Working memory and long-term memory deficits in schizophrenia: is there a common substrate?

Psychiatry Res. 2009 Nov 30;174(2):89-96. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2009.04.001. Epub 2009 Oct 17.

Abstract

Patients with schizophrenia exhibit substantial deficits in both working memory (WM) and long-term memory (LTM) tasks. While these two forms of memory are generally viewed as distinct, recent evidence from healthy subjects has challenged the robustness of the double-dissociation between these two types of memory. In light of an emerging view of WM and LTM as being subserved by a largely overlapping network of brain regions, it is possible that WM and LTM deficits in patients with schizophrenia share a common neurobiological substrate. This review revisits the functional neuroimaging literature on both WM and LTM in patients with schizophrenia with these considerations in mind, and reveals a number of commonalities in research findings in both literatures. While there is a paucity of direct evidence bearing on whether patient deficits in these tasks arise from a common functional abnormality, the available literature is consistent with the hypothesis that these deficits have the same origin.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Brain Mapping
  • Cognition Disorders / etiology
  • Diagnostic Imaging / methods
  • Humans
  • Memory / classification*
  • Memory Disorders / etiology*
  • Memory Disorders / pathology*
  • Schizophrenia / complications*
  • Schizophrenic Psychology