RESUMO
Schizophrenia is associated with interpersonal difficulties related to impairments in the processing of facial emotional expressions. The aim of the present study was to identify brain regions associated with reality distortion syndrome reduction in a group of patients with schizophrenia during processing of emotionally salient stimuli. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure cerebral blood oxygenation changes during an implicit emotional task in 11 patients with schizophrenia, who were scanned twice with an interval of 6-8 weeks. We found that reality distortion syndrome reduction was associated with increases in the activation of the affective division of the anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal cortices. Our findings may indicate that changes in the activation of these regions during processing of emotionally salient stimuli may represent neural markers of patients' symptomatic improvement.
Assuntos
Encéfalo/irrigação sanguínea , Emoções/fisiologia , Expressão Facial , Distorção da Percepção/fisiologia , Esquizofrenia/fisiopatologia , Psicologia do Esquizofrênico , Adulto , Encéfalo/patologia , Mapeamento Encefálico , Feminino , Humanos , Processamento de Imagem Assistida por Computador/métodos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética/métodos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Oxigênio/sangue , Estimulação Luminosa/métodos , Adulto JovemRESUMO
This study examined brain activation during a cognitive inhibition task in patients with schizophrenia following changes in their positive symptoms. A Stroop task was used during functional magnetic resonance imaging in 11 patients with schizophrenia (patient group) and 9 healthy volunteers (control group). At baseline, the patient group showed significantly attenuated activation within the anterior cingulate gyrus, left pre-/postcentral gyrus and inferior frontal junction. At follow-up, there was a significant increase in activation in the left inferior frontal junction associated with a decrease in positive symptoms, suggesting this region plays a role in the development of these symptoms.
Assuntos
Encefalopatias/fisiopatologia , Vias Neurais/fisiopatologia , Esquizofrenia/fisiopatologia , Adolescente , Adulto , Estudos de Casos e Controles , Cognição , Feminino , Giro do Cíngulo/fisiologia , Humanos , Processamento de Imagem Assistida por Computador , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética/métodos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Testes Neuropsicológicos , Reconhecimento Visual de Modelos , Adulto JovemRESUMO
BACKGROUND: The recognition of negative facial affect is impaired in people with schizophrenia. The neural underpinnings of this deficit and its relationship to the symptoms of psychosis are still unclear. AIMS: To examine the association between positive and negative psychotic symptoms and activation within the amygdala and extrastriate visual regions of patients with schizophrenia during fearful and neutral facial expression processing. METHOD: Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure neural responses to neutral and fearful facial expressions in 11 patients with schizophrenia and 9 healthy volunteers during an implicit emotional task. RESULTS: No association between amygdala activation and positive symptoms was found; the activation within the left superior temporal gyrus was negatively associated with the negative symptoms of the patients. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate an association between impaired extrastriate visual processing of facial fear and negative symptoms, which may underlie the previously reported difficulties of patients with negative symptoms in the recognition of facial fear.