Cognitive dysfunction is a core feature of schizophrenia across the course of the disorders, and even before the onset of psychiatric symptoms. Patients with schizophrenia have widespread and prominent cognitive impairments in several major cognitive domains such as attention, working memory, executive functioning, and speed of information processing, and they performed 1-2 standard deviations lower than normal. These deficits dramatically affect the psychosocial function of patients and lead to poor quality of life. Elevated peripheral inflammatory biomarkers were associated with a decreased cortical thickness and brain volumes in regions of the brain responsible for some of the cognitive functions. In recent years, studies have found significant negative correlations between some of the inflammatory biomarkers (IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1β and CRP) and cognitive performances (attention, processing speed, executive function, verbal learning memory, visual learning memory and working memory) in schizophrenia patients, that suggesting a crucial role played by inflammatory mediators in cognitive deficits developed by patients suffering from schizophrenia.
The establishment of relatedness between cytokine imbalance and performance in various cognitive tasks is essential as it could greatly impact both the pharmacological therapy and disease progression based on the domain required to be treated therefore improving the quality of life. While a limited number of studies generally support the notion that inflammation is related to cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, the nature and strength of this association is still unclear. Hence, we invite leading experts on inflammatory biomarkers and cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia research to review their findings, expanding research findings to disease progression and cognitive therapy in schizophrenia.
More specifically, we particularly focus on the following topics of interest include but are not limited to:
1. The associations between cognitive dysfunction and inflammatory biomarkers in schizophrenia.
2. Predictive effect of inflammatory factors on cognitive intervention in schizophrenia.
3. Effect of inflammatory factors on the outcome of long-term cognitive function in schizophrenia.
4. The potential intermediating and confounding factors which can influence the level of relationship between inflammation and cognition in schizophrenia.
5. Pathological mechanism of cognitive decline caused by inflammatory factors in schizophrenia.
6. Predictors of cognitive intervention (e.g. cognitive remediation therapy, neurostimulation, pharmaceutical treatment, etc) effects in patients with schizophrenia.
Keywords: schizophrenia, inflammatory factors, cognition, biomarkers, cognitive intervention
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