Implications for Early Diagnosis and Treatment in Schizophrenia Due to Correlation between Auditory Perceptual Deficits and Cognitive Impairment.

Nikolaos Moschopoulos,Vasiliki Iliadou,Kosmas Boutsikos,Stergios Kaprinis,Ioannis Nimatoudis,Christos Sidiras

doi:10.3390/jcm10194557

Nikolaos Moschopoulos, Vasiliki Iliadou + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10194557

Copy DOI

Abstract

It is indicated that auditory perception deficits are present in schizophrenia and related to formal thought disorder. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the association of auditory deficits with cognitive impairment in schizophrenia. An experimental group of 50 schizophrenia patients completed a battery of auditory processing evaluation and a neuropsychological battery of tests. Correlations between neuropsychological battery scores and auditory processing scores were examined. Cognitive impairment was correlated with auditory processing deficits in schizophrenia patients. All neuropsychological test scores were significantly correlated with at least one auditory processing test score. Our findings support the coexistence of auditory processing disorder, severe cognitive impairment, and formal thought disorder in a subgroup of schizophrenia patients. This may have important implications in schizophrenia research, as well as in early diagnosis and nonpharmacological treatment of the disorder.

Highlights

Schizophrenia, despite its low prevalence, is a mental disorder that may cause significant disability [1]
The only test used for auditory processing evaluation was dichotic listening (DL), leading to incomplete evaluation of elements of auditory processing that are essential for everyday communication
Verbal Fluency (VF)-P scores were correlated with left-ear score in NF condition, right-ear score in FR condition and left-ear score in FL condition, and they were negatively correlated with laterality, left-ear scores in FR condition, right-ear scores in FL condition, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) thresholds in the right ear, and GIN thresholds in the left ear

Summary

Introduction

Schizophrenia, despite its low prevalence, is a mental disorder that may cause significant disability [1]. Cognitive impairment is considered a basic component of the disorder [2], while numerous studies about auditory processing deficits in patients with schizophrenia have been published. Most DL studies showed that the binaural performance of patients was significantly poorer compared to that of healthy subjects [6,7,8,9,10,11]. A number of studies reported significant correlations between DL performance and total positive symptoms score [8,13,14]. The positive symptom of auditory hallucinations (AH) was correlated with more serious DL deficits [10,13,15,16]

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion