Lateralized Hemisphere Function In Dichotic Listening In Schizophrenic Patients

Objective: To compare the hemispheric dominance for languagecharacters among schizophrenic patients and various subtypes, relatives of patients and healthy controls,and to investigate whether there are differences among different groups. Methods: To examine the ear advantage of 58 healthy subjects, 62 patients with paranoid schizophrenia, 49 patients with undifferentiated schizophrenia, 22 relatives of patients with paranoid schzophrenia and 20 relatives of patients with undifferentiated schizophrenia using two kinds of rhyming words by the method of focused attention. Results:!. In health group, no ear advantage was found in ture words test, but significant right ear advantage appeared in pseudo-word test. 2. For ture words, schizophrenia group had the largest and relatives of patients group the smallest right ear advantage; health subjects had intermediate ear asymmetry. There was a significant difference among the schizophrenia groups , health subjects and the relatives of patients ,but not between relatives of patients and health subjects. In the pseudo-word, there were no significant difference among the three groups. 3.After subtypes wereseparated, the paranoid schizophrenia group appeared larger right ear advantage than health group in both true words and pseudo-word test, but not in the undifferentiated schizophrenia group. 4.There were no significant differences between the relatives group of the two subtypes and the health group. 5. There had no relation between BPRS, SANS , SAPS ratings and asymmetry scores of true words, nor had that of pseudo-word. Conclusions:1. Health Chinese appeared right ear advantage in the pseudo-word test while there was no ear advantage for process and cognition of true words 2.Patients with schizophrenia have a larger right ear (left hemisphere) advantage for Chinese words processing than health subjects. 3.The patients with paranoid schizophrenia have a larger right ear (left hemisphere) advantage for Chinese words processing than health subjects. 4.There was no significant difference in ear advantage between the two subtypes. 5.There was no the similar ear advantage model between patients and relatives. 6.There was no relation between Lateral Index and symptom severity.