Background: While executive (frontal lobe) dysfunction appears to be a core feature of schizophrenia, its relationship to psychopathology, age and duration of illness has yet to be explored systematically between the genders.
Method: Executive dysfunction, positive and negative symptoms were evaluated in 27 male and 21 female in-patients who were unusually well-matched on numerous demographic and clinical measures.
Results: Measures of executive dyscontrol and negative symptoms were highly associated in both genders. However, while both executive dyscontrol and negative symptoms increased prominently with age/ duration of illness among women, no such relationship was evident among men.
Conclusions: The similarly prominent levels of current executive dyscontrol and negative symptoms in male and female patients appear to have emerged via processes that differ fundamentally between the genders; among males these deficits appear to emerge and become 'locked in' earlier in the course of illness and to show little subsequent increase, while among females these same deficits appear to be less evident early in the course but to increase in prominence thereafter.