Functional MRI Study

Activation data from fMRI experiments have become an indispensable tool for testing hypotheses concerning the functional roles of brain structures during controlled experimental tasks. To test hypotheses linking anatomical abnormalities with clinical as well as neuropsychological symptoms in schizophrenia, work in the PNL has recently focused on the relationship between anatomical abnormalities, as measured by DTI, and functional deficits involving language and attention in schizophrenia.

Semantic encoding condition: left side: regions characterized by increased activation in control subjects relative to schizophrenia subjects, right side: regions demonstrating increased activation in schizophrenia subjects relative to control subjects.

Specificaly, we are using the Color Stroop paradigm with Negative Priming as well as Emotional Stroop paradigms to detect attentional deficits in schizophrenia, and their relationship with cingulate fasciculus integrity. We are also testing semantic memory using semantic priming and semantic encoding tasks, as a means of understanding abnormalities underlying language processing in schizophrenia.

_________________________________________________________________

Results of Color Stroop/Negative Priming task. When contrasting conditions with and without negative priming, schizophrenics show over-activation of the cingulate gyrus, while controls seem to activate prefrontal cortex more than schizophrenics.

View Related Publications