Deficit
schizophrenia is a relatively homogeneous subtype of patients which is considered helpful to explore the pathogenesis of
schizophrenia. The aim of the present study was to reexamine the clinical characteristics of deficit (
n=30) and nondeficit
schizophrenia (n=93) in a Chinese sample and investigate the differences of neurocognitive function among the two subtypes of
schizophrenia and the normal controls (n=103).
Schizophrenia patients completed the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) and Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS). Additionally, all participants completed an abbreviated version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-RC) and a neuropsychological test battery examining the executive functions, visuospatial abilities and explicit memory related to the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobe functions. The deficit group received higher scores than the nondeficit group on the BPRS anergia factor and SANS affective flattening,
alogia, avolition-apathy,
anhedonia-asociality subscales, but not on the SAPS. Both two
schizophrenia subgroups performed more poorly on the WAIS-RC and neuropsychological tests than the normal controls. Moreover, deficit patients performed worse than nondeficit patients on the prorated IQ, the Trail Making Test, Wisconsin Card Sorting test and Block Design test. The present study replicated symptom profiles in deficit vs. nondeficit
schizophrenia in the Chinese sample. Furthermore, this study suggested that deficit
schizophrenia is associated with frontal and parietal lobe impairment, and that temporal lobe dysfunction may be a common basis for
cognitive impairment in
schizophrenia as a whole.