Symmetry reversal in schizophrenia

• Published in: Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences 2003-08, Vol.57 (4), p.353-360
• Main Authors: Kalb, Roland, Raydt, Gesine, Reulbach, Udo, Kornhuber, Johannes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Adolescent; Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Aged; Antipsychotic Agents - therapeutic use; Antipsychotic drugs; Asymmetries; asymmetry; bilateral; Biological and medical sciences; Brain hemispheres; Cerebral Cortex - physiopathology; Changes; Female; Functional Laterality - physiology; Humans; interhemispheric correlation; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; neuroleptics; Patients; Photic Stimulation; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychoses; Reaction Time - physiology; Reaction times; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - drug therapy; Schizophrenia - physiopathology; time fragments; Visual Fields
• ISSN: 1323-1316; 1440-1819
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1440-1819.2003.01131.x

Schizophrenia is associated with cortical asymmetries concentrated in the left fronto‐temporal hemisphere. In order to look for functional asymmetries between the two hemispheres, the stimulus–response times of patients were split into smaller periods and the interhemispheric and intrahemispheric correlations between these periods were investigated. Three groups were compared to each other: 22 patients with schizophrenia (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edn; DSM‐IV) treated with neuroleptics; 24 psychiatric neuroleptic‐treated patients without schizophrenia; and 30 healthy subjects. All subjects were investigated by simple (one stimulus–one response) and complex (two stimuli–two responses), auditory and visual, right‐hemispheric and left‐hemispheric stimulus–response tasks. There were no intrahemispheric but significant interhemispheric correlations between the two auditory and between the two visual time fragments in both the healthy and the neuroleptic control group. In contrast there was a significant intrahemispheric correlation between the auditory and visual time fragment in the left hemisphere of patients with schizophrenia and no interhemispheric correlation between the auditory times. The reduction of the interhemispheric auditory correlation is interpreted as an auditory disintegration, the appearance of the left‐hemispheric audiovisual correlation as an audiovisual ‘hyperintegration’ in patients with schizophrenia. It is questionnable as to whether these findings are due to schizophrenia or to the neuroleptic treatment.