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Socio-Motor Improvisation in Schizophrenia: A Case-Control Study in a Sample of Stable Patients

ABSTRACT: Improvising is essential for human development and is one of the most important characteristics of being human. However, how mental illness affects improvisation remains largely unknown. In this study we focused on socio-motor improvisation in individuals with schizophrenia, one of the more debilitating mental disorder. This represents the ability to improvise gestures during an interaction to promote sustained communication and shared attention. Using a novel paradigm called the mirror game and recently introduced to study joint improvisation, we recorded hand motions of two people mirroring each other. Comparing Schizophrenia patients and healthy controls skills during the game, we found that improvisation was impaired in schizophrenia patients. Patients also exhibited significantly higher difficulties to being synchronized with someone they follow but not when they were leaders of the joint improvisation game. Considering the correlation between socio-motor synchronization and socio-motor improvisation, these results suggest that synchronization does not only promote affiliation but also improvisation, being therefore an interesting key factor to enhance social skills in a clinical context. Moreover, socio-motor improvisation abnormalities were not associated with executive functioning, one traditional underpinning of improvisation. Altogether, our results suggest that even if both mental illness and improvisation differ from normal thinking and behavior, they are not two sides of the same coin, providing a direct evidence that being able to improvise in individual situations is fundamentally different than being able to improvise in a social context.

SUBMITTER: Salesse R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8567989 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundSchizophrenia is a mental illness associated with cardiovascular disease at a younger age than in the general population. Endothelial dysfunction has predictive value for future cardiovascular events; however, the impact of a diagnosis of schizophrenia on this marker is unknown.AimsWe tested the hypothesis that subjects with schizophrenia have impaired endothelial function.MethodsA total of 102 subjects (34.5±7.5 years) participated in this study. This sample consisted of 51 subjects with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and 51 healthy subjects, who were matched for age (P=0.442), sex (P>0.999), and smoking status (P=0.842). Peripheral artery microvascular and conduit vessel endothelial function was measured using hyperemic velocity time integral (VTI), pulse arterial tonometry (PAT), and flow-mediated dilation (FMD).ResultsSignificantly lower values of VTI were noted in subjects with schizophrenia (104.9±33.0 vs. 129.1±33.8?cm, P<0.001), whereas FMD (P=0.933) and PAT (P=0.862) did not differ between the two groups. A multivariable-linear-regression analysis, built on data from univariate and partial correlations, showed that only schizophrenia, sex, lipid-lowering medications, antihypertensive medications, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol were predictive of attenuated VTI, whereas age, ethnicity, family history of cardiovascular disease, smoking status, systolic blood pressure, waist circumference, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, C-reactive protein, and homeostatic model assessment-insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), antidiabetic medications, antidepressant medications, mood stabilizers, benzodiazepines, and anticholinergic medications did not predict VTI in this model (adjusted R (2)=0.248).ConclusionsOur findings suggest that a diagnosis of schizophrenia is associated with impaired microvascular function as indicated by lower values of VTI, irrespective of many other clinical characteristics. It might be an early indicator of cardiovascular risk in schizophrenia, and might help to identify high-risk individuals.

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Socio-Motor Improvisation in Schizophrenia: A Case-Control Study in a Sample of Stable Patients

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