The Post-Imperative Negative Variation in Schizophrenic Patients and Healthy Subjects

The Post-Imperative Negative Variation (PINV) is an event-related brain potential that has scarcely been investigated experimentally in schizophrenic patients. Four consecutive experiments using a visual delayed matching-to-sample task show that the PINV (1) is sensitive to the ambiguity in the matching process both in schizophrenic patients and healthy subjects, (2) is sensitive to the provisional memory load in schizophrenic patients only, (3) is related to the experimentally induced motor response, and (4) has a frontolateral topography that distinguishes schizophrenic patients and schizotypal subjects from healthy controls. Taken together, these results suggest that the prefrontal cortex or those cerebral structures functionally linked with it contribute to the rising of the PINV in schizophrenic patients.

Autorentext

The Author: Christoph Klein studied Psychology, Biology, and Philosophy at the Universities of Bonn and Hamburg. After receiving his diploma in Psychology in 1991 he worked as a research assistant in the laboratories of B. Rockstroh and R. Cohen at the University of Konstanz, completing his Ph.D. in 1995. Since 1994 he has been assistent professor in the Psychophysiology Research Group of J. Fahrenberg at the University of Freiburg. For the experiment described in chapter 5 the author was awarded with the «Tursky Award» of the Society for Psychophysiological Research in 1993. Christoph Klein received the Dissertation Award of the «Stiftung für Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft an der Universität Konstanz» in 1996.

Inhalt
Contents: Cognitive Determinants of the PINV - Motor Response and PINV - Functional Significance of the PINV - Topography of the PINV - Schizophrenia - Schizotypy.