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Executive Regulation of Speech Production in Schizophrenia: A Pilot Neuropsychological Study

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Objective: To test the general hypothesis that schizophrenia patients have an executive deficit in speech production and the more specific hypothesis that this deficit is more severe when there is a greater demand on executive functions. Materials and methods: The study included 25 patients with schizophrenia and 27 healthy subjects (control group). All subjects took part in two tests: to tell stories based on a series of pictures and based on a specified theme. Results and conclusions: Schizophrenia patients displayed lower measures of programming and shorter texts and phrases than the control group in both tests. Patients’ subject-based stories included grammatical errors, along with the need for leading questions because of difficulties with plot construction; there was also greater dispersion of the length and syntactic complexity of the text. Thus, this study showed that during speech production, schizophrenia patients displayed a deficit of executive functions, which was most marked in the task involving a smaller number of external cues aiding speech planning and production.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mental Health Science Center, Moscow, Russia

    Ya. R. Panikratova, D. V. Tikhonov, I. V. Pluzhnikov & V. G. Kaleda

  2. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

    R. M. Vlasova

  3. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

    T. V. Akhutina

Authors
  1. Ya. R. Panikratova
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  2. R. M. Vlasova
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  3. T. V. Akhutina
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  4. D. V. Tikhonov
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  5. I. V. Pluzhnikov
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  6. V. G. Kaleda
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Correspondence to V. G. Kaleda.

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Translated from Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S. S. Korsakova, Vol. 120, No. 8, Iss. 1, pp. 14–22, August, 2020.

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Panikratova, Y.R., Vlasova, R.M., Akhutina, T.V. et al. Executive Regulation of Speech Production in Schizophrenia: A Pilot Neuropsychological Study. Neurosci Behav Physi 51, 415–422 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-021-01086-2

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