Neuropsychological Observations With Psychosis and Somatic Treatment

Memory in functional psychosis.

“…There is only meagre evidence on this in the literature. Against such an effect is the fact that Johnstone and her colleagues found memory impairment in some chronic schizophrenics who had never been prescribed phenothiazines (Crow and Johnstone, 1977), the demonstration by Small et al (1972) that memory improved in acute schizophrenics after phenothiazines and in depressives after antidepressants, and reports that other cognitive functions return to normal after medication-for example, attention in acute schizophrenics after phenothiazines (Spohn et al, 1977). In favour of an adverse effect of medication on memory are the suggestion by Marsden (1976) that phenothiazines, by blocking dopamine receptors throughout the brain, affect cortical function in schizophrenics; the finding of Kendrick (1979), in a new version of his neuropsychological battery, that phenothiazines induce a dementia-like pattern of deficit in elderly depressives; and reports that lithium (only given to two depressives in the present study) impairs short-term memory (Kusumo and Vaughan, 1977).…”

“…In the case of the chronic schizophrenics studied by Johnstone et al, equivalent hospitalisation for a physical illness did not lead to impairment of memory, some patients with a memory deficit had never received phenothiazines, and the presence of delusions or hallucinations on mental state examination was not critical. In depression, the administration of ECT, even bilateral or left sided applications, which are known to produce memory deficits themselves, can lead to improvement of memory (Small et al, 1972;Str6mgren, 1977). Such evidence suggests that impaired memory may, in part, be a central feature of the psychosis rather than a secondary phenomenon.…”

Current conceptualizations of psychiatric illnesses as neurological disorders

“…Watson et al (1968), Goldstein (1978), and Chelune et al (1979) found no useful discrimination between brain-damaged and schizophrenic patients using Halstead-Reitan variables. Klonoff et al (1970) reported chronic schizophrenics to be markedly impaired on this instrument, and Small et al (1972) observed relatively acute schizophrenics to perform on the normal side of the brain-damaged range, whereas Stack and Phillips (1970) reported equivocal findings using an acute schizophrenic sample. Studies with the Luria-Nebraska battery have demonstrated diagnostic differentiation between schizophrenia ad neurological disorders (Purisch et al, 1978), but this was only partially confirmed by Shelly and Goldstein (1983).…”

Lithium‐thyroid interactive hypothesis of neuropsychological deficits: A review and proposal

“…Chart reviews and patient surveys suggest that ap- Christodoulou et al (1981) No Demers and Heninger (1971) Engelsmann et al (1988) No Ghadirian et al (1983) No Kocsis et al (1987) Kocsis et al (1993) Reus et al (1979 Sharma and Singh (1988) Shaw et a1 (1987) Small et al (1972 No Squire et al (1980) Telford and Worrall (1978) No Glue et al (1987) Judd et al (1977b) Judd (1979) Karniol et al (1978 Kropf and Muller-Oerlinghausen (1979) Weingartner et al (1985) Patient vs. volunteer Joffe et al (1988b) Kusumo and Vaughan (1977) Volunteer samples Lund et al (1982) No "IPS = information processing speed, MS = motor speed, Cap = attentional capacig, Eg = vigilance, MC = mental control, RS = response set, SA = selective attention, Sim = simple condition, Com = complex condition, Imm = immediate recall, Int = msceptibility to interference, Ret = retention, Es = impaimnent found, No = no impairment found, Mix = equivocal results. proximately 42 to 52% of patients taking lithium complain of poor memory (Ghose, 1977;McCreadie and Morrison, 1985).…”