Selective impairment of attentional networks of orienting and executive control in schizophrenia.

Background: Difficulty attending is a common deficit of schizophrenic patients. However, it is not known whether this is a global attentional deficit or relates to a specific attentional network.

Method: This study used the attention network test to compare schizophrenic patients (N=77) with controls (N=53) on the efficiency of three anatomically defined attentional networks: alerting, orienting, and executive control.

Results: Schizophrenic patients showed a large and highly significant deficit in the executive network and a smaller but significant deficit in the orienting network as well as in overall RT and accuracy. There was no deficit in the alerting network.

Conclusion: These results suggest some specificity in the attentional networks influenced by the disorder. The executive attention network has been shown in normal subjects to activate the anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal areas. Previous data using neuroimaging with schizophrenic patients has shown abnormal control by the anterior cingulate. Our findings support this previous research by indicating that the major attentional deficit in schizophrenic patients is in a network that includes the anterior cingulate.