Biomedical subjects

Allen E Thornton

Publications and source records attributed to Allen E Thornton.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Methodological considerations regarding the association of Stroop and verbal fluency performance with the symptoms of schizophrenia.

Previous research on schizophrenia has reported conflicting findings regarding the association between Stroop performance and the disorganization syndrome, as well as performance on verbal fluency tests and the psychomotor poverty syndrome. In the present work, we consider whether these inconsistencies may be increased due to variations in test format and failures to report the appropriate test parameters. In 36 schizophrenic inpatients, we administered list and single-trial versions of the Stroop test, and report the correlation with the disorganization syndrome for both errors and speed. For verbal fluency, we separated the total score into measures of switching and clustering, and observed the relationship with psychomotor poverty. For both versions of the Stroop test, accuracy, but not speed, was correlated with disorganization. For verbal fluency, decreased cluster production relative to total words generated was associated with psychomotor poverty, but the number of switches between clusters was not. It is suggested that assessing and reporting a full range of test parameters can reduce between-study inconsistencies. Cognitive interpretations for the present set of results are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Memory in multiple sclerosis: contextual encoding deficits.

Long-term memory (LTM) is one of the diverse cognitive functions adversely affected by multiple sclerosis (MS). The LTM deficits have often been attributed to failure of retrieval, whereas encoding processes are presumed intact. However, support for this view comes primarily from studies in which encoding and retrieval operations were not investigated systematically. In the current study, we used an encoding specificity paradigm to examine the robustness of encoding in MS and to specifically evaluate the impact of the disease on contextual memory. We hypothesized that persons with MS would exhibit a selective impairment in retrieving items from LTM when required to generate new cue-target associations at encoding, but not when cues held a strong preexisting relationship to the targets. The findings supported the hypotheses. We conclude that the mnemonic deficits associated with MS affect both encoding and retrieval. Specifically, problems with binding of contextual information at encoding impair effective retrieval of memories. Nonetheless, access to these memories can be gained through preexisting associations organized in the semantic network.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Donepezil for memory dysfunction in schizophrenia.

A case is reported of a 54-year-old female patient with schizophrenia and cognitive impairment. Her memory dysfunction improved following the addition of donepezil to quetiapine. The possible implications for future studies are reviewed.

Antipsychotic Agents↗