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Original research article
A Comparison Study of Working Memory Deficits between Patients with Methamphetamine-Associated Psychosis and Patients with Schizophrenia
  1. Hong Gan1,2,
  2. Zhenhua Song1,2,
  3. Peiwei Xu1,2,
  4. Hang Su1,2,
  5. Yingying Pan1,2,
  6. Min Zhao1,2 and
  7. Dengtang Liu1,2
  1. 1First-episode Schizophrenia and Early Psychosis Program, Division of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
  2. 2Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
  1. correspondence: Dengtang Liu. Mailing address: Ward No. 5, 600 South Wanping RD, Shanghai, China. Postcode: 200030. E-Mail: erliu110{at}126.com; Min Zhao. Mailing address: Hospital Office, 600 South Wanping RD, Shanghai, China. Postcode: 200030. E-Mail: drminzhao{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Background Both patients with methamphetamine-associated psychosis (MAP) and patients with schizophrenia suffer from obvious cognitive deficits in working memory, and this affects the functional prognosis of patients.

Aim This study is to investigate the difference of working memory deficits between patients with MAP and patients with schizophrenia, especially the difference of central executive system function, and the relevance of working memory deficits and clinical characteristics.

Methods Twenty-eight male patients with MAP and twenty-eight patients with schizophrenia were recruited. The working memory of subjects was evaluated with the n-back task edited and adapted from English language materials. The positive syndrome scale of PANSS and CGI were employed to assess psychotic symptoms and the severity of patients.

Results According to the results of repeated measure variance analysis, it was found that both the between-group variable (group) and within-group variable (n) had significant main effects, and the interaction between the between-group variable and the within-group variable was also significant. After Z-transformation, mean (sd) working memory scores of patients with MAP and schizophrenia were 0.91 (0.77) and -0.91 (2.11) respectively, and the difference between these two groups were statistically significant (F=19.253, p<0.001). The relevance between working memory deficits and clinical characteristics was low in both the patients with MAP and patients with schizophrenia.

Conclusion Patients with MAP were better at regulating, updating, executing and controlling active information than patients with schizophrenia.

  • methamphetamine-associated psychosis
  • schizophrenia
  • working memory
  • n-back task

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.11919/j.issn.1002-0829.217166

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