Display Settings:

Format

Send to:

Choose Destination
We are sorry, but NCBI web applications do not support your browser and may not function properly. More information
    Schizophr Bull. 2009 Nov;35(6):1132-41. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbp068. Epub 2009 Sep 10.

    When top-down meets bottom-up: auditory training enhances verbal memory in schizophrenia.

    Source

    Duke University Department of Psychiatry and Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.

    Abstract

    A critical research priority for our field is to develop treatments that enhance cognitive functioning in schizophrenia and thereby attenuate the functional losses associated with the illness. In this article, we describe such a treatment method that is grounded in emerging research on the widespread sensory processing impairments of schizophrenia, as described elsewhere in this special issue. We first present the rationale for this treatment approach, which consists of cognitive training exercises that make use of principles derived from the past 2 decades of basic science research in learning-induced neuroplasticity; these exercises explicitly target not only the higher order or "top-down" processes of cognition but also the content building blocks of accurate and efficient sensory representations to simultaneously achieve "bottom-up" remediation. We then summarize our experience to date and briefly review our behavioral and serum biomarker findings from a randomized controlled trial of this method in outpatients with long-term symptoms of schizophrenia. Finally, we present promising early psychophysiological evidence that supports the hypothesis that this cognitive training method induces changes in aspects of impaired bottom-up sensory processing in schizophrenia. We conclude with the observation that neuroplasticity-based cognitive training brings patients closer to physiological patterns seen in healthy participants, suggesting that it changes the brain in an adaptive manner in schizophrenia.

    PMID:
    19745022
    [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
    PMCID:
    PMC2762623
    Free PMC Article

    Images from this publication.See all images (3)Free text

    Fig. 1.
    Fig. 3.
    Fig. 2.

      Supplemental Content

      Icon for HighWire Icon for PubMed Central

      Save items

      Recent activity

      Your browsing activity is empty.

      Activity recording is turned off.

      Turn recording back on

      See more...
      Write to the Help Desk