Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T03:19:12.242Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reduced latent inhibition in people with schizophrenia: an effect of psychosis or of its treatment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Jonathan H. Williams ,
Nigel A. Wellman ,
David P. Geaney ,
Philip J. Cowen ,
Joram Feldon  and
J. N. P. Rawlins
Jonathan H. Williams
Affiliation:
Departments of Pharmacology & Experimental Psychology, Oxford
Nigel A. Wellman
Affiliation:
Departments of Pharmacology & Experimental Psychology, Oxford
David P. Geaney
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Oxford
Philip J. Cowen
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Oxford
Joram Feldon
Affiliation:
Institute of Toxicology, Zurich
J. N. P. Rawlins*
Affiliation:
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford
*
Dr J. N. P. Rawlins. University of Oxford, Department of Experimental Psychology, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

People with schizophrenia show impaired attention. This could result from reduced latent inhibition (a measure of ability to filter out irrelevant stimuli). Previous studies have found reduced auditory latent inhibition in people with acute schizophrenia: we tested whether this results from psychosis or from drug treatment.

Method

We measured auditory latent inhibition in two studies. One compared antipsychotic-naive people with acute schizophrenia with patients within two weeks of starting antipsychotic treatment. The second compared healthy volunteers given either saline or 1.0 mg haloperidol, intravenously.

Results

Latent inhibition was absent in treated patients, but was clearly present in patients who were naive to antipsychotics. Latent inhibition was absent in volunteers given haloperidol, but was clearly present in those given saline.

Conclusions

The reduced auditory latent inhibition seen in acute schizophrenia is more plausibly due to antipsychotic treatment than to the disorder. Unless neuropsychological models of schizophrenia incorporate evidence from drug-free patients and drug-treated healthy controls, they may be invalid.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 172 , Issue 3 , March 1998 , pp. 243 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

∗

A preliminary report of some findings in the present manuscript was presented at the VIIIth Biennial Winter Workshop on Schizophrenia. Crans Montana, Switzerland. March 1996.

References

Allan, L. M., Williams, J. H., Wellman, N. A., et al (1995) Effects of tobacco smoking, schizotypy and number of pre-exposures on latent inhibition in healthy subjects. Personality and Individual Differences, 19, 893–902.Google Scholar
Andreasan, N. C. (1987) The Comprehensive Assessment of Symptoms and History (CASH). Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa.Google Scholar
Baruch, I., Hemsley, D. R. & Gray, J. A. (1988) Differential performance of acute and chronic schizophrenics on a latent inhibition task. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 176, 598–606.Google Scholar
Bazira, S. (1995) Psychotropic Drug Directory. Lundbeck Publication.Google Scholar
Bleuler, E. (1913) Dementia praecox or the group of schizophrenias. Translated into English in The Clinical Routes of the Schizophrenia Concept (eds Cutting, J. & Shephard, M.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Claridge, G. S. & Broks, R (1985) Schizotypy and hemisphere function. I: Theoretical considerations and measurement of schizotypy. Personality and Individual Differences, 5, 633–648.Google Scholar
Claridge, G. (ed.) (1997) Schizotypy: Implications for Illness and Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Collect, D. (1994) Modelling Survival Data in Medical Research. London: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Cox, D. R. & Oakes, D. (1984) Analysis of Survival Data. London: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Dunn, L. A., Atwater, G. & Kilts, C. D. (1993) Effects of antipsychotic drugs on latent inhibition: sensitivity and specificity of an animal behavioural model of clinical drug action. Psychophormocology, 112. 315–323.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J. & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1975) Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. London: Hodder & Stoughton.Google Scholar
Frith, C. D. (1992) The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia. Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ginton, A., Urca, G. & Lubow, R. E. (1975) The effects of preexposure to an unattended stimulus on subsequent learning: latent inhibition in adults. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 5, 5–8.Google Scholar
Gray, J. A., Feldon, J., Rawlins, J. N. R., et al (1991) The neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Behaviour and Brain Sciences, 14, 1–84.Google Scholar
Gray, N. S., Hemsley, D. R. & Gray, J. A. (1992a) Abolition of latent inhibition in acute, but not chronic, schizophrenics. Neurology. Psychiatry and Brain Research, 1, 83–89.Google Scholar
Gray, N. S., Pickering, A. D., Hemsley, D. R., et al (1992) Abolition of latent inhibition by a single 5 mg dose of D-amphetamine in man. Psychophormocology, 107, 425–430.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gray, N. S., Pilowsky, L. S., Gray, J. A., et al (1995) Latent inhibition in drug naive schizophrenics: relationship to duration of illness and dopamine D2 binding using SPET. Schizophrenia Research, 17, 95–107.Google Scholar
Guterman, Y., Joslassen, R. C., Bashore, T. E., et al (1996) Latent inhibition effects reflected in event-related brain potentials in healthy controls and schizophrenics. Schizophrenic Research, 20, 315–326.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kapur, S., Remington, G., Jones, C, et al (1996) High levels of dopamine D2 receptor occupancy with low-dose haloperidol treatment: a PET study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 153, 948–950.Google Scholar
Liddle, P. F. (1987) The symptoms of chronic schizophrenia: a re-examination of the positive-negative dichotomy. British Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 145–151.Google Scholar
Lubow, R. E. (1989) Latent Inhibition and Conditioned Attention Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lubow, R. E., Weiner, I., Schlossberg, A., et al (1987) Latent inhibition and schizophrenia. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 25, 464–467.Google Scholar
Lubow, R. E. & Gewlrtx, J. C. (1995) Latent inhibition in humans: data, theory and implications for schizophrenia. Psychotoglcol Bulletin, 117, 87–103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lukoff, D., Neuchterlein, K. H. & Ventura, J. (1986) Manual for Expanded Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). Schizophrenia Bulletin, 12, 594–601.Google Scholar
Norusis, N. (1993) Advanced Statistics. Chicago, IL: SPSS Inc.Google Scholar
Swerdlow, N. R., Braff, D. L., Hartston, H., et al (1996) Latent inhibition in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research, 20, 91–103.Google Scholar
Walner, I., Israeli-Telerant, A. & Feldon, J. (1987) Latent inhibition is not affected by acute or chronic administration of 6 mg/kg dl-amphetamine. Psychopharmocology. 91. 345–351.Google Scholar
Williams, J. H., Wellman, N. A., Geaney, D. P., et al (1996) Antipsychotic drug effects in a model of schizophrenic attentional disorder: a randomised controlled trial of the effects of haloperidol on latent inhibition in healthy people, Biological Psychiatry, 40, 1135–1143.Google Scholar
Williams, J. H., Wellman, N. A., Geaney, D. P., et al (1997) Enhancement of latent inhibition by 1.0 mg intravenous haloperidol in two visual tasks: a randomised controlled trial in healthy people, Psychopharmocology, 133, 262–268.Google Scholar
Wolkin, A., Brodie, J. D., Barouche, F., et al (1989) Dopamine receptor occupancy and plasma haloperidol levels Archives of General Psychiatry, 46, 482–483.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
World Health Organization (1992) The ICD–10 Classficatin of Mental and Behavioural Disorders. Geneva: WHO Google Scholar
Yee, B. K., Feldon, J. & Rawlins, J. N. P. (1995) Latent inhibition in rats is abolished by NMDA-induced neuronal loss in the retrohippocampal region but this lesion effect can be prevented by systemic haloperidol treatment. Behavioral Neuroscience, 109, 227–240.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.