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Woodward Lab

Cognitive Impairment in Psychotic Disorders

Woodward_Schiz Bull_NP normal and impaired psychosis figMany individuals with schizophrenia have problems with thinking skills, including attention, memory, and reasoning and problem solving. One of the main research focuses of the Woodward Lab is understanding the nature of these deficits. Ultimately, we hope that this work will lead to better therapies for treating psychosis symptoms. One of our key discoveries is that neuropsychologically-defined subgroups of patients exhibit different patterns of brain structure abnormalities. Patients with cognitive impairment demonstrate more extensive changes in grey and white matter than neuropsychologically normal patients.  Moreover, some neuropsychologically impaired patients exhibit a pattern of brain changes characterized by reduced intracranial volume consistent with abnormal early brain development.  Additional work by the Woodward Lab has linked reduced white matter integrity to slowed processing speed.

Representative Publications:

Woodward ND, Heckers S.  (2015) Brain structure in neuropsychologically defined subgroups of schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder.  Schiz. Bull., 41(6):1349-1359. [PubMed Link]

Karbasforoushan H, Duffy-Alberto B, Blackford JU, Woodward ND.  (2015) Processing speed impairment in schizophrenia is mediated by white matter integrity.  Psych. Med., 45(1):109-120.[PubMed Link]

Woodward ND, Duffy A, Karbasforoushan H. (2013) Prefrontal cortex activity during response selection predicts processing speed impairment in schizophrenia. J. Int. Neuropsychol Soc., 19(7):782-791.[PubMed Link]

Meltzer HY, Brennan MD, Woodward ND, Jayathilake K. (2008) Association of SULT4A1 SNPs with psychopathology and cognition in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Schizophrenia Research, 106(2-3): 258-264.[PubMed Link]

Woodward ND, Jayathilake K, Meltzer HY. (2007) COMT val108/158met genotype, cognitive function, and cognitive improvement with clozapine in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research, 90(1-3): 86-96.[PubMed Link]

Woodward ND, Purdon SE, Meltzer HY, Zald DH. (2007) A meta-analysis of cognitive change with haloperidol in clinical trials of second generation antipsychotics: dose effects and comparison to practice effects. Schizophrenia Research, 89(1-3): 211-224[PubMed Link]

Woodward ND, Tibbo P, Purdon SE. (2007) An fMRI investigation of procedural learning in unaffected siblings of patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research, 94(1-3): 306-316.[PubMed Link]

Zedkova L, Woodward ND, Shih EM, Seres P, Purdon SE, Tibbo, PG. (2006) Procedural learning in schizophrenia investigated with functional MRI. Schizophrenia Research, 88(1-3): 198-207[PubMed Link]

Woodward ND, Purdon SE, Meltzer HY, Zald DH. (2005) A meta-analysis of neuropsychological change to clozapine, olanzapine, quetiapine, and risperidone in schizophrenia. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, 8(3): 457-472.[PubMed Link]

Purdon SE, Woodward ND, David SR, Stip E. (2003) Procedural learning in schizophrenia after 6 months of double-blind treatment with olanzapine, risperidone, and haloperidol. Psychopharmacology, 169(3-4): 390-397[PubMed Link]