RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOVEMENT PLANNING AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY PROFILES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Background. There has been evidence that psychopathology in schizophre nia consists of three separable syndromes: reality distortion, disorga nisation, and psychomotor poverty. The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between planning and execution of movement an d each of the syndromes in schizophrenia. Method. Twenty-one right han ded DSM-III-R schizophrenic patients performed a total of 80 trials of a motor movement task, varying distance of movement x size of the tar get x hand. Times taken to plan the movement (RT) and to carry it out (MT) were examined for their relationship with contemporaneous as well as lifetime profiles of the three syndromes in schizophrenia. Results . Significant correlations are reported between RT and current as well as lifetime measures of disorganisation syndrome. Somewhat weaker cor relations are reported between Rf and psychomotor poverty, but only fo r the right-handed tasks. Partial correlations suggest that the influe nce of neuroleptic medication explains all but one of the correlations between psychomotor poverty and RT, but does not account for the rela tionship between disorganisation and RT. No other relationship emerged between any of the movement and symptom measures. Conclusions. These findings indicate that dysfunction in movement planning is related pri marily to concurrent disorganisation, as well as to the prominence of disorganisation over the patient's history.