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Antisaccadic eye movements and attentional asymmetry in schizophrenia in three Pacific populations
Author(s) -
Allen J. S.,
Lambert A. J.,
Johnson F. Y. Attah,
Schmidt K.,
Nero K. L.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1996.tb09858.x
Subject(s) - schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , neurocognitive , psychosis , frontal lobe , audiology , eye movement , psychology , new guinea , laterality , right hemisphere , temporal lobe , medicine , psychiatry , neuroscience , cognition , epilepsy , ethnology , history
Antisaccadic eye movements were examined in 50 patients with schizophrenia and in 77 controls in three Pacific populations, namely New Zealand, Palau and Papua New Guinea. Despite the great biocultural variation encompassed by these three populations, schizophrenic patients made significantly more antisaccadic errors than controls (36% vs. 13%), as has been demonstrated previously in other populations. This neurocognitive deficit may be consistent with frontal lobe dysfunction in schizophrenia. In addition, patients with schizophrenia made significantly more errors than expected when the target was presented in the right visual field (RVF). This trend was observed in patients from all three study areas, and was not seen in any of the control populations. Antisaccadic test performance in schizophrenia may be influenced by lateralized (left hemisphere) neuroanatomical impairment.