Experimental Study Of Schizophrenia Patients With Cerebral Hemispheric Collaboration Barriers

Objective: The function of interhemispheric cooperation could distribute and regulate attentional processing resources dynamically between hemispheres in the light of processing task, which ensure coordination and whole of kinds of cognitive processing. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the characteristics of interhemispheric cooperation in patients with schizophrenia.Methods: The subjects were 20 patients with a CCMD-3 diagnosis of schizophrenia, and 20 healthy control subjects. Experiment 1 utilized dichotic listening task. The attentional and executive function were tested under the non-forced condition (automatic) and the two attentional condition (controlled). Experiment 2 used tachistoscopic half visual field task under two dimensions of complex levels and three conditions (left or right visual field , or simultaneously in both visual hemifields) in order to test the function of an half hemisphere or interhemispheric cooperation.Results: On dichotic listening task, the schizophrenic patients showed a left ear advantage(RH) during the non-forced condition, while the healthy subjects a right ear advantage(LH). An accuracy level of the schizophrenic patients" right ear, however, increased dramatically during the forced-right condition. When attending to the one ear, the schizophrenic patients showed an inability to ignore irrelevant stimuli from the other ear. On tachistoscopic visual half visual field task, The patients with schizophrenia showed Bilateral advantage as the healthy subjects during simple task processing when "identical" decided. During more complex task processing, the bilateral advantage of the healthy subjects increased highly, but which of the patients with schizophrenia did not raise further. Conclusions: These results suggest that (1) schizophrenic patients could exhibit impairments of interhemispheric cooperation, (2) especially for more complex task processing; (3) their cerebral functional lateralization deficit may be a lack of cooperation between the hemisphere.