Perceptual Deficits in Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a disabling neurodevelopmental illness, affecting nearly 1% of the population. The disability of schizophrenia is due in large part to the effects of the illness on cognitive faculties. Current medications for schizophrenia do not generally improve cognition, so a major contribution to disability remains undertreated. Computerized cognitive remediation programs, which produce activity-dependent recruitment of neural resources to specifically enhance under-functioning brain systems, have been effective at improving both cognition and community functioning in patients with schizophrenia, but the effects are still modest. Our preliminary work has suggested that our training is associated with improvements in visual memory, though visual memory has been a cognitive area more refractory to cognitive training.

In this study, participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder will be randomized to receive different computer exercises to help determine whether computer exercises can improve memory in schizophrenia, and whether the cognitive training is associated with changes in neural activity.