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Cerebral hemodynamics in schizophrenia during the Trail Making Test: A functional transcranial Doppler sonography study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2020

D. Schuepbach ,
S. Egger  and
S.C. Herpertz
D. Schuepbach
Affiliation:
Zentrum für Psychiatrie Weinsberg, Clinic of General Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Sector West, Weinsberg, Germany
S. Egger*
Affiliation:
Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Zurich, Switzerland
S.C. Herpertz
Affiliation:
University of Heidelberg, Department of General Psychiatry, Heidelberg, Germany
*
* Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder, with complex symptoms involving psychosis, negative symptoms and cognitive impairment. The Trail Making Test (TMT) has been widely used to assess attention and executive function. Functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) of basal cerebral arteries allows monitoring of aberrant cerebral hemodynamics during cognitive tasks in this patient group.

Objectives

We assessed cerebral hemodynamics in the middle cerebral arteries (MCA) using fTCD while patients with schizophrenia and healthy subjects performed the TMT and a control task.

Methods

Fifteen patients with chronic schizophrenia and 15 healthy controls performed the TMT-A and -B during fTCD measurements of the MCA. Dependent measures were performance, mean cerebral blood flow velocity (MFV) and the lateralization.

Results

Patients demonstrated an overall decreased speed of solution (P = 0.002), and there was no significant effect of age. They showed a significantly increased flow pattern for the TMT-B (P = 0.005). There were no lateralization differences between diagnostic groups.

Conclusions

There was a performance deficit in patients with schizophrenia for both TMT-A and -B that fits well with results of existing literature. The aberrant hemodynamic response supports the idea that cognitive performance elicits an aberrant cerebral hemodynamic correlate. It adds to the notion that fTCD is a valuable tool to correlate psychological paradigms with brain perfusion in patients with schizophrenia.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Type
FC90
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 33 , Issue S1: Abstracts of the 24th European Congress of Psychiatry , March 2016 , pp. S107
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2016
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