Schizophrenics Unable to Process Memories?

A research study in the University of Amsterdam has found that schizophrenic patients have fewer connections in their brain structures, which leads to a hampered ability to make connections between memories associated with a specific event.

Young schizophrenic patients and healthy volunteers were shown photos of landscapes featuring an object which they were told to remember. Afterwards, they were given the first two letters of the object (for example, ‘la’ for ‘lantern’) and asked to recall it. They were also given a background, either that shown in the original photo or a different one.

Results showed that normal individuals scored better if they were shown the background as a clue when trying to recall the object. On the other hand, schizophrenics were not helped by the context clues given, scoring the same with or without the background.

The results suggest that schizophrenic patients have difficulty processing contextual information so that they are unable to establish the link between the memory of the object and that of the background.

The full article has more information on how the study was done. What do you think are the implications of the findings on treatment? Could it be possible to train schizophrenic patients to be mindful of context clues? Would it alleviate symptoms? Tell us what you think by leaving a comment below.