Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 35, Issue 3, 1 February 1994, Pages 164-172
Biological Psychiatry

Original article
Neuropsychological correlates of alogia and affective flattening in schizophrenia

https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-3223(94)91148-7Get rights and content

Abstract

We examined whether two negative symptoms, alogia and affective flattening, were more strongly associated with dysfunction of certain brain regions than with others in a sample of 27 schizophrenic subjects. Neuropsychological tests were used to measure the integrity of functioning of different brain regions. Functioning of left and right frontal regions was assessed by word fluency and design fluency, respectively, and functioning of the left temporohippocampal region was assessed by Hebb's digit-sequences recall test. Measures of alogia and affective flattening were obtained using the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms. The results indicated that more severe levels of these negative symptoms were associated with poorer performance on the fluency tests. These relationships were fairly specific as indicated in two ways: (1) only certain neuropsychological measures were associated with negative symptoms. In addition, affective flattening, but not alogia, appeared to be associated with lateralized dysfunction.

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    This article is based in part on a dissertation submitted by Neal Stolar to the Graduate College of the University of Illinois; he was supported by a dissertation research fellowship awarded by the Scottish Rite Schizophrenia Research Program, N.M.J., U.S.A., with additional support provided by a fellowship awarded by Procter and Gamble.

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