Abstract
Humans constantly integrate new information about their environment with prior experiences in order to successfully navigate the world. The ability to flexibly integrate information into cohesive relational memories is particularly affected in many patients with schizophrenia. Deficits in hippocampal and prefrontal cortex function have been implicated as the neural basis of the relational memory deficits, although the contribution of each region to relational memory function remains unclear. As memory deficits are linked with significantly poorer outcomes in schizophrenia, behavioral and neurobiological findings provide targets for meaningful interventions. The speakers in this symposium will present competing cognitive neuroscience models to explain relational memory impairment in schizophrenia.
Alison Preston will present results discussing how hippocampus and prefrontal cortex work in concert to create integrated memories that relate information acquired during different episodes. Data from high-resolution fMRI studies will provide a mechanistic account of the component processes that support formation of integrated, relational memories as well as how those processes may be impacted in schizophrenia. She will further discuss how alterations in relational memory processing impact higher-order cognitive processes such as reasoning.
Daniel Ragland will demonstrate how cognitive neuroscience approaches for understanding functional neuroanatomy of episodic memory can be used to discover when prefrontal and/or hippocampal deficits may or may not be disruptive to performance in people with schizophrenia. Behavioral and imaging studies will employ verbal and non-verbal lists and scene memory paradigms utilizing eye-tracking methods to demonstrate the dissociable contributions of dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and anterior and posterior portions of the hippocampus.
Martin Lepage will present results from a brief intervention targeting the self-initiation of semantic strategies relational memory which significantly improved performance in schizophrenia. Moreover, he will present functional and structural brain imaging results that collectively suggest an important role of the left dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC) region for the implementation of strategies that lead to improvement in relational memory performance.
Suzanne Avery will present recent findings demonstrating deficits in hippocampal habituation and associated relational memory dysfunction in the early stages of psychotic illness. These results build on previous work demonstrating profound relational memory and hippocampal deficits in the chronic stages of schizophrenia, suggesting that hippocampal and relational memory dysfunction in the early stages of illness are followed by progressive changes in the chronic stage.
Chair/Discussant Stephan Heckers will discuss the emerging findings and competing cognitive neuroscience models in the context of the extant literature on hippocampal dysfunction in schizophrenia.