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Psychiatry Research 93 2000 21᎐32
Learning and memory impairment in
cocaine-dependent and comorbid schizophrenic
patients
Mark R. Serper
a,b,
U
, Andrea Bergman
c
, Marc L. Copersino
a
,
James C.Y. Chou
b
, Danielle Richarme
a
, Robert Cancro
b
a
Department of Psychology, 222 Hauser Hall, Hofstra Uni
¨
ersity, 1000 Fulton Street, Hempstead NY 11549-1270, USA
b
Department of Psychiatry, New York Uni
¨
ersity School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
c
Department of Psychology, St John’s Uni
¨
ersity, Jamaica, NY, USA
Received 19 April 1999; received in revised form 18 November 1999; accepted 5 December 1999
Abstract
Impairments in verbal learning and memory functioning have been found to be cardinal features among
individuals with schizophrenia as well as among non-schizophrenic cocaine abusers. Cognitive deficits in these areas,
moreover, have been associated with poor treatment response and short-term outcome. Little is known, however,
about the acute effects of cocaine abuse on schizophrenic patients’ learning and memory functioning. Consequently,
a potentially reversible and treatable source of cognitive impairment has been virtually ignored. The present study
examined the extent of verbal learning and memory impairment in a group of cocaine-dependent schizophrenic
Ž. Ž.
patients ns42 and a group of non-schizophrenic cocaine-dependent patients n s21 within 72 h of the last
Ž. Ž.
cocaine use using the California Verbal Learning Test CVLT . Schizophrenic patients ns34 without any
substance-use disorders were also tested in an identical time frame and served as a comparison group. Results
revealed that all groups demonstrated significant learning and memory impairment relative to CVLT published age
and gender corrected norms. Both cocaine-dependent and non-substance abusing schizophrenic groups presented a
very similar pattern of impaired learning and recall performance across all CVLT task domains. Comorbid patients,
in contrast, presented with marked deficits in their ability to learn and recall verbal information relative to either
schizophrenic or cocaine-only groups. Moreover, the cocaine-abusing schizophrenic patients showed significant
forgetfulness of the information that they did acquire during delayed recall conditions. The performance deficits
exhibited by cocaine-abusing schizophrenic patients differed not only in relative severity of impairment, but also
U
Corresponding author. Tel: q1-212-562-4349; fax: q1-516-463-5837.
Ž.
E-mail address: mark.serper@nyu.edu M.R. Serper
0165-1781r00r$ - see front matter ᮊ 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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