Cortical Dysfunction in Schizophrenia During Auditory Word and Tone Working Memory Demonstrated by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

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Abstract
ALTHOUGH schizophrenia disrupts a broad range of perceptual, sensorimotor, and cognitive functions, tasks assessing verbal learning and memory appear to be particularly disturbed.1-6 In our companion article,7 we report that auditory verbal working memory is selectively impaired in schizophrenic patients with basic perceptual and attentional competence while working memory for nonverbal auditory stimuli (ie, tones) remains intact. This suggests that the neural systems for processing auditory verbal and nonverbal material are segregated at some level and that the former can be selectively impaired in schizophrenia.