Intact visual latent inhibition in schizophrenia patients in a within-subject paradigm

People are normally slower to learn a CS-UCS association if they first experience the CS without the UCS. This normal slowing, termed “latent inhibition” (LI), is reported by some to be absent in schizophrenia patients. Our previous studies detected generalized learning deficits but not LI deficits in schizophrenia patients, using between-subject auditory and visual LI paradigms. To understand our divergent results, we developed a within-subject visual LI paradigm that detects LI in normal male subjects that we previously reported to be disrupted by acute treatment with dopamine agonists. In the present study, we verified the ability of this dopamine-sensitive within-subject LI paradigm to detect LI among both male and female normal control subjects, and then used this paradigm to assess LI in schizophrenia patients. Among normals, LI exhibited no sex differences or menstrual cyclicity. Compared to normals, schizophrenia patients exhibited learning deficits with both preexposed (PE) and non-preexposed (NPE) stimuli. Despite these generalized deficits, both acutely hospitalized patients and stable outpatients with schizophrenia exhibited robust LI, as evidenced by significantly faster learning with NPE than PE stimuli. LI deficits in schizophrenia may be paradigm-specific and are not detected by a paradigm that we previously reported to be sensitive to disruption by dopamine agonists.