptom measures derived from SANS and Manchester Scales, on ly alogia was related to verbal fluency in that superior improvement c orrelated inversely with the degree of alogia. It is suggested that bo th alogia and poor verbal fluency are mediated by the same underlying cognitive abnormality that reflects frontostriatal dysfunction.