Project 462727

Memory impairments are common in people with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders, particularly in terms of remembering everyday events. Difficulty in this area is related to poorer clinical, functioning, and occupational outcomes, and greater brain abnormalities. No comprehensive model exists to help explain the strong associations between memory and these poor outcomes. To address this, we are developing a model based on the role of specific brain regions involved in relational memory, which is a type of memory for everyday events that helps us to identify the relationship between different items or things. Our model suggests that difficulties in relational memory are driven by dysconnectivity between the hippocampus and cortical brain regions and can lead to i) decreased social cognition ii) the emergence of negative symptoms in schizophrenia (e.g., social withdrawal, lack of motivation for social activities), and ultimately, poorer outcome. To test our model, we will conduct a study that will recruit 300 persons with schizophrenia and 150 non-clinical control participants from three different locations across Canada. 50% will be recruited from the Douglas Institute in Montreal, 25% from UBC in Vancouver, and 25% from the Royal's Institute of Mental Health Research site in Ottawa. A clinical research evaluation will gather data on i) socio-demographic and clinical variables, ii) social functioning and wellbeing, iii) social cognition and relational memory, and iv) images of the brain using magnetic resonance imaging. We aim to identify relations between brain regions, memory, and functional outcomes to refine our model. We will then validate our refined model of relational memory deficits in schizophrenia, and develop a computational approach that will make it possible to identify at the subject level who is at risk of having poorer functioning. Such an approach could be use in the future to stratify participants in intervention studies.