Fronto-striatal hypoactivation during correct information retrieval in patients with schizophrenia: An fMRI study

doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2008.01.063

Neuroscience

Volume 153, Issue 1, 22 April 2008, Pages 54-62

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2008.01.063 Get rights and content

Abstract

Working memory (WM) deficits are core symptoms of schizophrenia. Differing behavioral performance is known to represent a potent moderating variable when investigating the neural correlates of working memory in patients with schizophrenia compared with healthy controls. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined performance-matched cerebral activity during correct WM retrieval by balancing the mean number of correct responses as well as the mean response times between patients and controls and analyzing remaining correct trials. Forty-one schizophrenia patients and 41 healthy controls performed an event-related Sternberg task allowing for analysis of correctly remembered trials. Correct retrieval was associated with activation in a bilateral fronto-parieto-occipital network comprising mainly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and superior parietal cortex in controls and, to a weaker degree, in patients. Direct group comparison revealed significantly decreased activations in patients in the posterior (Brodmann area (BA) 31) and anterior (BA 32) cingulate cortex (ACC) and the medial caudate bilaterally when matching for performance. When matching for performance and response speed there was additional hypoactivation in the insula. Mean response times were negatively correlated with cingulate and caudate activation only in controls. Present findings suggest that during efficient WM retrieval processing patients exhibit only slightly impaired activation in a task-specific network containing mainly prefrontal and superior parietal areas. However, hypoactivation of areas predominantly responsible for cognitive control and response execution seems to remain even under performance-matched conditions. Given the relevant role of the caudate and the ACC in dopaminergically mediated executive processing, the results bear crucial implications for the psychopathology of schizophrenia.

Section snippets

Subjects

The present sample included 41 right-handed patients (28 male, 13 female) with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and 41 right-handed healthy subjects (27 male, 14 female). Handedness was assessed by the Edinburgh Inventory (Oldfield, 1971). On average, patients were 30.17±9.46 years old and had a mean own education of 11.12±1.98 years and a mean parental education of 10.87±1.83 years. In the healthy controls mean age was 29.17±8.85 years, mean own education 12.15±1.46 years and mean parental

Behavioral data

The two-sample t-test on the mean reaction times for correct retrieval trials (before matching for response times) yielded a significant difference between the groups (t(80)=−4.03, P<0.01) indicating significantly slower reaction times in patients after matching for correct performance (Fig. 1).

Within-group analyses

The within-group analysis of correctly retrieved items (after balancing the mean number of correct responses between the groups, 0.01 FWE corrected) yielded significant activations in a bilateral

Discussion

The present study aimed to adjust for the difference in behavioral performance between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls as such performance differences have been shown to represent a strongly moderating variable when comparing neural correlates of WM. This was achieved by balancing the mean number of correct responses between the groups and analyzing the remaining correct trials only. Results revealed significant relative hypoactivations in patients during correct information

Acknowledgments

TMWFK (B307-04004), BMBF (01ZZ0405).

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Behavioural neuroscienceFronto-striatal hypoactivation during correct information retrieval in patients with schizophrenia: An fMRI study

Abstract

Section snippets

Subjects

Behavioral data

Within-group analyses

Discussion

Acknowledgments

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Behavioural neuroscience
Fronto-striatal hypoactivation during correct information retrieval in patients with schizophrenia: An fMRI study